Month: July 2026 (Page 1 of 2)

Tuesday, July 14, 2026 (Court Day #946)

I left work early to have dinner with my wife. We got home with time for me to still get some play in. I left my house at 6:32 p.m. It was still sunny but thankfully it had cooled down to 70°F after being a rather warm day.

While driving to Scotts Valley, I felt like a whale. I was full of a large hamburger, garlic fries – including some that my wife didn’t finish of hers – as well as a margarita in about 2/3 of a very rich chocolate mousse cake for dessert. I felt inclined to just curl up in a ball and not move, but they’re only so many days I can get out and play pickleball!

Injuries

The plantar fasciitis in my left foot continues to linger, but it seems to be gradually improving. My right shoulder is about 95% back to normal. My right knee, which had the meniscus surgery, continues to be mildly problematic. Enough so that I opted to wear my knee brace tonight. I suspect the knee is trending more towards a replacement than healing on its own.

Pro Upset

A bit of a surprise in the pickleball universe, the women’s doubles match with Anna Leigh Waters on the team lost. No, this was not a normal tournament, this was Major League Pickleball where ALW doesn’t have the luxury of picking her partner. An interesting twist, the team that she lost to included her regular doubles partner Anna Bright. Anna and her partner relentlessly targeted ALW’s partner Jorga. ALW was simply not given opportunities to hit the ball. But this is tournament strategy. It’s cutthroat. There is no mercy. The weaker player is targeted. ALW’s opponents just took this to the limit.

Skypark

Today was fun. Aside from a couple of games, most of the games were pretty challenging.

It wasn’t too crowded. I was able to roll from game to game to game.

Paul Winn and I played a couple of games against lefty Aaron B. and Daniel Borlean. We lost first game and won the second. Aaron wasn’t interested in third game and found some new players to play with.

My first few games were a little rough but my play got better and better.

Matt Babb and I played against Daniel and Chuck. It was Matt’s first game but we still won.

Daniel Borlean and I took on Chuck and short lefty Eric. The first game they came back and made a go of it but we still won. We played it again and this time Daniel and I clobbered them.

Ashley’s Brother

Tonight, Daniel Borlean and I played a couple of games against Ashley and his visiting brother Leslie. Leslie comes from a strong table tennis background. Ashley said that he and Leslie have been drilling pretty much every day this past week. Leslie played really well for having only played for one week. He has a little bit of work to do regarding court positioning, and there was one time when he volleyed while inside the kitchen that his brother called him on, but nonetheless, Leslie did quite well. I would say he was already playing at a 3.5 level. Impressive. Ashley said Leslie is big into sports. Leslie said he also plays basketball and some other sport name that I didn’t recognize or didn’t catch.

Daniel and I won the first game, then we relaxed a bit too much in the second game and lost. We had to do the rubber match which Daniel and I won with, I believe, final score of 11-5 or 11-6.

The lights clicked out mid-game, but there was still enough light to continue to play and we were able to wrap up that last game.

I felt like a sloth on the court tonight, but I played recently well. Reasonably.

Knee

I don’t usually feel my right knee while playing, but tonight there is some movement that tweaked it. By the time I got home, my knee was starting to bother me more.

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Wednesday, July 15, 2026 (No Play)

It’s been a few years since my knee has flared up like this. The pain in my right knee was keeping me from falling asleep and woke me up a few times during the night.

Today, I was trying not to limp. Walking hurt. Regardless of my efforts, one of my staff asked if I was limping. In the afternoon, I was turning and my knee felt for an instant like it was going to buckle. Not good!

Electric shock

Last year in August, a pickleball player, Renee Love, down in Chula Vista (near my mother-in-law in San Diego) was rendered unconscious when she bumped into a chain-link fence. An electrician was working on 110-volt light pole wiring and inadvertently connected it to the fence behind the court, essentially making an electric fence. Ow. Love is now suing the City of Chula Vista.

