Author: andrewlenz (Page 17 of 327)

Sunday, February 22, 2026 (Court Day #903)

Last night, Mauricio Cuervo texted a small group of people asking for a fourth to join him, Mike Sullivan, and young Ben David the young lefty at 8 a.m. at Brommer. I replied saying that I was in. A few minutes later Mauricio asked if we wanted to play with an hour reservation at Brommer Park or have a two hour reservation at Willowbrook in Aptos. For me, there was no question. Aside from being closer to my house, the level of play is higher at Brommer. If I went to Willowbrook, I’d have to turn around and drive to Brommer once our time was done. In any case, we settled on an our reservation at Brommer.

For whatever reason, I woke up shortly after 4 a.m. and wasn’t able to go back to sleep for over an hour. If I hadn’t set my alarm, I’m most definitely would’ve slept in and been late or even completely missed out on our reservation this morning!

I left my house at 7:45 a.m. While it was sunny with only traces of clouds, it was a very chilly 46°F.

Brommer Park

When I arrived at 7:57 a.m., the parking lot was emptiest that I’ve seen it on a Sunday morning. Of course, it’s a rarity that I’m there before 9 a.m.!

Ben was there when I arrived but Mike and Mauricio were nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t too long before they were both there, however. I got in about 10 minutes of warm-up against Ben before our first game.

Game 1

Ben teamed up with Mauricio and I teamed up with Mike.

It was a close first game with Mike and I pulling off an 11-9 win. At the time, I felt like they were targeting my partner, but maybe not.

Game 2

In the second game, we rotated partners and I paired with Ben. We were half stacking, that is, only stacking while we were serving. For some reason, I was having a harder time than typical to adjusting to playing a lefty (Ben). Communication is super important when you have two forehands vying for the ball in the middle. Ben and I are the strongest players so I was expecting us to cruise in this game, however, we quickly found ourselves down 0–6!

But once we got things dialed in—mostly me coordinating with Ben—we went on 11-1 point run, winning 11–7.

Game 3

Mauricio and I teamed up for the third game.

We lost 7-11.

Game 4

Having gone through the full rotation once, Mike and I played together a second time.

We lost 6-11.

Game 5

Ben and I teamed up again.

A surprise to me, we lost 5-11.

Game 6

Ben and I played together again and this time we won 11-8.

Game 7 (Though the video says ‘Game 6’)

Before the game started, Mauricio suggested we switch sides at 6, and we agreed. Ben and I played together again, third game in a row, and we won 11-5.

Game 8
Mike and I lost 3-11. 

Game 9
Mike and I won 11-3. That’s quite the point swing from the previous game!

Game 10
Mauricio and I lost 8-11 after leading 8-4.

By then it was 11:30 a.m. and Mauricio had told his wife that he’d be home by then. 

At the end of the session, Mike S. told Ben he won the fast hands for the day. I mock complained that Ben said I had the fastest hands. To be precise, earlier, Ben said something to the effect of he’d never learn and he shouldn’t speed up on me.

In one of the games, Mike was standing very close to the middle of court when I was serving. I served a curved serve at Mike but he jumped out of the way but my ball—as intended—landed in. As Ben returned it, he announced to Mike that the serve had landed in. After the rally was over, Ben told me, “I thought you were going for a nasty Nelson, but in the ball curved and landed in!” Well, if Mike hadn’t moved, I would have tagged him with the ball!

Ben—who was playing very well—won 7 games, I won 5, and Mike and Mauricio both won 4 each.

Games with Others

Anthony had arrived and was sitting on the wall waiting to get into a game. I asked him if he wanted to take on the winners, and he said that he would.

There was a visitor today, a lefty named Mike who said that he grew up here and went to Santa Cruz High School—he graduated a year after I did, though I went to a different local high school. Work took him to Chicago where he lives now, but he still has parents and a sibling here in the area.

Rather than me playing with Anthony, Mike and I played against Anthony and Ashley. Ashley is over 6 foot and is a very skilled player.

Most of the local lefties—if they stack at all—tend to do half-stacking, that is, only stacking when we are serving and not when we were receiving. Mike wanted to do full stacking, and while I knew exactly what to do, it was still messing with my head a little bit. I ended up missing two or three of my serves. Anthony played really well and Ashley played even better. Mike and I lost and it was not a close game.

Michael and John

Our opponents moved off to greener pastures and we ended up playing against Michael and John. Michael is a short and lefty who is extremely talkative. John is the tall, thin tennis player who appears at Brommer now and then. Michael is an easy one to underestimate. He will mess up certain shots that you would expect to him to get back but then if you are goaded into a sense of security, he’ll rip some balls back that you don’t expect him to get.

