Ugh.

Sunday, April 2, 2017 (Court Day #11)

Panorama of Derby Park

My wife had an unrelated but apropos phrase that happened to apply to my games today: “You have to fail to learn.”

It’d be easy to blame it on my borrowed paddle that has dings in the face and a grip that is too small—except that I’ve been using it for two months and have played better while use it.

It’d be easy to blame my sore right shoulder, sore from hurling the softball yesterday for about half an hour with my college-aged son—except I didn’t even notice the soreness until the last 30-45 minutes and even then it was passing.

This simply has to fall on what’s between the ears.

Arrival

I got to the courts about 9:15 under cloudy skies that would later give way to sunburn. I was a bit late since I was copying game video files over for John. If I had another data stick around, I would have made some copies for Eric too, but as it was, he gave me one when I got to Derby. Anyway, being that I left at 12:20, I still got a solid 3 hours in. Even with the largest crowd I’ve ever seen there—Dave, the SCPC head, loudly announced, “We’re playing games to 9, not 11. We have a lot of people waiting.”—waits weren’t too bad between games.

I played a game with John where I hit a serve low and short and the receiver ran up and returned it into the net. John—cracks me up—said, “Oh, that was sneaky, Andrew. Nice mixing them up. Did you do that on purpose?” “Yep!” There were a few failed returns like that today off of my serves. That’s a plus, right?

My serve dropping just past the kitchen line. (Just right of that white line.) Yes, it was intentional!

But it was just one of those days with more bad than good. I had my moments, but there were too many bad ones that stick in my mind. I’m a perfectionist. I can’t help it.

Hey, Nice…

Later in the morning, it was nice that Bruce and I were able to squeak a game past Ray and his wife Robin, both solid players. I was pretty pleased with myself and Bruce.

…But Back to Reality

But the next game, a tall nice fellow named Jeff along with young Tom L. took Bruce and me apart. Tom is roughly as skilled as I am. Then the following game pitted Jeff and Ileana against Tom and me, figuring it’d be more fair since Ileana was the weakest player of the four. But Jeff is a force of nature. He and Ileana still clobbered us with a final score something like 11-3. Jeff has an excellent command of intense spins and reliable ball placement. He shared that he had a lot of experience with a variety of racket sports . . . as they used say back in the day, “No doy!” (Which translates, “no duh” or “no surprise there”!) Jeff is at least a 4.0 player and maybe a 4.5 player. Heck, maybe even a 5.0.

Frustration and Hours

I have to admit that I’m a bit depressed and frustrated with what felt like a relapse today. But I have to remember that I have a grand total of 10 days and almost exactly 28 hours of playing so far over two months coming into today. What is it that they say? 10,000 hours to truly master something? I have a lot of hours to go.

*sigh*

Shopping

My wife Kristen and I dropped off our son Nicholas at the San Jose Airport to head back to UCLA for the spring quarter. Kristen wanted to stop by Sports Basement to pick up a knee brace. John has her and his wife Diane and myself on the docket for an evening game using  his own portable net and Kristen doesn’t want to run the risk of the pivoting and strain on her knees to affect her running. She found a brace while I checked out their pickleball selection. The clerk apologized in advance as she walked me over. They only had starter paddles and sets. You know, those heavy wood paddles. But I did pick up a new pair of running shoes for the court and—at the prompting of my wife—a pair of socks to at least sometimes replace my standard white “ugly socks”. Maybe I’ll be fashionable!

Number of day on a court: 11
Number of hours: 31