Friday, July 27, 2018 (Court Day #176)
I arrived at Brommer Park a little after 9. It was my first visit there during club play hours in about three months. This time, I made absolutely sure work would be covered while I was gone!
I’m in a limbo of sorts. I’m on the fence between the local intermediates and advanced players. I’m definitely not perfect and make poor shots, but I also clobbered many of the non-advanced players. I must have won 40 points today on shots with spin that couldn’t be handled by my opponents. George, after one such shot, said, “That’s a career killer!”
The first hour was great. Chris Yoder and teamed up against Leslie and a tall older gentleman I’d never seen before—understanding, of course, that I haven’t played at Brommer since April or the first week in May. Chris and I won. It was a fun game.
I then played with Karen Long against Chris and Allan. We were leading early on, but I made a series of errors near the end of the game and we lost.
Soon, the hour of mixed skill play ended. Then the choice. Sign up in red with the advanced at the risk of embarrassment—both in terms of being called out on it and also not pulling my weight on the court. Advanced is supposed to be 4.0 and above. But it gets funny. A 4.0 in 60+ might be a 3.5 in a younger crowd. I opted not to risk it and stick with intermediates. Unfortunately, there are really two groups, intermediate and advanced. No one, unless they are brand new, signs up as the bottom skill group, that means intermediate has a wide range of skill. I think winning medals will slowly provide me with more respect. As well as continuing to improve and not making execution errors. Eventually, I’ll be accepted into the advanced group. Already, I feel that I’m on par with several players who play in that group, but I’ll give it time. Nonetheless, I watched longingly at some of the advanced games going on, knowing I’d be in the mix.
Paddle
Terry Long looked at my paddle. He’d seen my post on Facebook’s Pickleball Forum about the crack in it: “Let’s see that paddle.” The edge guard was lose already, so he pulled it back and checked the edge. The damage didn’t go all the way through. Was it a scratch or a crack. We couldn’t really tell, but the face acted as if it were fully intact, so we figured it should be fine.
Tournament
I talked to Dave Cox. Since Rob’s fire station in Foster City is still an hour from Concord, I’m leaning toward staying with Dave in a motel. Or just getting up at 5:30 and driving up.
Number of days on a court: 176
Number of total hours: 486.5
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