Author: andrewlenz (Page 124 of 328)

Tuesday, April 25, 2023. (Court Day #590)

I was still a little bit sore from my play on Sunday, and my right knee was far from 100%, however, I decided to play tonight in Scotts Valley anyway. I ended up talking to a sales rep for a good chunk of time after closing time at work so I didn’t get to Skypark until 7:15 p.m.

I was easily able to find a parking place. When I walked in there were people hanging out on the bench at one end and people also hanging out on the bench at the other end . . . even with one court open! I quickly got into a game with Mark Dettle and Scott and another player by the name of Andrew—all regular players in Scotts Valley.

I played with Scott against Mark and Andrew, and there is no question who was going to win that game. I believe it was 0-8 before we scored a point. It seemed that Scott was still warming up and was making more errors than I was, though I had far more than I’d like regardless.

Binh

Binh had showed up and I was able to play against him in my second game. I forget who our partners were but they were both easier players. I forget who won that game but the loss was not on Binh and not on me.

My third game was Mark G. and myself against Binh and Scott. It was not my best game, but it was not Mark’s best game either. We lost that one.

Scott and I went on to play in against Casey and his dad Tim. I was not expecting us to win and we didn’t. That was a pretty lopsided game. We went on to have a rubber match and while Scott and I went ahead initially, Casey and Tim came back and won that game.

I went on to play some more games with Matt, his friend Paul, Aaron, and Tim.

In the first game of Matt at myself against Paul and Aaron, it was a fairly close game. However, the next game that was not to be the case has Matt and I decisively won that one.

There were some fun games.

When the last game was finished, I asked Matt the time, and he said was 9:22. Aaron and I were definitely ready to squeeze in another game—or partial game—but Matt was ready for a beer.

Hanging Out

Tim, myself, Paul, Matt, and Aaron, all hung out and talked about paddles for a while. Seems that the Legacy paddle is the new latest thing that everyone wants. Even Tim, who is the Selkirk representative with his demo paddles, was saying that he really likes the gritty face of the Legacy paddle. I just went on for a little while and it was shortly before 10 p.m. when I hopped into the car and headed home to ice my hand.

Rusty

I’m still a little bit rusty as this is only my second outing in nearly a month, but I wasn’t playing horribly. The back of my right hand is still uncomfortable and sometimes painful. But, surprisingly, not as bad as it was on Sunday. My right knee continues to hurt a little bit. I’m really hoping that the surgery in June will take care of it. Binh was saying to expect three months from the time of surgery before I’m out on the court and really playing seriously. “The way we play…” Yeah, it’s not easy for either of us to not be competitive!

Number of days on a court: 590
Number of total hours: 2,605
Number of paid coaching hours: 2

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

Thursday, April 6, 2023. (No Play)

This past Sunday was The Pickleball Slam featuring retired tennis greats playing pickleball. It did pretty well in the TV ratings.

Here’s a link to a supporting article:
“Pickleball Slam on ESPN Beats Out MLB, NHL, NBA in TV Ratings Race“
https://sports.yahoo.com/pickleball-slam-espn-beats-mlb-204453860.html

“Clocking in at just under two hours and 30 minutes, the event averaged 669,000 viewers, peaking at 796,000 during the concluding doubles match. By way of comparison, the audience for ESPN’s lead-out coverage of the XFL’s Battlehawks-Roughnecks game (502,000) was 25% smaller than the pickleball crowd.”

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Sunday, April 23, 2023. (Court Day #589)

I met with my orthopedic surgeon earlier this week and was debating whether to go ahead with surgery on my knee or not. I’ve had a pretty consistent mild pain in my knee when walking, and a bit more intense pain when twisting or turning on my knee in a certain manner. It’s not crippling and it’s also not agonizing. Regardless, my wife and my daughter, Charlotte—who is in medical school—are both recommending me going ahead with the surgery. The doctor thinks that it’s a partially torn meniscus.

Derby

I was very late to Derby Park this morning—for a site coordinator—and was walking in from my car at 9 a.m. sharp. I’ve never been this late to open. And it was not much of a surprise that parking was more difficult since I wasn’t early.

When I neared the courts a couple of minutes later, I saw that the club storage bins were open and all the nets are set up. Little Barb was there. I had told her a month or so ago, “if you beat me to the courts to feel free to open up the bins and set up.” When I asked her today what time she got to the courts, she paused slightly and shared with a sheepish smile that it was around 8 o’clock. (Very early!) There were a couple of games going when I got there.

Today was very slim on good players. I was unquestionably the best player there until Charles and Binh showed up around 11 o’clock to help make make the games more interesting. I never got into a game with all truly advanced level players. The best I got was Binh on one side and me on the other with each of us paired with a weaker level player.

I stopped playing about at 1 p.m., made sure everything was stored, and headed out about 1:20.

By the time I left, my body was sore from exercise fatigue. I wasn’t expecting that. It’s been nearly a month—3 1/2 weeks—since I last played since I’ve been giving both my knee and the back of my right hand time to heal . . . it helped some, but neither are all that great, honestly.

