Author: andrewlenz (Page 189 of 329)

Tuesday, August 10, 2021 (Court Day #400)

I got one of my staff to close the family business and I was able to leave earlier than normal. I arrived at Skypark at 6:30.

The first game was with Janet against Rich (tall, not Renee’s boyfriend) and Mike B. I always enjoy Mike’s southern drawl—plus, he plays well! Not long after, Tristan arrived. Even at just 17, Tristan has become a very strong player and I love playing against strong players. Tristan has filled out into an adult body, instead of a skinny kid.

Adrian’s Serves

Later in the evening, I was paired with Rich against Adrian and Tristan. Adrian got point after point by serving very fast and low serves. I’d love to play against that more often, I’ll have to ask him to serve fast when I play against him.

I got Tristan twice tonight on hard crosscourt forehand drives—right to left—that were barely over the net. (It’s my old college tennis class experience.)

Service Ace

I pulled out my spin serve right to left to outside front corner of the service box that aced Tristan. Terry said, “Andrew, do that again!” It was pretty obvious that Terry didn’t believe it was intentional and that she thought it was a mis-hit. I did a few more standard serves then when it was right to left again, I aced Tristan again on the same serve. I smiled and pointed at Terry and said, “See? It was on purpose!” But it’s high risk, so it don’t want to do it all the time. It has to “feel” right. When it feels right, I make a high percentage of those, 80% or more.

Woops

Disappointing, I did make a switch to my left hand on a crosscourt dink I popped the ball up and Rich nearly killed Janet, my partner for that earlier game. I’m kind of annoyed that I didn’t pull that off. Playing lefty for two years, I should have made that shot.

I did get the sense tonight that Tristan wasn’t playing as hard as he could. (That’s not to say he didn’t try very hard to return my aces!) It could very well have been like me when I play against weaker players . . . I relax a bit and make mistakes I wouldn’t make otherwise.

The last five of us left 8:50. I went home, had dinner then iced my elbow.

Tonight was pickleball outing #400. And it was fun evening.

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Wednesday, August 11, 2021 (No Play)

Steve Sutton is the Western Region Director for the USAPA. He accidentally sent out an email intended for USAPA Ambassadors to all members. This started a conversation where he invited me to consider becoming an ambassador since “we need more good ambassadors in Santa Cruz”. I looked online and it only lists Karen Long as the ambassador for our area. Terry and Karen are highly instrumental in pickleball starting in Santa Cruz and Karen is currently the president of the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club. But they are gone a big part of the year.

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Friday, August 13, 2021 (No Play)

I emailed Steve and Karen separately about me becoming a USAPA ambassador. I have yet to hear back from either one. Steve, I’m sure is busy. He accidentally emailed thousands of people. Karen, not sure. Emails sometimes get filtered as spam. Dunno.

Number of days on a court: 400
Number of total hours: 2,037

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Sunday, August 8, 2021 (Court Day #399)

It would be a short morning, I needed to leave after just an hour for a family function. I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:00 a.m. I was expecting Alain, my former co-worker, but I found out later that he overslept since he had been up until 4 a.m. Heck, I’d oversleep too!

Mike K. was sitting outside the fence in his portable chair and I invited him to warm up with me and he readily agreed. Craig—whose name I’d forgotten—was already inside sitting on the wall. While the three of us warmed up, Sycha arrived but she passed us and walked over to the court where women were in a game. Mike invited her into a game with us while she was waiting.

First Game

My first game would be Sycha and me versus Mike and Craig. It was never close. We won 11-4. Sycha kindly commented, “You are playing so consistently.” To which I explained, “I’m playing righty. “
“It’s been a year?”
“Two years.”
“It seems like you haven’t missed a beat.”

Down the Middle

For the next game, Sycha went off to join the women but Hue had arrived—with his small dog in tow—and joined our court. Craig suggested I play with Hue; Craig felt he made too many mistakes and wanted to spare Mike suffering through another game with him. So, it was Craig and me against Mike and Hue. Mike was funny . . . after the latest winner down the middle, he exclaimed, “Damn it, Andrew! You haven’t missed one of those yet!” It was a good game. Craig and I pulled ahead, they caught back up, but then we finished off the game.

