Tuseday, September 30, 2025 (Court Day #856)

This would be my first night playing at Skypark in a month and a half. I last played in the middle of August and tomorrow will be October 1. In the meantime, we’ve also changed the seasons from summer to fall.

It was overcast and 66° as I drove from Santa Cruz to Scotts Valley. It was a bit gloomy and my car headlights were on.

Of course, with me teaching, it has only been two days since I had last been on the newly resurfaced Skypark courts… but that’s not the same as being there actually playing.

Skypark

I arrived just before 7 p.m. There was no dry erase board out tonight and it didn’t take long for me to get into a game.

My first game was with Alex against Monda and Mauricio. Oh my goodness, I was playing horribly.

My dropshots or horrible. Most of them landed in the net and the rest that got over were too high. Ok, maybe not that bad, but still I considered only about half of my drop shots to be any good. I don’t know if it was being tired after work or getting used to the overhead light, though there were a number of those that I 100% blame on the lighting.

David, Alex, Matt

David L. and I played four games against Alex and Matt Babb. We lost every single one—and it was not David‘s fault. After the fourth game, David was ready to mix up partners and that next game turned out to be the last game of the night.

The Mental Game

Matt Babb and I played against Alex and David. We found ourselves down by a wide margin, coincidentally, or maybe not coincidentally, at one point, I was thinking about my mindset. At that moment, I was feeling defeated. This morning I started watching a Masterclass video about a “growth mindset”. And that 100% tied into how I was feeling tonight. “Fake it until you make it.” I went from feeling frustrated and disappointed to intentionally thinking “I am a good player and I can win.”

Matt and I were down 1–10. We started climbing our way back. Two points. Another two points. And pretty soon, it was 8–10. From here we had a crazy amount of sight out there at least four and maybe even five. Eventually, they scored one point and won the game 11–8. As we were tapping panels, Matt asked, “How many match points was that?” If you count each server as a match point, then it was at least 8 and maybe as many as 12.

We wrapped up the game 8:27 p.m.

Oops!

Not too smart. Stealing pickleball paddles from police!
https://www.mysuncoast.com/2025/09/25/venice-police-easily-solve-case-purloined-pickleball-paddles/

Wednesday, October 1, 2025 (No play)

I felt that I played depressingly poorly last night. I have a strong desire to get out and play again and put last night further into the past.

It was overcast and wet this morning. While I wasn’t going to play there anyway, club play at Derby Park was canceled about 40 minutes into the session due to rain.

Number of days on a court: 856
Number of total hours: 3,293
Number of paid coaching hours: 167.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.