Sunday, May 12, 2024 (Court Day #660)

Last night, my wife and I went out with my son Nicholas to dinner for Mother’s Day. At dinner, Kristen pointed out all the days this week that I played pickleball. Today, Sunday, would be the seven day out of eight that I’ve been doing at least some pickleball activity. I played last Sunday; Monday was SCPC’s Dinko de Mayo tournament; Tuesday night I played at Skypark; Wednesday, I didn’t do anything; Thursday night, I played at Skypark; Friday morning, I drilled with Mauricio; and yesterday was the Santa Cruz Classic Tournament at Brommer Park.

Today, I think it’s a record for me. Seven out of eight. I think my previous record was six out of eight days, but to be honest I can’t remember with absolute certainty, but I’m fairly sure.

Puddles?

There was a puddle on the top of our jacuzzi cover that did concern me a bit, but the street looked mostly dry. As I drove to Derby Park, there was mist on my windshield from overcast skies. Still, I wasn’t expecting any puddles at Derby Park, and it turned out that, indeed, there weren’t any.

It was just about perfect pickleball weather . . . 61°F, overcast, and very little breeze. It can’t get much better than that.

Considering how much a I played over this week, my body is doing reasonably well. I did wear my elastic knee brace for the tournament yesterday as my right knee has been slightly bothering me and I wore it today as well. No major pain, just a very mild annoyance at times this week.

Blast from the Past

One of my former staff, Matt Z., was at Derby today with his sister Deanna. (He worked for our family business for three years, 2018-2021.) Matt is a 3.0 level player. I’ve seen his sister at Derby before. I played with Matt in an early game against his sister and Steve B. They took a big lead, then Matt and I made it respectable, but they finished us off.

Troublesome Serves

Chris, heavier set with a beard, was mildly complaining that my serves were so deep and low that he couldn’t backswing properly to return them. He was backing up nearly to the tennis net divider. I told him he should backswing less and use the pace of serve to get the ball back.

My last game ended at 11:26 a.m. After the games yesterday at the tournament, today couldn’t compare with regard to the skill level of the players.

I left at 11:30 a.m. to give me enough time to go pick up my son and head to my brother John’s house in Scotts Valley for a Mother’s Day brunch. I couldn’t stay for a long time since my class that I needed to teach at Willowbrook was at 1:30 p.m.

Coaching

A nice thing. Annette stopped me during class this afternoon. She thanked me for the change that I recommended to her serve last week and that it had made a big positive difference. And, that, my friends, is why I teach.

Oh, and I should mention. I was covering the basics of drop shots today in my class. I was demonstrating by having a student cooperatively hit the ball back in front of me. Drop shot. Take a step back. Drop shot. Take a step back. Drop shot. The nice thing is I did make all my drop shots. It’s embarrassing if you hit one into the net. One of the students even commented: “You are pretty good at that!”

Sports Shopping

My son wanted to get a tennis racket. I think he wants to play with his housemate. After class, we stopped by Play It Again Sports and he got one. While there, since I can’t find mine, I bought some more lead tape. I want to adjust my Gearbox paddle just a bit. The tape wasn’t cheap, around $15, but it should last for a while.

Evening

My son and I spent an hour discussing how many games it would take to cover all partner permutations with 20 players. This stemmed from the SCPC Dinko de Mayo event on Monday. You might think this is an easy problem, but it’s a somewhat complex math problem involving combinatorics and factorials. The numbers get really, really big fast! [Our discussions and my additional investigation resulted in the section at the bottom of that earlier page about fairness concern.]

Monday, May 13, 2024 (No Play)

An promotional video for The Hub appeared on Instagram this morning:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C56LVBbxuSP/

And this came up, it’s an interesting breakdown of Ben Johns’ serve and how to implement it:

Aches & Pains

I got up from sitting on the couch for an hour and my right knee was 4 out of 10 pain. The back of my right wrist was also complaining. Playing seven out of eight days seems to have caught up with me a bit.

Number of days on a court: 660
Number of total hours: 2,819
Number of paid coaching hours: 34.5

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