Woman knocked unconscious after leaning on electrified fence at pickleball court sues the city of Chula Vista

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Thursday, July 16, 2026 (No Play)

While my knee is still unusually sore, it was a bit easier to fall asleep last night compared to the night before. It has improved some, but it continues to ache. 

Joola Lawsuit

Joola has expanded their lawsuit to include Gearbox:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Da3FP6BMuYI
The poster’s contention is that some of the construction of the Gearbox paddle actually predates Joola’s patent, invalidating at least portions of the patent and, therefore, the lawsuit.

Shopping

While my wife and I were out shopping—well, she was shopping, I was tagging along—we found a pickleball dog bed at Marshall’s.

I was much more interested in it than my wife was, unfortunately. But what was interesting was their choice of words: pickle, dink, kitchen—I get those. But “carry”? What an obscure word to pick! Serve, drop, drive… there are a bunch of other much more common ones!

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Friday, July 17, 2026 (No Play)

Brandon, Sean Lynch’s brother, stopped by my work looking for some pens. He said that he’s temporarily back in the area.

USAP Oops

Someone at USA Pickleball made an error with this posting. It’s not very clear. It looks like the gray is supposed to be the kitchen area, which means that all of the balls are legal:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Da6HhEzkrJ4

One could argue that it’s talking a serve, but given that they are claiming that the ball labeled “3” is “in”, they are treating the line between the blue and the gray as a sideline, but it’s confusing. If they removed the perimeter white line in this diagram, it would make more sense. Sloppy.

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Saturday, July 18, 2026 (No Play)

Take a good look at this pickleball business sale listing…

Notice anything weird? (Aside from the price!)

Yes, a complete A.I. nonsense image.

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Monday, July 20, 2026 (No Play)

That time that ALW almost lost…
Jared of the The Kitchen interviewed Brooke Buckner this month. They talked about her match in 2024 against Anna Leigh Waters where Brooke won the first game 11-4. Brooke was then up 9-4 in the second game and was just two points away from winning the match. But ALW came back, won that game then won the next game 11-5 to win the match. “It ain’t over, ’til it’s over!”
https://www.instagram.com/p/DbCY1dJkWdR

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 (no play)

Millions of people use digital devices to keep track of the number of steps that they take during the course of a day. Someone did an analysis and figured out typical number of steps taken during a hour of pickleball, that is, about 2,700 steps during an hour of doubles:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Da51hikxo-E

My right knee continues to hurt with every step. But it is improving.

The last couple of nights I’ve worn my foot support for plantar fasciitis, I’m starting to think this foot pain may be around for a while.

VAIR

I mentioned this before, but there is a rating system competing with DUPR, a company named VAIR. Their domain, vairified.com, was first registered in March 2024, but I’d only heard about it this year. It got a mention on social media here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DbEOD8bD2LN.

Bizarro Clouds!

Late this afternoon, we had the weirdest clouds that I’d ever seen. These kinds of formations are supremely rare in Santa Cruz.

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Wednesday, July 22, 2026 (No Play)

The Dink movie starts streaming in two days.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbElGYKOF8Q
I hope it’s not trash as most—all?—pickleball-themed movies have been.

Another Pickleball Movie

Apparently, there’s a different pickleball movie that no one has heard of that just came out:
https://www.jcfilms.org/movies/pickleball-pete
Here is a review of it and it’s not good!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaeCkq3xDpk
On the Internet Movie Database, this movie has the lowest rating that I have personally seen, 2.6 out of 10.

Oh, it’s free to watch on YouTube… which I will not be doing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrnjQz2h6g0

Recycled Pickleballs

There is a new company, BounceBack Pickle, that is recycling old pickleballs into new pickleballs, a noble effort:
https://www.bouncebackpickle.com

Partners Series

Watched the first episode of Partners, it was worth watching. I’ll eventually watch more of them.

