Thursday, June 19, 2025 (Court Day #817)

I didn’t play my regular Tuesday night since I had a virtual charity meeting, so for night play this week, tonight was it.

This evening, my parents hosted a pizza dinner with my brother John and his kids, my sister Diane and her husband and their kids. I left work with my brother Matt at 4:50 p.m. and headed over for what was supposed to be at 5 p.m. dinner. As it was, dinner ended up being 6 p.m. (Kind of typical for my family, dinner is rarely on time!) I enjoyed seeing everyone. With my brother and his kids leaving town for a vacation early tomorrow morning, they didn’t want to stay late and left just before 7 p.m. I changed into my pickleball attire and left soon after.

Skypark

I arrived about 7:15 p.m. to a surprisingly empty court complex. The tennis courts were completely empty, although that’s not uncommon. (Though, lately, seeing at least some tennis players is more frequent.) But there only two doubles games going on when I arrived, with two other people already waiting. I figured something must have been going on, and that turned out to be Game 6 of the NBA finals. Me? I’d rather play pickleball, especially with no local teams participating in those finals!

Games

Paul Winn and I took on the winners of the previous game, which was a young fellow named Alec and also Gowa. I was expecting Paul and I to obliterate them even with either of us warming up. But Alec turned out to be the real deal and Gowa has improved since the last time I saw her play. It turned out to be a close game and Paul and I lost. I was itching for a rematch, but other people are waiting to take on the winners.

I did eventually get a rematch with Alec and Goa, but it wasn’t with Paul as my partner, unfortunately. Instead, I had Christie—who is Barry‘s wife—as my partner. I’d consider Christie a strong 3.0 level player. I would put Gowa as a low 3.5.
This turned out to be another unexpectedly close game, but they did win as I had anticipated going into that game. I would really like to play against Alec again, but this time with all at least 3.5 level players.

The last game was David and Ahbi against Alex (the bird researcher) and me. The lights clicked off mid-rally at which point Ahbi hit a ball wide of the court. I asked him if he wanted to replay and he said he did, that the lights clicking off were indeed distracting to him. We went on to play another 15 minutes or so until 8:44 p.m. when our game wrapped up. It was closely matched, but Alex and I pulled off a win.

Tonight, we never had more players waiting than needed for courts… in other words, as long as you could get enough players, you could get right onto a court.

Ben Johns Loss

This week, top pro Ben Johns lost in singles to 61st ranked Brazilian tennis player Rafa Lenhard who was playing in only his third pro pickleball tournament. As I’ve said in the past, tennis translates the best to pickleball in singles, not doubles. Doubles has so much nuance and strategy. It’s hit or miss—no pun intended—if a tennis player can cross over to the pro circuit of pickleball and still have success.

Saturday, June 21, 2025 (No Play)

Who should have hit this ball?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIOvpTyAqKI/

The ball passed through the middle with neither player making an attempt on the ball. What’s the answer? There are arguments both ways. But if I were the returner, I probably would have split-stepped and then moved after their contact with the ball. As player set at the net, I would have taken the shot unless my partner called me off. It’s better for both players to go for a ball than neither. Communication, especially for the middle, is key. When things like this happen, it can lead to not trusting your partner and taking their forehand shots with your weaker backhand.

An aside, this is the risk of a harder return… it can limit your ability to get to the kitchen since it reduces your time to move. Now, if you hit a rocket that is difficult for the serving team to handle and the ball gets popped up, that’s fine. But if you hit a moderately fast paced shot that can be driven back hard and low, then you can get yourself into trouble. My advice? Hit a deep, slow, high shot and give yourself plenty of time to get to the net. Or, as I said, if you have a weapon return, use that. And a mix of those—being unpredictable—can keep your opponents on their toes.

Number of days on a court: 817
Number of total hours: 3,193.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 144.5

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