Wednesday, February 21, 2018 (Court Day #127)

Yesterday, Eric told me that his flu isn’t getting much better and that his wife also caught it. Even if he gets better by Saturday’s tournament, he figures he’ll be taking care of his sick wife. I contacted John P. as a possible replacement and he said that he’s available and willing to substituted. When I contacted Brian, the coordinator for Livermore, he said it was fine substituting as long as the replacement was also 3.0 and I let him know by Thursday. I’m still holding out slight hope for Eric to play, but I’m realistic that it’s a long shot.

Derby

Arrived just before 9 a.m. at Derby Park. It was flippin’ cold! In the mid-40s! They had predicted snow in the Santa Cruz Mountains two days ago. I put my sweatshirt on and kept it on for a few games. Usually, after one game, it comes off. Not today. My hands were very cold—the coldest ever for Derby in my experience. But it did warm up a bit and get nicer later in the morning and the fair-weather players showed up after 10 a.m., but we never topped more than about 26 people.

Jane was there and I got to play against her once or twice. She’s always a very good opponent, you can’t slouch with her on the court.

Funny, today in a game, I made a return at the kitchen line that hit squarely on the back of my right hand and went over the net. I’ve had balls graze my hand before, but this may have been the first where my hand acted cleanly as a paddle!

The Newbie

I’d received a call at work yesterday from a customer, Carrie. But she wanted to talk about pickleball. I answered her questions and she sounded excited. She’d seen a recent article about pickleball in the local free weekly, The Good Times. She said she has a strong tennis background and also played ping pong. I told her that she’d do fine.

I noticed a woman I didn’t recognize showed up. Dave Witte—the club treasurer—had taken her under his wing and taught her the basics.

My last game was with Carrie as my partner against Tom S. and Susan (whom I’ve seen only a handful of times in the last year). Carrie, if she sticks with it, will be really good.  She already has an excellent slice forehand that clears the net by a few inches and lands deep. She also has really good hand/eye coordination. Tom said that since she was new that he’d hit all the balls to her so she’d get a lot of practice. And he did! I think he hit maybe only one ball to me! Even with Susan, I’d be lucky if 25% of the balls came to me. But Carrie did well. The game was tied 10-10 before they won.

I left shortly before noon with two courts still going. I had an appointment with a rep at work to get to.

And?

So how was today? Ok. Far better than were I was six months ago. Even so-so days are good enough to beat most of the average players. But I still hit balls too high, a few of my serves were too tricky and landed just outside of the service court.

Physical Status

My back was tired today. My ankle is still not better. It’s slow going. Later today, it caught my right foot on a box in my office that I was stepping over and: PAIN! Ouch. But it wore off after about five minutes. I am continuing to wear my ankle brace every single time that I play pickleball, but outside of that, no. Very minor aches and pains appear occasionally: right wrist, right shoulder, hips, knees, ankles. Thankfully, not usually all at the same time!

Number of days on a court: 127
Number of total hours: 361.5

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