Thursday, July 30, 2026 (Court Day #948)

A blast from the past, a few years ago, this clip is reminiscing about the development of the serve:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DbbYAw4kR4Z
At the time, when I saw this going on, I had a choice—learn the ‘chainsaw serve’ myself or trust that it was going to get banned in relatively short order. I chose the latter and my foresight proved to be correct. It got banned in the next rulebook!
They mention Morgan Evans doing this serve to great success, I have a paddle around with his autograph on it.

Classes

The good news is, after one of my students dropped out from injury, another person signed up and filled the class. Both of my classes starting Sunday are now again sold out.

Today

It started cooling down today, but then it got somewhat toasty. As I drove away from work at 6:21 p.m., it was sunny and a warm 75°. There were no clouds to be seen anywhere.

The mild plantar fasciitis in my left foot merely felt tight this morning not painful. While it is still lingering, it definitely feels better than its initial onset.

My right knee is still problematic, but I’m not limping like I was a little over a week ago.

Skypark

The very first game of the night was Paul and myself against two middle-aged women. One obviously came from a tennis background, she had really good drives. The other player wasn’t quite as strong. Paul was making a lot of errors and our opponents took the lead. I believe it was 5-2 in their favor. But then Paul and I went on a roll, winning 11-5.

There is a tall young blond guy there whose name was Cane—or Caine. He said that he’s been out playing with his wife and he is trying to convince her to continue to play. Cane has good hand coordination. He’s just inconsistent and has a fair amount of work to do on strategy and the soft game.

Mike, Ashley, Fabrizio

Frabrizio and Ashley wanted to play together since they have a tournament coming up. Mike C. was there and I grabbed him since we are supposed to play together in October in a tournament.

Mike and I gelled pretty well. There was a couple of shots in the middle where he crept in with his backhand and interfered with my forehand, but that was not happening very often. In the first game, we won 11-2. I was surprised since I was expecting Frabrizio and Ashley to to give us a good run for our money. In the second game, we won again, this time 11-4.

Ashley said we had time for one more. I asked him what time it was and he said 8:23 p.m. That would give us about 10 more minutes of the lights.

We switched sides and for this game they were serving first. After a few sideouts, we found ourselves down 1-6. That was there when the lights went out. There was still some natural light and Ashley asked if we wanted to continue and I know I certainly wanted to and so did Mike. We played for another five minutes or so and it was getting darker. Ashley suggested we shift down to the court next to the gate, which has the one permanent overhead light. The light illuminated mostly their side, giving them had a slight advantage. On our side, the light illuminated to about where our kitchen line was so we had more contrast/shadow on our side.

We started making some progress. We had some momentum closing the gap to 5-9. At this point, Ashley asked if we wanted to stop. I was ready at that point. It was getting hard to see.

Mike and I played pretty well. I tend to communicate a lot with the ball in the middle, half the time calling “yours!”, given that Mike has a long reach and it would be his forehand.

We came to the agreement that I would be the first server and Mike would start on the “hammer” side.

We had some really good firefights and some really good rallies in those last games. Super fun!

It was 8:44 p.m. when I checked the time.

It’s outings like this that keep me going. You drive home thinking, “I can play this game!”

Error Cascade

On occasion, when I don’t have enough students to run to complete doubles games for a class, I’ll do a rotation of players. A student makes an error then they are forced to step out, and someone else will rotate in.

Sometimes, the students are surprised by who I kick out of the game. It’s not always the last player (or the next to last player) who touches—or can’t touch—the ball who is at fault.

This was readily apparent tonight. I would hit a shot too high then five shots later, we would lose the rally. It would be a cascade that was set off by a mistake.

Friday, July 31, 2026 (No Play)

Just about an hour away from me, rooftop pickleball courts were installed on the top of a 6-story public parking garage in Berkeley:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbejlhfB-Dn

Glasses Fail

Another company decided to compete with KitchenBlockers, the company that first game out with lensless frames for eye protection in pickleball. The company is Dink Eyewear. They sell regular sports glasses too, but after doing some research, I’m less than impressed with their lensless ones, called Shield.

One guy posted on Facebook that the frames snapped and a jagged shard was left as a result. Scary.

One of the reviews on their website says this: “My glasses broke the first time I got hit in the face. I have emailed you three different times and have never gotten a reply and over the course of over a week.”

Another:
“These did not protect my eye at all. I tried them on, tested them out by placing a ball up to my eye and the Shield did not prevent the ball from touching my eye; this was just me testing it, I can’t even imagine the damage that would be done if I wore them in an actual game and took a direct hit to the eye.”

I’d much rather have my eyes protected than look a bit more fashionable! There was also several reviews talking about the glasses warping from heat. Pass.

Number of days on a court: 948
Number of total hours: 3,504
Number of paid coaching hours: 221.5

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