Another Level

We rotated partners so it was Hue and me against Craig and Mike. During the game when we were about to serve, Hue turned to me and said, “I was playing in a ladder on Friday [elsewhere] and I was holding my own—but you guys play at a whole ‘nother level.” Hue and I went on to win.

Dean

Dean arrived. It’s always great to play against Dean. He’s such a good player. Hue and I played against Dean and Craig. Dean tried a “no looky” on me. We were all at the net when Hue hit a ‘too high’ dink. I was on the right and Dean was across from me. Dean was very much selling a crosscourt shot but at the last instant he directed the ball off to my right. I whipped my paddle over and whacked the ball crosscourt and into Craig’s chest. Point over. Dean had tried this several years ago against me. Last time, I’d hit a passing shot off his left side for a winner. Andrew 2, Dean no-looky 0. Ha! But overall, Dean 291, Andrew 3. (I made that up, but you get the idea.) As for this game, it was close, but Hue and I lost 12-10.

Checked the time, it was 10:06 a.m. Time to hit the road.

As I started to walk out, saying goodbyes, Dean said, “You’re leaving and taking your highlight play with you?”
“You have plenty of highlight play for all of us, Dean!”

Advice

Dean had offered two pieces of advice that stuck with me during the game.

One was hitting my drop shots higher. “Counterintuitive, I know, but you want them to hit the ball on the bounce.” Something to work on. The “goldilocks zone” of higher but not too high.

The second was on a crosscourt dink he made to my left. I was considering an ATP with it and waited on the shot, but I judged that it wasn’t going go out wide enough to get a proper angle back into the court, so I changed my mind and had to hit the ball up—it was a bad shot and got attacked. Dean said that if I’d taken another step and let the ball drop more, I would have had the ATP and it would have been nearly indefensible. My ego says I made a good decision and couldn’t have pulled off the ATP. My brain says, maybe he was right, he was observing and not actively in the shot and maybe could make a better judgement. Then my brain and ego say that it’s hard to judge distance and angles along the line of ball travel. Regardless, his advice is very good. Wait as long as you can for an ATP and hit the ball when it’s low.

This was a fabulous day of good games and I played extremely well.

Number of days on a court: 399
Number of total hours: 2,035

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

Thursday, August 5, 2021 (Court Day #398)

I had to stay a bit late for work and didn’t get to Skypark until 7:00 p.m. Three courts had games going and Janet was sitting on the ground waiting as the “odd man out.” I asked if she wanted to warm up with me and while she had already played, she said yes. Janet has gotten so much better than four years ago. Not quite to the level where I’d necessarily want her as a partner in 3.5 mixed doubles, but if I were playing 3.0, very possibly. Janet mentioned that this was her last year teaching, then when she retires in June and she and her husband Bruce would be moving away to a more affordable area. Such a bummer. She will be the second of a regular couple to move away—along with Olga and Oleg moving very soon. Janet did say that regardless of where they go, there will be pickleball!

I played all my games lefty tonight. I’m just being careful with that right elbow.

I played a few games then found myself just dragging. Dra-gging. Like, not wanting to move dragging. I was trying to understand why this was. Why am I so tired? Then I figured it out. My entire food consumption for the day was about 400 calories. Not enough!

There was a couple older women whom I’d never met who said they’d been playing for 3 months. They had signed up for a pickleball camp and it turned out it was for intermediate players and they were both brand new players! She said they’d learned a lot about what not to do!

I was preparing to head out but got talked into a game with Janet, Jacquie, and her husband Larry as my partner. It was a back and forth game. Game point was me executing a lefty backhand ATP off a crosscourt dink by Janet. It was a thing of beauty, passing Jacquie at knee level or lower.

9:30 p.m. and it was time to go.

Home

I used my newly-acquired used massage gun again tonight. The battery held up again without dying. I suspect that the battery level indicator is broken. Still, for about $50 for the unit, charger, attachments, case, I’m happy with the purchase.

Number of days on a court: 398
Number of total hours: 2,034

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