Wrapped

Sunday, January 14, 2017 (Court Day #112)

On Friday, in preparation on a whim, I decided to put the link to the Paso Robles registration into my online calendar so it’d be handy when registration came around on February 1. To my horror, the registration date had changed and it was already open! And not only open, but open 9 days prior! WTF! (That’s short for “what the fault?”, of course!) I texted Eric right away telling him the news. I registered myself but couldn’t add my men’s doubles event since my partner didn’t exist as far as the system was concerned. I’d have to wait for Eric to create a profile. The other concern is you had to be a USAPA member to register and Eric wasn’t yet. (I’d joined the USAPA months ago.) Eric said he’d join the USAPA and create his profile, but it’d have to wait until the next morning since he was on the road.

That evening, killing time before falling asleep, i found some pickleball videos. One concludes a fun interview with one of the inventors of pickleball, Barney McCallum.

On Saturday morning, Eric had registered and added me as is partner for 3.0 doubles. I followed suit, paid, and we were golden! That’ll be our first really big outdoor tournament. (Livermore next month will be smaller and indoors.)

On the Court, Sunday

I was moving slowly. I had to open the courts, but I was not rushing as I was well aware of the likely possibility that I would not play today. I arrived about five minutes before opening time and Wayne was there with a fellow that I didn’t recognize. His name was Gideon and he was visiting Santa Cruz with his kindergarten-age son.

I cleared debris off the courts with the blower as people set up nets.

As games had already started, I laced up then fastened up the elastic supports of my new ankle brace. Time and testing would tell four days removed from a audible “crunch” ankle roll was enough.

We had some more new people, Chris and his wife Jennifer, in their 40s, both tennis instructors. And also man named Tim. And a man named Doug. There were beginners, Ken and his wife (I forget her name), an older couple, who live in town. An unfamiliar taller guy named Mike played too. A fair number of new faces today! It was an absolutely fabulous day with beautiful weather. Perfect for pickleball.

Busy courts. (Photo credit to Dave Allenbaugh.) New guy Mike in black toward the left.

The shock of the day was just how well my ankle held up. Sure, there were some drops at the net that I didn’t race up for and some lobs I didn’t bother to race back for, but surprisingly well.

Quite the group waiting to get on an open court! (Photo credit to Dave Allenbaugh.) I’m in the middle of the photo facing the board, but you can only see the top of my cap!

Between a couple of games, I talked to Melody. I told her that the registration had opened for Paso Robles. She winced and said she discovered that she had a conflict and couldn’t play that weekend. But she was interested in playing at the Livermore tournament. I told her that I’d check for any conflicts for the mixed doubles event on Sunday. That might be fun. Easier that trying to coordinate an extra day 2.5 hours away.

Terry’s Group Lesson

Around noon, Terry Long started the limited class Jeanne had arranged with him. The students were me, Eric, Jeanne, Janet, Mara, Tom S., and Karl joined us along with a named Chris who happens to be a tennis instructor.

We spent about an hour going over mostly basics but included individual tweaks for each of us. Terry likes us to serve from near the middle regardless of which side we are serving from. This tends to leave an opening on the backhand side when serving left to right, so I’m not quite yet convinced of this positioning, but Terry is a 5.0 player, so it’s very much worth investigating. The other thing I tend to do is serve with my feet fairly parallel and positioned so a line connecting the front end of my shoes would extend to my target. Terry recommended pointing my left foot toward the target. I suspect this allows for more body rotation. More to check out!

One funny moment. Terry asked, “Who has a good serve?” No one spoke up. Then Janet did. But not for herself. “Andrew has a good serve!” Nice to get some credit!

One key point, Terry said the second shot often determines they outcome of the point. Long, it keeps the serving team at the baseline. Short, it invites the serving team to the kitchen. Long is important. Depth is #1. Positioning the ball toward backhands is #2. But it’s also important to mix things up (left/right) so they don’t always know what to expect. But always depth. (Unless you have an opponent with poor mobility.)

Another thing that Terry mentioned in passing to someone was, “As a 4.0 player you should be spinning every shot.” (He wasn’t talking to a 4.0 player, there weren’t any, but he was making a point.)

We played on one court, rotating off when we made an unforced error. The incentive was to keep playing by not making any of those. I had hopes of staying in but I’d make a mistake and rotate out like everyone else. Maybe a longer time, but I still rotated out.

Where I really need work is returning very hard serves. That was apparent when Chris would serve hard to me and—while I’d get it over the net—it wouldn’t be deep and it wouldn’t be where I wanted it to go. The problem is, the only time you get to work against hard serves is when you play against a hard server! There are only a small handful of those in the club, unfortunately.

“Can’t Get Enough” Games

After the class, a few of us still wanted to play a game. Janet, me, Olga and Mara played. I can’t recall who won, but I believe it was Janet and me.

Mara had to go, but we convinced Oleg to play. Janet and I took he and his wife on. Janet and I won. Then we swapped partners, with me playing with Olga, and Olga and I won. Oleg was taking it a bit easy, I think.

How’d it go?

I was happy with my play today. I made some errors, but I played well. I had a game mid-morning with David Black as my partner against his wife Beth and a man I can’t recall who isn’t an advanced player. I held my own as David’s partner. We won fairly handily. David is a better player than I am, but that didn’t manifest itself much in this game. David wouldn’t have had much to complain about had he been inclined. He made a few mistakes, I made a few mistakes.

Lunch

Woah. I checked the time. 2:46! Late! Oleg, Olga and I went to Mexican food. With no breakfast, I was quite ready to eat!

Number of days on a court: 112
Number of total hours: 317

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