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Friday, July 24, 2026 (No Play)

DUPR is feeling the heat from competition—VAIR—which has been using artificial intelligence to analyze gameplay with regard to determining a person’s rating. DUPR has decided to start using A.I. themselves:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DbL4cZpCT-M

The Dink Movie

So, The Dink movie released today. I watched it. It was ok-ish. Not outright awful, but predictable. I will admit there were a couple of spots where I laughed out loud, but those were buried by the overall “get me out of here” feeling. I’d skip it unless you want to be able to talk about it from experience.

Pro player Zane Navratil shared his take (negative) and I couldn’t help but comment on his Instagram post…

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Saturday, July 25, 2026 (No Play) 

This is interesting one. Legal or not?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbMpbSJJ3hP
Kitchen violation? Momentum?

You can step through the kitchen and if both feel are on the ground prior to hitting the ball, it’s legal. It looks legal—barely legal—to me. A ref might call it a fault though. It’s very hard to see in real time.

A Funny

Maybe I shared already, but it’s hilarious. When you have top pros making really good 5.0 players look silly:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbPNT7xtRHx/

Number of days on a court: 946
Number of total hours: 3,500
Number of paid coaching hours: 221.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Sunday, July 12, 2026 (Court Day #945)

I feel a bit like I’m falling apart. I’ve taken about a week break from playing. The pain in my right knee when walking is more common than uncommon. I have plantar fasciitis going on in my left foot. Some days, it barely bothers me, but other days, like today, it feels tight, though I would still consider pain to be mild. Then I have traces of tennis elbow going on on my right arm. And then this week, I’ve been dealing with some kind of pull or strain in my right shoulder. Earlier in the week, it was intense enough that I was considering putting my arm in a sling. Today, there’s a little bit of it left, but only with certain movements.

With all the above going on, I figured I would keep my pickleball session shorter than normal today. Plus, in a few weeks, my wife’s summer vacation ends and she fully returns to teaching. It’s not uncommon for her to go in during the summers to prep for classroom for the coming school year. This year, after teaching 1st grade for nearly 20 years, they’re moving her to teaching kindergarten. This requires a major overhaul of her classroom setup. This afternoon, my wife has plans for us to spend several hours at school, assembling new furniture and moving things around.

Backspin Oops

I realized that I didn’t mention it previously, but at my last outing at Derby Park, there was enough backspin on a shot that it flew back over the net toward my opponent side. I was there, but I spaced, and instead of hitting the ball back into the net or at least touching it before it bounced on my opponent side of the net, I simply let it go. Yes, of course, meant that my team lost the rally due to my mistake. How to feel dumb! The rule is you have to hit the ball before it bounces twice—even if it means reaching over the net to do it!

Brommer Park

I pulled into the Brommer parking lot at 9:40 a.m. It was was 64° and overcast.

When I arrived, I was the old man out. There was a court open, but no one to play with.

Young blonde Taylor arrived and asked if she wanted to warm up. We took a court and warmed up for about 10 minutes waiting for someone to join us. A group of four avoided us and walked past us and took the last court to play a game.

Games

Kim and I won 13-11 against Taylor and Gary. Taylor has ping pong background. I hit some drives into the net. Kim and I didn’t have the best collaboration and lost a couple of rallies as a result of not meshing/communicating the best.

Taylor and I won 11-1 against Kim and Hispanic Chris. 

Taylor has pretty quick hands and pretty good defense too. Slams were coming pretty fast at her midcourt, but she was getting the ball back over the net. Good job!

Chris and I then teamed up and lost 10-12 against James and Taylor.

The sun came out at Brommer around 11 o’clock.

Lefty Aaron B. and I played against James (the stocky James) and young, thin Aaron. In that game, I offered to stack after a few rallies, but since I had started as the first server, it meant we were stacking on odd scores, which was really strange. The first game was lopsided with me trying too hard and me being responsible for about 2/3 of our errors.

