Author: andrewlenz (Page 169 of 329)

Thursday, January 27, 2022 (Court Day #461)

On the USAP Ambassador’s email chat group, there was some discussion the USTA (tennis) and their restrictions regarding tennis tournaments. After some discussion, it turns out the USTA umbrella organization does not have prohibition on pickleball lines on a tennis court for tournaments, however, it does allow a section (region) to have their own prohibitions. A couple of USAP representatives have been meeting with the USTA reps to see if they can come to some agreement universally allowing dual marking of courts.

Skypark

I left work a few minutes before closing and was at Skypark by 6:15 p.m. Kristin L. commented, “You are here early!” Due to tennis players (there were six in the complex and two waiting on a bench outside), we were only using the permanent pickleball courts.

Lights

All the lights were fixed, but I initially, I didn’t think so. One court was dark enough that I thought the light wasn’t on. I don’t know if they used a wrong ballast or if the light was partially broken or what. Regardless, people were avoiding that court and would rather play with a well-lit court with dual-striping and a temporary net . . . under normal circumstances, permanent courts are prized!

First Games

My first game was against David (of Aptos, we common family friends) and a man I didn’t know and I had a partner I’d never seen before. We were on the “lit, but dark” permanent court. I had no warm up—usually, not a big deal—and was playing incredibly badly. It was so frustrating. Normally, I can make up for a partner’s subpar play. Not these two games. The first game I lost 11-3 and the second—with a man named Jim against his wife Hillary and regular Wendy—we lost 11-0. Brilliant, right?

New Guys

A couple 30-ish guys showed up. One was named Sam. They said they came on a Wednesday and there were no pickleball players at the courts. I told them that players regularly come on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I wasn’t playing my best tonight. I got better as the evening went on, but nothing to write home about. I try not to fret too much about bad play outings. I feel I’m progressing overall. There will be dips in performance. It happens.

Hit to the deep player

Vince Lombardi, the famous Green Bay Packers football coach, used to assign grades to the performance of a player on a particular play. If you did your job, you got a “0”. If you blew your assignment, you got a “-2”. There was a Championship game where a Packers defender disregarded his assignment, and forced the pressured quarterback to throw an interception ending the game and giving the Packers a championship. Lombardi gave that defender a “-2” on the play.

Why did I tell that story? With Tim back and Casey forward, Paul (near the net) drove the ball at Casey. Casey, not expecting the shot, mishandled it and we won the rally. I mentally gave Paul a “-2”. I didn’t tell him that though. But I did tell him that it’s best practice to hit to the player who is back to keep him back. Paul listened and the next time around, he hit to Tim who was back and after the rally, turned to me and said, “Like that?” Yes, Paul, perfect, like that. You get a “0”.

It’s a wrap

At 8:45 p.m., Tim was done and, hence, my play was done. Tim said he had played three hours this morning. Paul jumped onto a court with three stragglers, they were the last active game. As I was talking to Tim and his son Casey when we were done playing, as I shifted my weight, I realized that I had what felt like a blister on my right foot. Sigh. New shoes. But it doesn’t bother me, so it’s fine.

What did I learn?

There is success to be had being patient. In the last couple of games with Paul against Tim and Casey, I decided to hold off and only attack if I could hit down . . . not across, and not up. It was a successful strategy.

Arm

I iced my right arm when I got home. It seems to be getting a bit better.

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Friday, January 28, 2022 (No Play)

There was a PPA tournament, the Carvana Desert Ridge Open in Arizona. The big news was famous Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps as well as famous NFL receiver Larry Fitzgerald would be playing exhibition matches at the venue.

I tracked down video of the event:

It’s pretty obvious that Michael has very little pickleball skill and didn’t really know the rules. Larry, on the other hand, played ok. Maybe a 3.0 level. It’s entertaining just because they are famous people. Beyond the first few minutes, it’s entertaining like gawking at a fender bender.

Number of days on a court: 461
Number of total hours: 2,215.5

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Tuesday, January 25, 2022 (Court Day #460)

Work is really stressful. I have two of my staff on vacation, one whose last day was Friday last week, one out with COVID-19, another out sick (not COVID), and another out with a chronic health condition. I have a big advertising deadline (12-page newspaper insert) and projects due in our custom framing department that only I know how to do. Tomorrow won’t be better. I needed to play tonight to forget about the stresses of work. And I was not disappointed.

Tennis Trouble

The crowd was a bit lighter tonight and I found a great parking spot at Skypark at 7:15 p.m. When I walked in, there were two tennis players using the court that also serves as four temporary pickleball courts. There was a slightly heated discussion going on about their use of that court. Mark D. said, “It’s not fair to have 20 people wait while you two continue to play.” One of the tennis players asked about time limits. Mark said, “It’s 30 minutes, it’s posted outside the gate.” This conversation went on for a few more minutes, when I looked again, the tennis players had moved to an open tennis court elsewhere in the complex.

Lights

The flashing strobe-like light was fixed as was the corner light. Finally! One was still out in the other corner and across the complex a tennis court light was still dim. More work to do.

Oldtimer Friend

While I was waiting, there was a familiar face on one of the courts. I hadn’t seen him in probably 10 years. When their game was done, I called, “Jim!” He turned. Yep, Jim Jocelyn. He quickly introduced me to two of his friends and also his wife. I told his male friend, “Jim and I played football together 40 years ago.” (Geez, I did the math in my head—how to feel old!) “High school,” Jim explained. Jim and I weren’t close, but you end up knowing everyone on a sports team. I asked Jim if he was still a minister. “Pastor,” he corrected, “at Twin Lakes Church.” Twin Lakes has the largest protestant congregation in the county and has a big physical complex in south county. He said it was his second time out playing. From the looks of things from the sidelines, he did pretty well for a newbie. Jim played offensive line back in high school and has the advantage of being tall, 6-foot plus.

