Tuesday, June 24, 2025 (Court Day #819)
According to The Dink podcast, a man named of Dave Flemming was the one who instigated comparing Anna Leigh Waters to Serena Williams, as discussed in one of my recent posts.
Knee
My right knee is not in the best shape right now. As I was walking around after work, some occasional motion would cause pain in my knee.
As I was on my way to Skypark, I texted Tony Sloss to let him know that I was on my way. Being that we are supposed to partner together for the mini tournament on Saturday, we figured we should play together some. I believe we’d played together maybe once in the last six months.
Skypark
It was sunny and 64° when I arrived at Skypark a few minutes before 7 p.m.
As I started my first game and we were in by a few points and sliding over to the next court, Tony passed through on his way back to the waiting area. As my game continued I could see the Tony was waiting for me to get off before signing up in a new game. Little did I know that he had been there since about 5 p.m.!
The waits were short tonight and the dry erase board didn’t make an appearance until after I arrived.
Tony and I played a couple of games against Kirby and Alfred. They are both solid players. Tony and I won both games but they were close. My play got better and better as the evening wore on.
Tony called it a night and headed out.
Last Game
The last game was John (Gabi’s friend) and me against Matt Babb and Marcus. This was the best possible combination for me because John is the weakest player—the stiffest competition that I can get is the best. While we did go on to win that game 14–12, they were shots that Marcus it looked like he took it pretty easy on John when he could’ve clobbered the ball. Nonetheless, the vast majority of the points we earned.
And?
That last game was night and day compared to my first game. In my last game, I was playing very good defense and making few errors. In my first game, which I went into a zero warm-up, was a fiasco. I played very poorly.
The takeaways for me tonight we trust my partner in the middle and let him use his forehand. I told Tony that I need him to communicate and let me know if he wants to take a shot in the middle.
Ouch
In one of my games tonight, Ahbi hit a speedup and the ball struck me in the right side of my neck. It’s stung a little bit, but it didn’t hurt too bad.
Wednesday, June 25, 2025 (No Play)
Santa Cruz Pickleball Club president Mark Dettle shared some photos of the grand opening of six new permanent pickleball courts down at Callahan Park in Watsonville. These courts replaced two old tennis courts. Mark wasn’t thrilled with the light blue kitchen areas… I’m told a number of players said that the brighter color was causing glare in the sun.
Number of days on a court: 819
Number of total hours: 3,198
Number of paid coaching hours: 147.5
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