When I got home, I iced my hand, then my knee. I sat down to read a book in my backyard with my legs stretched out with my feet up on another chair. After about 15 minutes, my right knee hurt too much and I had to set my right foot down on the ground. Yep, surgery will likely be the way to go.

Number of days on a court: 589
Number of total hours: 2,603
Number of paid coaching hours: 2

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

Thursday, March 30, 2023. (Court Day #588)

Tonight was a SCALPEL league match of Evan and myself against Connor and Zach. Being that it was a night game we opted to play at Skypark, the courts in the county with lights.

I left work early and arrived 5:45 p.m. I played one game then saw that another game was just starting . . . René and Evan were playing against Tim F. and Matt Smith—yes, Matt the banger. I asked our team captain René if she’d allow me to replace her so that I could warm up with Evan for our match. She kindly stepped out. I would have done the same for her.

Evan and I played well. I made some very nice shots. Evan said, “You can do that anytime!” (After leaping and poaching and hitting a winner.) We won that game.

Match

There was still daylight when we played our first match game. Evan and I served first and were on a roll and ahead by a few points against Zach and Conner. We were in the middle of a rally and I was in the process of slamming a juicy high ball when a player from an adjacent court ran right behind Zach and Connor along their baseline—it was extremely distracting and I nearly hit that random player when I slammed that ball long. Immediately after the player ran behind our game, I walked over to their court and after their rally was done, I explained to the player not to come on onto our court without telling us first. I was expecting Zach and Connor, optimistically, to simply let me replay the rally without me having to say anything. Instead, they took the side out. I was really annoyed with the situation. That was really distracting. I should have forced the issue and replayed the point.

It was either the next rally or the one right after that where we had an identical situation—except the player came over from the court on the other side. Again, I fully expected our opponents to replay that rally, instead they switched positions and took the point. They probably would have let me replay it had I pushed it, but I didn’t. I’m not one to push situations like that. I can say with 100% certainty that the second player absolutely interfered with my shot just as the first did. After the second player ran on our court, I walked over and told the woman to call “Ball!” and wait for us to acknowledge before she ran onto our court. The two interference instances got into my head. I didn’t feel it was fair. I felt it cost us at least one rally and maybe two. Being that I was stewing, it probably cost us more.

Later, there was another distraction. After the first two instances, I’d learned my lesson. I put my foot down and we replayed the point. They were incredulous, but just because an errant ball was rolling toward my side from behind them and they didn’t see it until after I hit our ball doesn’t mean that it wasn’t distracting to me.

We ended up losing that game 11-9. I’m still of a mind that those early distractions may have cost us that game.

Game 2

We swapped sides for the second game and this is also a really close back-and-forth game which we won 11-8.

Game 3

In the final game, we agreed to switch sides at six points. By this time it was getting dark. Zach and Connor went on a quick run and ran up a score of 6-0, at which point, we switched sides. Connor and Zach scored another point. Evan and I finally started scoring points and Zach and Connor continued to gradually extend their lead. However, we started to make a game of it for the score of 9-7, getting the score within two points. Each team scored one additional point and I was 10-8. Service went back-and-forth a few times and then finally I couldn’t get a ball back over the net in the game and match were over, 11-8.

Wrap Up

All told, those were very fun and balanced games. And Zach and Conner are both great down-to-earth fun guys. Conner told me that my “flicks” were “very deceptive”. I guess I do a good job hiding my speedups.

With the back of my right hand aching, I didn’t stick around to play more games and simply left at 8:17 p.m. to go home and ice my hand and right knee.

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Saturday, April 1, 2023. (No Play)

In an exciting development, Washington State University announced they are adding Division I pickleball to their sports offerings. I was a bit confused since it’s hard to play D-I pickleball if you are the only university offering it—which was mentioned in the article. However, it quickly became apparent that it was all merely a good April Fools joke. I mean, the best ones are the ones that are believable, right?

Here’s link to the article:
https://wsucougars.com/news/2023/4/1/wsu-athletics-wsu-set-to-add-division-i-pickleball-in-2025-26.aspx
However, this page no longer exists and was likely pulled within days of it being posted. But, I did capture it on my phone before it was pulled.

What’s funny is decades from now, D-I pickleball programs might very well be the norm. We shall see. Maybe the Cougars would have been pioneers in a wave of the future.

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Sunday, April 2, 2023. (No Play)

I flew out on Friday to Columbus, Ohio for a trade show for work. I’d known for months that I’d be working while The Pickleball Slam was in progress. I was at a business lunch across the street from the convention center with a VP of sales and a Director of Operations when I glanced over to a TV mounted on the wall across the room. There is was on ESPN. McEnroe and Agassi were easy to identify. There was no sound and I could only see about two-thirds of the screen, but I caught little glimpses now and then. It was fun to see pickleball on national television. The sport has come a long way from when I started 6 years ago.

Agassi/Roddick vs McEnroe/Chang – Tennis LEGENDS play pickleball! – $1 million Slam ESPN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21WNY92WmWs

On a very positive note, Andre Agassi commented on pickleball after he and Roddick won the match:
“I never thought I was gonna say this but I am playing this as long as I can walk. I can’t wait to get back out there.”

Number of days on a court: 588
Number of total hours: 2,599
Number of paid coaching hours: 2

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