Sunday, August 14, 2022 (Court Day #532)

As with most Sundays, I was the site coordinator on duty at Derby Park. I arrived about 10 minutes before 9 a.m. to unlock the bins and set up. There is already a group of four warming up on one of city nets when I walked up.

I had typed up and printed three signs to post today:

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From your SCPC Sunday Site Coordinator:

SIGNUP SKILL LEVELS

Last Sunday, things got a little fast and loose regarding who was signing up in what level . . . in particular, intermediate players signing up as Advanced. The ideal is to break up skill levels approximately 1/3 “mellow/beginner/lower intermediate”, 1/3 intermediate, 1/3 advanced. This keeps games competitive.

If you have never played in a tournament—or if you have, but only at a 3.0 level—you are almost certainly not an advanced player yet. If you think you are ready, I’m happy to get a game together of strong players and see how you do. At Derby, Advanced is at least 3.5 and up. (At Brommer, they like to see 4.0 and up.)

It’s best to privately and quietly ask a known advanced player—or, better, PLAYERS—for an evaluation of your skill level. (And keep in mind that strong players will sometimes ease up on their play during the 9AM-10AM social hour so opponents don’t get mad at them.)

If you are thinking you want to try out the Advanced group, please ask permission instead of just adding your name to an Advanced box. And please do not start a new Advanced box yourself until you are unquestionably an advanced player.

If the Advanced group gets watered down, the advanced players get bored and stop coming to Derby—this is ALREADY HAPPENING. You want those players around when you do develop strong skills and want more challenging games.

Also, if you have a fair number of unforced errors—failed serves, popping up balls, missing the ball with your paddle, can’t consistently place your shots, you can’t reach shots—you really should be in the base group and not the Intermediate group.

The goal is to keep everyone happy. Some are looking for casual games. Others are preparing for tournaments and are looking for equally challenging strong players to sharpen their skills. 

I really hate being the “bad guy” and informing people they need to move down, but I will if I am forced. Please be courteous and humble and “police” your own game.

Feel free to approach me with any questions.

Thank you!!

Andrew, your trusty volunteer club site coordinator

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Erased

Mid-morning, I started a new Advanced box by writing my name down in red pen. A few minutes later when I looked, a woman had added her name as well as a man. Both super nice people, but small problem. The woman is a stronger intermediate player, but has no soft game to speak of and generally drives everything. She’s not an advanced player. The man I consider a moderate intermediate and certainly not at all an advanced player. Upon finding those two names written in the box under my name, they were eliminating any chance for me to have a truly challenging game. I was annoyed. I debated what to do. I could either leave my name but that would validate their decision to add their names . . . or I could risk being viewed as being a jerk and erase my name. I chose to do the latter, and walked over and wiped my name from the box leaving the other two players listed. Later, the woman mentioned that I had removed my name to which I replied, “no offense.” She said, “no offense taken”. It appeared that the two of them from then on wrote their names down as intermediate, and not advanced. So, in that sense my decision was successful. Instead of that weaker game, I got into a stronger game with Matt and Paul from Scotts Valley and George.

I do feel a bit bad about the episode. I don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings. But I do have a tournament coming up and need to get in the best games possible in order to prepare.

Rachel, Steve, and La Madrona

My last game wrapped up about 1 o’clock. There’s a game with Jeff is a regular, Brianna, who is pretty new, and a woman named Rachel who, it turned out, is my wife’s acupuncturist. Rachel‘s husband‘s name is Steve and apparently I had met them before but I didn’t remember.

Rachel mentioned that they are both members of the La Madrona Athletic Club, and she said that there is pickleball up there regularly although most of the pickleball players are not very strong and come from a tennis background. They apply tennis strategies instead of pickleball strategies. Rachel said that if I ever wanted to come up on a Thursday night for their social pickleball night, I could come as her guest. She said I could bring my wife Kristen as well, although I would say there’s almost zero chance of Kristen ever coming.

Last Games

Toward the end of the session, I started an advanced box, but there were few players left. Kim asked if I was willing to play with her, Jerrianne, and Charles. I said I would. Charles was playing left-handed, I imagine he has some kind of injury going on with his right arm. For our game, I decide to play left-handed as well. So it was two strong players playing lefty against Kim (who is the intermediate player) and Jerrianne who is a little bit weaker of an intermediate player . . . somewhere in the 2.5 to 3.0 range. Charles and I did win that game even with the two of us playing left-handed. Charles said he was getting pretty frustrated playing left-handed today. I told him that I could feel his pain, given that I had played left-handed for two years as a result of severe tennis elbow in my right arm.

Wednesday, August 17, 2022 (No Play)

Facebook has this new ”shorts” videos feature. Of course, it knows to feed me pickleball video clips. No big deal, right? Well, I watched one with a title of “dirty shot”, figuring I might learn something new. I’m watching dinking going on and there’s a sharp crosscourt dink to the left to the nearside left player…who—rather than dinking the shot back, speeds it up and drives it at the body of the opponent directly across from him for a winner. I smiled. In the past week, I pulled off this exact shot myself for a winner from the same type of sharp crosscourt dink. Satisfaction! I’m in good company!


Number of days on a court: 532
Number of total hours: 2,435

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