The first game was very close and honestly, I can’t remember if we won or lost.

We switched sides and played again. This would be my last game of the day. My partner Mike was not playing his best in this one. He’s a little bit of a banger and a little bit lacking on his soft game. I made some errors in that last game, but for every one I made, Mike made two. As I said, he wasn’t playing his best.

I left shortly after 12:30 p.m. It was in the mid-60s and a beautiful day.

Major Pro Upset!

Top mixed doubles team Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns lost to Anna Bright and Hayden Patriquin this weekend. It had been about a year since the last time that Anne Leigh and Ben had lost a match! Nice work by Anna and Hayden!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVEhhUuEtfq

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Monday, February 23, 2026 (No Play)

I don’t know how I missed it from October last year, but DUPR has players registered with its rating system in 175 countries!
https://www.dupr.com/post/national-sports-day-data-reveals-how-pickleball-is-taking-over-america

Of course, one could ask how many of those players moved to the USA or frequently come to countries with a lot of pickleball where having a DUPR rating would make sense.

Number of days on a court: 903
Number of total hours: 3,393
Number of paid coaching hours: 197.5

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

Thursday, February 19, 2026 (Court Day #902)

Tonight was a meeting at the Scotts Valley Parks & Rec Commission. The meeting started at 6 p.m. and the primary and only topic of discussion was the Skypark Courts.

After going to the Scotts Valley Community Center by mistake, I arrived at the city council chambers at 6:08 p.m. That large meeting room is attached to the S.V. Police Department building. I parked and found my way to the correct room.

There were four commissioners at the head of the room and on the side of the room were two city staff members one of which was Alison the director of the perks and recreation department. I took a seat behind Mark Dettle, Moe, and Spencer.

Across the center aisle of seating, in the right hand section, was another pickleball player that I recognized, a woman. In my row, to my right, was a man who I can only assume is a neighbor. There were five on our side and four on the other—not a greatly attended event.

Meeting

The meeting opened with time for public comment specifically for any topic that was not already on the agenda. A grumpy gentleman got up and started complaining about pickleball. He spoke about 30 seconds before the committee chairman stopped him and reminded him that this time was for items not on the agenda. So instead, the man launched into a rant about how some park construction required multiple bids, but that only one had been received which he said was in violation of the law. He demanded emails and texts related to the construction of the park. Then he went on saying that the playground material used under foot was toxic and banned in certain cities of which he rattled off a few. He was a bit intense but quietly sat down when he was told that his three minutes were up.

Agenda

With no other speakers, the commission then voted to approve their previous meeting minutes, and then went onto the Skypark courts discussion.

Allison Pfefferkorn, the Parks Division Manager for SV then spoke.

Shared some facts, including:

– Only about 1/3 of players using the Rec.us court reservation system are SV residents;

– Only about 1/3 of students taking classes at Skypark are SV residents.


She shared a petition concerning pickleball complaints was circulated and signed by a total of nine neighbors then presented to the city. The three primary complaints were chronic noise, the impact on parking, and bad driving—including speeding and rolling through stop signs.

Allison talked about things that they had done to try to placate the neighbors, including blocking off, unpaid parking spots, unpaved parking spots. Using the app for reservations. And using police enforcement to give tickets and warnings for illegal parking.

Public Comment

When Allison was done with her short presentation, it was time for public comment. 
Mark Dettle got up and spoke first on behalf of pickleball. He introduced himself as the club president and agreed that any kind of speeding or rolling through stop signs was unacceptable and the club would do what I can to help stop that.

Skypark regulars Spencer Edwards and Mo Finsthwait also spoke.

Then the neighbor who had spoken at the beginning of the meeting got up and started getting irate and talked about pickleball being torture and started swearing and insulted one of the commissioners then issued what was taken as a threat. Allison walked out of the room on her phone pretty obviously calling for a police officer. This guy was not doing himself any favors. Once he was done, he was asked to leave the meeting and he did.

A tennis player got up and shared that he avoided the tennis courts certain times since it was so busy with pickleball players.

I was the last to speak, representing the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club, USA Pickleball, and P&R instructors contacted with Rec.us system.

Those of us players who spoke emphasized the wide range of ages playing the sport, how the sport benefits the community and social networking, how we want to cooperate and be “good neighbors” of the residents, plus the need for more new courts elsewhere.

The commission directed Allison to inquire about reinforcing the hillside to allow for more parking. And to also inquire about adding sound dampening materials to the fences including making the divider between the pickleball courts and the tennis courts not just waist-high, but full height and adding sound dampening to it.