We swapped sides and played again this time, Aaron and I took a 8-6 lead. James is really great with his angles. On one of those shots, I went for an ATP from a dead sprint but hit the ball into the net. On another of Jame’s shallow cross-court shots, I was able to sprint to it and hit it over the net but then James went for a flying erne and hit the ball for a winner down the middle. While we did end up losing that second game 8–11, it was fun and challenging.

Closing Time

I checked the time, 11:36 am. My wife and I are selling an old bed frame online to a guy named Simon. He’s coming to get it today. I saw there was a message from him saying that he would be at my house about 10 minutes. Time to go! Too bad, I could’ve gotten in more good games.

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Monday, July 13, 2026 (No Play)

Interesting line call and referee’s actions:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DarVEr8TAVl

One of the comments on this video stated that the referee’s reaction time was too slow and he didn’t turn his head in time and was unable to watch the ball land. That is wrong. The referee is primary job is watching for foot faults. Line calls are left to the players on that side of the net. If a referee happens to see the ball, he can make a judgement, but that’s merely a bonus. We’re counting on the ref to point out the kitchen violations and with momentum, those can take place after the ball is already dead.

I remember sitting at Chamisal a few years ago, after a tournament. I was overhearing a referee up in the stands quietly talking to a man next to him. The referee was repeatedly commenting, “See? There is yet another foot fault!” They happen far more often than we think.

All that said, the referee in the video clip made a mistake. He should have never pointed to where he thought the ball landed. He should have simply said, “The call stands,” since he wasn’t watching the ball. I’m also kind of wondering if the referee was really doing a good enough job watching kitchen fault violations, but maybe he did.

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Tuesday, July 14, 2026 (No Play)

Actress Mary Steenburgen getting interviewed about The Dink movie coming to Apple TV this month:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DayRL0VkgyI

Number of days on a court: 945
Number of total hours: 3,498
Number of paid coaching hours: 221.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Saturday, July 4, 2026 (Court Day #944)

My body is a bit of a mess right now. My right knee has a bit more pain than typical. And there’s a little bit of a new strain near my right collarbone. While I seem to be past the mild recurrence of tennis elbow, there is still some tenderness in my right forearm. And I’m continuing to deal with mild plantar fasciitis in my left foot. Like I said, a bit of a mess.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever played that Brommer Park on a Saturday before. With the holiday, I have a few options for locations to play today. I could drive out to Scotts Valley and play at Skypark for club play, but the waits with no doubt be long. It could go to Derby Park as I’m sure there are regulars that show up to play on Saturday mornings there, but I’m skeptical that I would get consistent challenging play there. And I certainly don’t want to drive all the way out to Aptos to play at Willowbrook. That leaves Brommer Park.

I left my house at 8:40 a.m. under completely cloudy skies with a temperature of 60°.

Brommer Park

I pulled into the Brommer parking lot at 8:53 a.m. The parking lot was very light as far as cars.

Shawnté and I teamed up and lost a close one 10-12 against Kyle and lefty Aaron.

I played a game with Lefty Aaron against Matt Babb and Micky. Aaron was taking the game very nonchalantly. There were at least two or three shots that I think he would’ve made had he been less lackadaisical. That’s not to say that he didn’t play well. He did. He has angles, depth, and power. It was a close game, but we lost after being ahead. And make no mistake, I had more than my share of less than stellar shots.

There was an assortment of games that weren’t memorable.

More Games

Two guys who I didn’t know were coming out of a game they had just won and Dan Dewey and I took them on. This would be Mark and Jim.

Mark is from Texas. He used to live over the hill in the San Jose area. His parents have a beach house here in Santa Cruz, so he’s visiting.

He partnered with an older lefty named Jim. I would guess that Jim is in his mid-60s.

Jim has quick hands. And Mark is a solid 4.0 player. Mark was all over the court.

Dan and I won the first game which was and back-and-forth and very close.

