Thursday, November 15, 2018 (Court Day #224)

I was desperately looking at the clock hoping that the Santa Cruz Art League board meeting wouldn’t stretch too late. Typically, they run about an hour, but this one would run a solid 90 minutes. 30 minutes into this 6 p.m. meeting, a little over five miles north at Skypark, the evening pickleball session started without me. More importantly, playing there was my doubles partner Colleen, with whom I need to get playing time. After the meeting, I raced back to work, changed, reset the after-hours alarm and raced out to Scotts Valley. I briskly walked onto the courts at 7:56. “We were just getting ready to head home!”, laughed Larry from the bench.

My first game was against Larry and his wife Sue with Lauren as my partner. We fell behind quickly, but came back and made it a game. Who won? I can’t remember. It was close, either way.

Colleen finished her game and we joined up. We played two games against Larry and Mark Dettle. We won the first in decisive fashion. The second, I made a number of errors and we fell behind 7-1. We came back tied it up 9-9. Then we went up 10-9, only to lose 12-10.

Colleen had a full evening and left after our second game.

The last game of the night was me and Olga against her husband Oleg and Jennie. (Jennie, a mom with little kids, I rarely see in Scotts Valley; she usually plays at Derby Park.) Olga and I fell behind but made it back up and won 11-9. Olga is playing pretty well.

My adjustment to make: take the game to the net and be patient. I’m lapsing into driving from too far back on the court. I’m also need to wait for a solid attack opportunities instead of forcing a shot while in a dink battle. Patience, patience, patience.

Tournament

My opponents on Saturday are going to be in for a shock if they employ the typical strategy of hitting to the female opponent. I feel like Colleen outplayed me tonight. She’s one of the few people—besides me and a few others—who I’ve seen switch her paddle to her left hand to make a shot. We’re not too far off from each other in terms of skill.

After play wrapped up, I was talking to Olga and Oleg in the parking lot. They said they’d be playing on Sunday in the mixed doubles tournament. (I’ll be playing on Saturday since that’s the day for 3.0 and 3.5 teams.)

Olga is playing as part of a 4.0 team . . . I think she’s going to get an eye-opening experience—unless they go up against teams that should be in 3.5. Oleg did say that she’ll be partnering with a 5.0 player who was downgraded to 4.0. Olga will be targeted, no question.

Oleg himself will be playing as part of a 4.5 team. Mark asked Oleg if San Juan Bautista (SJB) was going to be a big tournament. I overheard and interjected no. Oleg countered yes, and offered that it would be having four group of mixed doubles: 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5. In my eyes, SJB is not a big tournament. It’s a small tournament. I played at the Golden State Games in Concord. That was hundreds of players on about 20 courts. That is a big tournament. SJB will be maybe 60 players on just six courts. Oleg is a good player, but as I told him, I think he’ll be challenged in 4.5. At a large tournament, I don’t believe he’d be in the mix in 4.5. No offense to Oleg, it’s just opponents get very, very good in a tournament. You get to be a small fish very quickly. It’s different thing to be good in your local group of players. I’m easily in the top third of our club, that ain’t nuthin’ in the grand scheme of things. Now, in a small tournament with no age categories, you may get older players who think they are overall 4.5 players when they are only 4.5 within their limited age groups. They might be 4.0 when facing younger pool of opponents. Who knows who/what will be at SJB on Sunday. Olga and Oleg will find out!

Number of days on a court: 224
Number of total hours: 611

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