Skypark Courts

After the meeting, I arrived at Skypark right about 7:30 p.m., pulling into the parking lot behind Spencer and Moe. We didn’t have a fourth so the three of us warmed up and drilled until Jax appeared. I was very happy to see Jax and he and I partnered up.

That first game was pretty close, but Jax and I pulled off a win. I’ll put an asterisk on this one cause I know that Spencer wasn’t in full “win mode”.

Literally half of the courts were empty and there was no one waiting so we switched sides and played a second game. This time, Jax and I lost 10–12.

Spencer told Marquis that he could play in the next game. When Marquis’ own game was done, he came over and sat on the bench at the end court where we were. Unfortunately, for him, it was going to be a long wait. This is a quite long back-and-forth game. In the end, Jax and I won something like 11–7. Our winning point came off of my hard serve that spun sideways off of Spencer’s paddle.

It was now 8:26 p.m. There was only a few minutes before the lights would click off. I told Marquis that I would step out and he could step in. (Really generous, I know! Ha! Four whole minutes!)

I said my goodbyes, walked to the other end of the courts, grabbed my backpack, and headed out. A few feet from my car, there was a pitter-patter of heavy drops of rain starting. I checked my phone, exactly 8:30 p.m. I counted my blessings that I got in almost a full hour of play and the rain held off until just about when the lights go off.

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Friday, February 20, 2026 (No Play)

A few days ago, an ad popped up about a new pickleball venture opening in San Jose, about 40 minutes north—Ace Pickleball Club.

Given that The Hub in Los Gatos has been open a couple of years and I’ve never been in it, I doubt I’ll be at the Ace Pickleball Club anytime soon either.

PPA Singles

So, it was fairly recently announced that the PPA was going to experiment with new singles lines which narrow the court. Well, here’s an example play on a court with these new lines:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DU_OPi0Deov

Tall or Short?

The Kitchen in a social media post shared a range of the tallest and shortest pro pickleball players:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DU_7_mGkRs_
[March 7 Note: This account is offline. I asked Jared of The Kitchen today and he says they are trying to get the account back.]

Fun to see!

Limiting Pickleball

Wow! This is pretty rough. From a sign in Montgomery, Ohio:
“BE OFF THE COURTS BY 7 P.M. OR BE SUBJECT TO ARREST”
https://www.instagram.com/p/DU_-wFaEmnt

Funny

This is hilarious! Getting a lot accomplished which normally takes 70 years!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DU9G2VQgayP

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Saturday, February 21. 2026 (No Play)

It’s hard to criticize pro players. They are the top players in the world for good reason. But when your partner—in this case, far and away the #1 women’s player—is literally standing back and off the side of the court because you came over so much, I question the wisdom. (Sorry, Ben.)

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUpHSNVjRFu
[March 7 Note: This account is offline. I asked Jared of The Kitchen today and he says they are trying to get the account back.]

Here’s another longer clip. You can see where Anna Leigh Waters is when Ben Johns hits his team’s final shot of this rally:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1181158190757174/?fs=e&fs=e

Their opponents hit a passing shot to other side of the court that Ben left wide open. Now, I’ve seen pro mixed teams still win rallies with men coming over this much, but there is risk involved.

Pickleball Doping and the Olympics

I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention this previously. The Global Pickleball Federation is taking steps to meet all the criteria to allow pickleball to join the Olympics. One of these steps is drug testing. The GPF made an announcement about 8-10 weeks ago saying they are joining forces with the well-established International Testing Agency (ITA):

Global Pickleball Federation Partners with ITA to Develop Global Anti-Doping Program

Number of days on a court: 902
Number of total hours: 3,388.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 197.5

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

Monday, February 9, 2026 (Court Day #901)

The weather was changing today. Yesterday was warm and mostly sunny. Today, it was overcast and slightly lower temperatures and breezy.

Val, one of our board members, suggested last month that the pickleball club rotate the location of our board meetings. We held today’s board meeting at Derby Park, which is closer to Val‘s house than the standard Brommer Park location.

Derby Park

I walked on the path into the park at 10:09 a.m. It was unusual for me to hear the schoolchildren out playing at recess given that I’m only very rarely at Derby Park on a weekday that is not a holiday.

Games

The bright side of playing at Derby Park today was that I was going from game to game to game. There was virtually no waiting. At one point, I did wait 5 or 10 minutes for Eric Schmidt to get off of the court, but that was only because it’s been a while since I’ve seen Eric—my former tournament partner—and I wanted to get into a game with him.

Eric and I teamed up together against a young skinny guy with long hair named Leo. Leo partnered up with a regular named Sam. I don’t know Sam well and I hadn’t seen Sam in many months and had to ask his name.

