Sunday, August 2, 2026 (Court Day #950)

I was going to be spending a very long time outside today between playing this morning, teaching two classes this afternoon, and then having a private lesson afterwards. So I wasn’t too keen on rushing to get out to play this morning.

Injuries

My left foot is still tight with plantar fasciitis in the morning. But my biggest concern continues to be my right knee. Thankfully, there generally isn’t any pain in a resting position, though that is not always the case. There is varying degrees of pain while walking. It tends to be the worst after not using it for a while, be that sitting or lying down. My knee definitely feels better than it did a couple of weeks ago when I twisted while players ng and I was limping for a few days and was seriously thinking about knee replacement surgery. That’s still on the radar as a possibility, but my daughter, the orthopedic surgery resident, was recommended in trying a whole lot of different things before going to major surgery.

Normally, I go and play at Brommer Park, however, I needed to get to my classes early given that there’s a 60th anniversary of the City of Scotts Valley birthday party at Skypark grassy field near the courts, so I was expecting the parking to be impacted. And if anyone who has to be at the class, it’s me, the instructor! Brommer is an extra 5-10 minutes from my house, time I might need.

When I left my house about 9:40 a.m., it was a chilly 59° and completely overcast. It rained a little bit overnight, judging by the puddle remnants in the street and the various drips still on the windows of my car.

Derby Park

As I walked into the courts at 9:51 a.m, there was pain in my knee with every step. That’s another reason that I wasn’t as anxious to get to the courts as early as possible… I figured that my play would be somewhat limited regardless.

Games

My first game was with young Jesse versus Karin— the middle-aged, Asian woman—and her husband Mark. We won 11-3. The points they did get came from lack of communication between Jesse and myself.

The regular Paul and I won 11-7 against Sam and Jesse. It seemed like Paul was almost trying too hard. He drove a handful of shots into the net.

Waiting players at 10:48 a.m. About half I know, the rest I’d never seen before.

My third and final game was teamed up with Jesse against Glenn (the lefty) and Andy. Glenn and Andy are in their mid to late 60s. I’m still hanging on in my 50s and I would put Jesse in his 30s.

A bit of a surprise, Jesse and I found ourselves down 1-4. But it didn’t stay that way very long. There were a couple of shots where I was being aggressive and being a bit of a ball hog. I stopped doing that. Jesse was not a weak player. That and I also went from trying to hit winners to hitting higher percentage shots and hitting shots that were difficult to return as opposed to high speed shots.

Time to Hit the Road

I checked the time. 11:19 a.m. The waits were long. I could sign up again, but it would likely be at least 15 minutes before I could start the game and then probably another 10 to 20 minutes after to finish that game which would bring me uncomfortably close to noon. If it had been easy to get a game with stronger opponents, I’d be more tempted to push the time. My goal was to leave my house no later than 12:30 p.m. to give myself plenty of margin to get to the courts and find parking. I definitely do not want to be late for the first class. Maybe I’ll bring a book!

It was 61° and still completely overcast when I left Derby Park.

Today, I could definitely feel my knee during the later games. It hurt. 

As I was leaving, I walked up to Ashley and Frabrizio and asked them how they did at their tournament. Ashley, with not much enthusiasm, said that they got a bronze metal. I teased, “Was it out of four teams?” Ashley laughed and explained, “No… it was out of three teams!“ Apparently, the tournament didn’t have many signups. Well, that’s how the ball bounces sometimes!

Monday, August 3, 2026 (No Play)

This popped up on my YouTube feed. The news report about a town, Mashpee (in Massachusetts), requiring a low-noise ball.

Here is a article about how those local players hate the performance of these low-noise balls:
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/mashpee-pickleball-noise-complaints-new-ball

History

Here’s a short clip interviewing some of the sport founders and founders’ family members about the very early days of pickleball with details such as how the net height got determined:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/936720392776245

I’ve heard most of this before. What’s interesting to me is one of the sons explaining that the original kitchen line was the badminton “short serve line” which is 6’6″ back from the net. Years ago, I read somewhere that it was originally at 5′ and later got moved back to 7′. This is wrong. It was originally at 6’6″ then got moved back another half foot to 7′.

Number of days on a court: 950
Number of total hours: 3,509.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 225.5

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