Sunday, May 10, 2026 (Court Day #930)
My right arm is continuing to display fairly consistent early stages of tennis elbow. I decided that I would go ahead and play today but only left-handed. To help reinforce that, I didn’t go to Bromer Park but instead I went to club play at Derby Park where the competition is generally not quite as strong.
It was 59°F and overcast but it still felt warm.
Derby Park
I walked up to the courts and signed up for my first game at 10:25 a.m.
Today, as planned, I hit every single shot left-handed. At one point during the morning, a ball rolled onto the court I was playing on, and I picked up the ball and threw it right-handed back to the correct court. The pain in my arm during that throw reinforced the need for me to continue to play entirely left-handed.
This morning was a combination of solid lefty play but also completely inept shots. There were a few shots where I was looking to angle the ball off the court. But I missed maybe half of those today—there were three or four winners but also three or four losers. It’s good practice for me to get out and seriously play lefty now and then.
It was fun seeing the westside clan again… Jeff and his brother Scott, JJ, Mark, G., Juls, Ted, Glenn, and others.
I played against and with an Asian woman named Jan. I’d never met her before. Jan has good drives, and I would say she is a solid 3.0 player.
With a smile, JJ complimented me after I won a hands battle against him. I laughed and told him, “You should see me right handed!”
Ken
Last Sunday at Brommer, I met a tall lefty young named Ken. He came up with a smiling and greeted me by name today. We end up playing a game together against Jan and Juls. Ken continues to stay back near the baseline and not come forward to the net, he also tends to the drive too many shots instead of being strategic in his shot selection. But he’s tall, young, and athletic, which goes a long way in pickleball. Still, he’s not going to advance all that far until he starts developing more aspects to his game. He’s a super nice guy and he is fun to play with.
I checked the time on my phone after walking off that last game, 1:01 p.m. I headed home.
Clever Paddle Weights System
Quickly adjustable weights for paddles have become a thing. I thought this paddle with an integrated adjustable system was kind of clever. I don’t know much at all about this Japanese company other than it’s big and has been around for 120 years:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYKtdF4CRxX
Forgetful!
I realized, after dinner, then I completely spaced and left my entire bag of demo paddles at Derby Park hours before. (Crazy!) I immediately headed back to the courts and to my relief the bag was still there.
However, the newest paddle that I need to demonstrate the most was gone. The Aireo Cyclone foam core paddle. I’m definitely bummed. The paddle has a label on with my name and email address. It’s not like it had a tag on it that said “Free, take me.” I posted about the missing paddle in the local pickleball Facebook group. I have a suspicion that if someone was bold enough to take it, they are bold enough to keep it even though it doesn’t belong to them. The paddle does have “Demo” written on it big in silver Sharpie, hopefully, the person may just drop it back off at the courts. Such a bummer. I guess we will see.
Number of days on a court: 930
Number of total hours: 3,463.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 209.5
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