Eric and I were down 2-6. Given that he and I had one gold medals together, I was expecting our performance to be strong. Eric was complaining about having a bad day playing. As the game went on, I continued to get warmed up and Eric dialed back his errors. We ended up coming back and taking the lead and then taking the win. I would have been very disappointed had we lost!

Leo is a mishmash of really great shots but also unforced errors. He does have quick hands, I will definitely give him that.

Meeting

Shortly after noon, I stopped play to attend the club board meeting. There is no major news to report on the SCPC front.

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Friday, February 13, 2026 (No Play)

It feels like it has been a while since I’ve played, four days to be precise. It feels weird. It was raining and what would have otherwise normally been my Tuesday pickleball night. And Last night, Thursday, I had another nonprofit board meeting.

Pickleball Mockumentary

A trailer has come out for a new (pickleball) “mockumentary”.

Generally, trailers pick out the best part of a movie to make it look good. This still looked bad. Really bad. Really, really bad. I have no idea how it will be released, if it will be released, and if it’s actually a movie or not. Given the high production value of the trailer, it looks legit. But, boy, it looks really bad.

Couple Fight

This past weekend, an older couple in Port Orange, Florida, got into it on a pickleball court when the husband, Anthony Sapienza, accused his opponent of a kitchen fault. His opponent denied the violation and it escalated over time into brawl sending people to the hospital.

Really? On a Sunday morning? People! It’s a game!

Sapienza and his wife Julianne were arrested after they left the country club where the altercation had taken place.

Here’s an NBC news article about it:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-pickleball-brawl-involving-20-people-results-paddles-face-felo-rcna258969

And a central Florida news report:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUqVnwIETdu

Ball Testing

It’s always interesting to me to see pickleballs and paddles impacting in slow motion. Here’s a comparison of the Franklin X (the local favorite) and the much newer Lifetime ball which I’ve heard rumors of being more “lively”:
https://www.thedinkpickleball.com/comparing-life-time-and-franklin-pickleballs-in-slow-motion

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Saturday, February 14, 2026 (No Play)

So, my drug joke comment on a post gets deleted by Instagram (see my recent posts), but Jeannie Buchard’s in a video gets to stay. It’s not fair!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUwOmfviRBI

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Monday, February 16, 2026 (No Play)

According to The Dink, the number of brands and models of paddles approved through USA Pickleball dropped significantly in 2025 from 2024:
2021: 107 brands, 302 models
2022: 177 brands, 477 models
2023: 449 brands, 995 models
2024: 564 brands, 1,277 models
2025: 356 brands, 891 models
That’s a pretty steep reduction. According to my calculations, that’s a 37% drop in the number of brands and a 30% drop in the number of paddles. The USAP did significantly alter the requirements and added more tests to pass. This, no doubt, played a big role.

Manufacturing

Updated today (coincidence), is this report on pickleball equipment manufacturing by Market Reports World:
https://www.marketreportsworld.com/market-reports/pickleball-equipment-market-14718660

Equipment manufacturers have responded to this surge by increasing paddle production capacity by nearly 45% in 2023, reaching over 12.5 million paddles produced worldwide. The average lifespan of a pickleball paddle is 10–12 months for frequent players, contributing to high repurchase rates.

Over 5,000 retail outlets across the U.S. now offer pickleball gear, while online sales account for 57% of total equipment purchases. By 2024, more than 4,500 public and private facilities offer pickleball programs, increasing the demand for standardized nets, paddles, and balls. Professional tournaments have also grown, with over 400 events held globally in 2023, requiring consistent supply of certified equipment. The average cost of a performance paddle ranges from $80 to $150, while balls cost $2 to $3 per unit. With over 2 million new first-time buyers in 2023, this market is showing strong momentum in terms of player adoption, commercial sales, and infrastructural development.

I found this interesting…

Despite the sport’s rising popularity, the market faces limitations in the availability of indoor, climate-controlled pickleball venues. As of 2024, less than 30% of pickleball games are played indoors, primarily due to the high capital costs of facility conversion. The average cost of converting an indoor gymnasium into a pickleball facility is $80,000–$120,000, which discourages smaller clubs and schools. Consequently, seasonal variation in player activity affects paddle and shoe sales, especially in colder regions. Retailers in the Midwest and Northern Europe reported a 15% drop in Q1 2023 sales due to weather-related usage declines. This seasonal inconsistency creates inventory management challenges for distributors and impacts overall market fluidity.

Overall, there are a number of interesting statistics in the article.

Number of days on a court: 901
Number of total hours: 3,387.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 197.5

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