Games

Dan M. asked me to playing in a game, which was with Paul and Matt. Kristin L. called over asking me to play with them instead. “They asked first,” I explained. “I don’t want to play with a poacher anyway!”, she kidded back. (Ok, so I unsuccessfully poached a few times in my first game that I happened to play with her as my partner last week…)

I noticed tire marks on the courts, it took me less than a second to realize it was from a bucket truck to fix the lights. The faint marks are a small price to pay!

I played a number of games with Dan as my partner against Paul and Matt. Dan is coming along. Still not a match for Paul and Matt, but improving a lot.

Nirvana

Later, Paul and I played a few games against Mike B. and Matt. I wasn’t expecting to win any games, but we did. (I’d say Matt is better than Paul and I suspect most people would pick Mike over me as a tournament partner.) Those games were fabulous. Challenging but not so far out of whack that winning a game wasn’t possible. After learning Mike has been doing tournaments in 4.0, I wanted to make a good impression in case I ever want to partner up with him for a tournament, and I believe I did that. It was fairly balanced, so we just played repeatedly, swapping sides after each game. If I could play games like that the rest of my life, I’d probably die happy.

Shortly after 9 p.m., Mike was fried and done. He’d been playing for hours. It was 9:09 when the four of us walked off the court.

What did I learn?

When you play better players, you have to keep drives low. I have to give credit to Matt. I did a crosscourt dink to my left. It was just high enough that Matt attacked, hitting the ball to my left hip. I was not expecting that and the rally was over. I complimented him, it was a nice shot. (Thinking now, perhaps Paul could have attacked that ball with his forehand, but his reactions would have had to have been very, very quick!)

I do have to wonder how pros handle “chicken wing” shots so well. I was doing my best to analyze why I lost a point and a number were shots either at my right hip, armpit, or thereabouts for a very awkward shot. There were also shots where Mike got me with hard shots hit from the net to my toes while I was at midcourt. I did get Mike with some of my own, though!

Arm

I iced my right arm when I got home, standard fare these days.

Number of days on a court: 460
Number of total hours: 2,213

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

Sunday, January 23, 2022 (Court Day #459)

I heard back from Eric S. and he’s recovering from an injury and wasn’t ready to do a tournament. I’ll give my last minute thoughts about a tournament a miss.

Larry and his wife Jacquie were already at Derby Park when I arrived 10 minutes before the opening time of 9 a.m. It would be a really nice day. Sunny, perfect cool temperature for playing. It would be a lower attendance day, surprisingly, with about 35 people.

When I put out the ball caddies, there were only six balls! That wouldn’t do! With six courts and people often using two to warm up per court and generally losing at least a couple to breakage, we were in trouble. I texted Leslie (and Rick) that we were in desperate need of balls. Dave Allenbaugh, who filled in on Wednesday for Rick, must have not noticed the ball shortage.

Newbies

Two newbies introduced themselves, Steve and Angie. They said they’d played a few times and knew the basic rules. I grabbed a Pure 2 ball—not the regular Franklin X balls—and we played a game with Allison. I played lefty and offered a few little pieces of advice and encouragement. Allison made kind comments about her good experience with me teaching her when she had her first outing.

To the rescue

Leslie arrived with a bag of new balls—a BIG “thank you” goes to her!—and stuck around for about an hour playing some games. I took over for Larry Y. as Leslie’s partner but I didn’t do so well. It was embarrassing, but as I told Leslie, I had played all my previous games lefty.

Binh

Binh appeared today; I hadn’t seen him in months. He said he wanted to play a game with Mark G. since they are going to play in a tournament in 3.5 together. Binh mentioned that he and Shawnte were supposed to play in the Monterey tournament together but there was some question about Binh’s work schedule and Shawnte didn’t want to wait, so Shawnte signed up with “Texas Mike” (as Binh refers to Mike B. as). Those two will be playing in 4.0 together. Binh said he and Shawnte played in a tournament previously in 4.0. I asked how they did and Binh said they got clobbered . . . aside from a team that signed up in 4.0 and probably wouldn’t have even been competitive in 3.5, he said.

Fun stuff

I had a number of really good games with Charles, Binh, Rick and Renee, and Ben visiting from Modesto. Ben said he’d be back in a few months, but today would be is last day of his RV stay in Santa Cruz.

Oh, there was a game with Charles as my partner—yes, we won—and I made a serve where I dropped the ball just past the kitchen line for a winner. Charles asked, “Did you do that on purpose?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t have that serve.”
It can be risky in several ways . . . it’s easy to mess up (too short, too wide) plus if it’s a little too deep or the receiver is fast, you invited them right up to the net and a position of advantage. That said, it’s a nice one to roll out when you’ve been serving deep and fast and the receiver is particularly back of the baseline.

What did I learn?

My errors today were generally one of these:
– Slam a high ball/overhead into the net;
– Drive a high ball too long;
– Hit a drop shot into the net;
– Hit a drop shot too high;
– Hit a return too deep or into the net (only on hard serves);
– Hit a dink too softly and not over the net.

As the day went on, I got better and better in my play.

Arm

I iced my right arm when I got home and used the massage gun. As I type this sentence at 7:28 p.m., my right forearm has a mild charley horse when I tap on my iPad.

Bedtime Video

An interesting bounce control drill.

Number of days on a court: 459
Number of total hours: 2,211

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