Wednesday, April 26, 2017 (Court Day #20)
There’s nothing black, but I couldn’t help the title! Ready to play again! I got up, looked out our kitchen window—gray skies. Then my wife’s fancy weather tracker in the kitchen shared the outside temperature: 57°. A bit nippy. And it was lightly drizzling.
That 10% was enough!
After taking a few minutes to copy over a couple of videos for Eric onto a data stick, I got to the Derby Park courts at 9:10. Some courts were good to go and for others, the nets were still being set up. The courts were very plainly wet. This was a novelty for me; they’d always been fairly dry. (Except one time near the fence when I slipped.) Not too long after, my friend John ended up on his backside after slipping. No serious damage though, thank goodness. It was inevitable someone would lose their feet.
The courts very gradually dried out after the drizzle stopped after about 45 minutes. There was no waiting today—except for maybe a partner—only about 20 people showed up with the subpar weather.
I played a few games with Eric and recorded a few games. I played ok, but dropped a few balls into the net. I teamed up with Tom S. for a game and he asked to let him know if I saw anything in the video that he could improve on. Speaking of Tom, I haven’t seen young Tom and Ileana for a while. I’m sure players come and go. I’ll be missing some days in the next couple months due to travel, but missing pickleball is not by choice!
Playing on the Big Courts
The last two games of my day were with Kent, Jane, and Stuart. Jane, I’d seen around, but I’d never played with her. Jane circulates in the “big boy games”. I was surprised to learn later that she started playing shortly after me—but she came right from an active tennis life. She didn’t remember seeing me around before—there are generally a lot of people around—then after I told her I started at the end of January, she wondered why we’d never previously played a game together. “Because I stink.” I didn’t say that, but I’m not at the level she plays.
The first of the two games was Kent and me versus Jane and Stuart. All of them are solid players. They get to write their names in red on the court assignments dry-erase board. Jane and Stuart were leading something like 5-0 then Kent and I worked our way back. We still lost by 3—or maybe 5—points, but I held my own. I’d say it was my best played game of the day. Of course, I hit a couple shots just high enough to get smacked back at high speed, but I don’t think I hit more than one ball into the net.
In the second game, I was paired with Stuart. Stuart—like Kent—was helpful with advice. Stuart was a bit distracted during the game (walking over to talk to someone right in the middle before that person left, for example) and wasn’t playing focused. It’s also hard to play your best when your partner keeps messing up—like hitting three shots in a row into the net! Stuart emphasized getting up to the kitchen as quickly as possible . . . and fully up to kitchen. When I missed returning one shot down the middle after racing to the net, he said, “Look where your foot is.” My left foot was about a foot behind my right foot which was toeing the line. “That’s enough to keep you from reaching the ball. After each missed shot, it’s good to assess where your feet are and where they should have been.” (I get his point. In that instance, however, unless I was playing left handed, it would have been a slight disadvantage to have my left foot at the line since I’d have to twist my body a bit more on the backhand reach.)
Stuart also suggested essentially lobbing on the return of serve: “They have to let it bounce, you might as well give yourself plenty of time to get to the line.” I do have a tendency to smack it back low and fast. I’ve heard Stuart’s advice before elsewhere, I just don’t follow it. I should try that. He also said, “Don’t worry about keeping the same distance from the net as your partner—that’s for higher levels. What if you partner doesn’t move up to the net? Just move up anyway.”
The session wrapped up about noon and away I went. I’m ready to play again. My mojo is back! In black!
Number of days on a court: 20
Number of total hours: 58
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