It was so close, everyone wanted to continue that group of players and we played again. This was another very close game but, this time, our opponents won.

We had a rubber match and Dan and I won that last game 11-9.

I wrapped up play at 11:15 a.m. to get home and spend time with family.

Ow.

By the end of the session, the only body part giving me trouble was my right knee. Driving home, there was no pain in my knee while in a resting position—it only hurts while under some strain.

Celebration

Every year, our extended family and some friends get together to have a party and celebrate Independence Day. We have a home-brew parade where the family and kids will decorate a vehicle—in the 1970s, this was an Army surplus Jeep that would sometimes be troublesome to start!—then we play musical instruments and march around the neighborhood. Drums, whistles, horns, cowbells, whatever we have around. (If I’m inspired, I’ll play bagpipes, though that’s less common now that I no longer compete and don’t play in a pipe band.) The parade used to be in my grandparents’ circular driveway, then it moved a few decades ago to my parents’ house where they live on a road that forms a circle. This year was the USA’s semiquincentennial, that is, 250 years since its founding. I have distinct memories of the bicentennial at my grandparents’ house in 1976, 50 years ago, so the gathering and mini parade has been a family tradition for at least half a century!

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Monday, July 6, 2026 (No Play)

This is hilarious! This is something that I often think about when I see these types of barriers!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZ-oftASI4K

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Wednesday, July 8, 2026 (No Play)

In the quest to keep paddles’ ball spin under control, USA Pickleball is abandoning roughness testing for a new system of firing balls at the paddle being certification tested and using high speed video cameras to determine the ball’s exit spin rate.
https://usapickleball.org/usap-news/equipment-news/update-regarding-the-usa-pickleball-spin-rate-test-and-implementation-timeline/

Ok. Let’s nerd out for a second on a tangent.

The USAP’s maximum allowed spin rate is 2,100 rotation per minute (RPM). Another way to think of this is 2,100 divided by 60 seconds which results in 35 rotations per second.

At 40 miles per hour, assuming each player is 2 feet inside the baseline (40 feet apart) it would take 0.68 seconds for the ball to travel from one player to the other. Of course, there is air drag and therefore any ball will slow down from 40 MPH over the course of its travel path. One source says a 43% loss of a ball’s speed was observed. Another says a ball lost about 15 MPH over its flight. Assuming 40 MPH at contact and losing 15 MPH, that would mean an ending speed of 25 MPH—or a 37% drop. So we have 43% or 37%… let’s pick 40% to have a middle ground. Assuming a consistent drop in speed, we can just average that speed over its travel, that is, 32.5 MPH. (If it were not constant, then calculus would come in!) Skipping some math, that is about 47.67 feet per second on average, or 0.83 seconds to travel the 40 feet. 0.83 seconds would give enough time for a maximum of 29 ball rotations under USA Pickleball rules. So, it’s not crazy, like, say, 200 rotations from one end of the court to the other.

A bit more.

A pickleball diameter can vary by 0.1″, therefore the circumference can vary too (9.03″ to 9.34″), but we’ll say 9.2″ for kicks. 40 feet is 480 inches. If we were to simply roll a pickleball 40 feet, it would rotate just over 52 times. Compared to a maximum of 29 ball rotations as discussed above, there has to be at least 44% fewer rotations through the air when compared to simply rolling a ball across the court. Now, all that changes with different speeds, of course.

Ok, nerding out done.

Something came to mind. My son Nicholas mentioned that a telltale sign of A.I. content is seeing m-dashes… like this “—”. I’ve been doing varying degrees of graphic design for work for at least 30 years and kerning, leading, glyphs, and m-dashes are all part of the territory. Rest assured, I don’t write any of these blog entries with A.I.! Though I suspect the periodic typos or grammatical errors that slip in should be proof enough!

Number of days on a court: 944
Number of total hours: 3,496
Number of paid coaching hours: 221.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.