Author: andrewlenz (Page 324 of 331)

Sunday, April 9, 2017 (Court Day #13)

I spent yesterday in San Francisco, seeing my son Nicholas sail for UCLA in a college regatta. (He did pretty well, finishing the top third of the fleet.) Between races, I killed time reading the official IFP rules for pickleball that I had printed off of the IFP website. John’s son Michael sails for the University of Hawaii which was competing, so John was watching races as well, though he sailed himself in a dinghy regatta elsewhere in the Bay Area that morning. When John arrived in the afternoon, he asked what I was reading.
“The pickleball rules.”
“Ha! I knew it!”
Yah, John. It’s your fault. You got me hooked!

The Day Begins

I arrived at Derby about 9:10 and helped set up a net. Today was my first day using my new paddle.

The first thing I noticed about my paddle was the change in sound, a lower pitch on impact with the ball. That’s not good or bad, but different. The performance wasn’t all that much different than the paddle that I had on loan from John, but at least now I can’t blame my paddle when I hit my drop shot into the net all the time!

I played a game against Eric and Tom S. with Jerry as my partner. (Now, this is a different Jerry, not Jerry Louis the tournament player. I remember playing against this Jerry at Scotts Valley and being told to hit to his backhand.) Jerry saw me putting up my GoPro camera and said, “Why are you recording?” “So I can get better.” “But you are already a good player.” Nice to hear, though I have a loooong way to go!

Jerry is a super nice guy and has a strong forehand as well as what can be a deadly lob—our first point came on a perfect lob of his to right corner over Tom’s head. While I have a number of areas to work on, Jerry has only one obvious one, that is running around his backhand. Shown in the photo below, instead of hitting with his backhand, he moved to his far left to hit it with is forehand. Unfortunately, his forehand drive left a whole lot of the court unprotected and Eric, at the net, dropped the return into the upper right of our court for a winner. I intended to mention this to Jerry in case he isn’t aware of this, but I spaced. (Yes, I am not perfect!) Next time I play with him, I should tell to just go ahead and work on his backhand, to heck with the final score!

Hanging In

Here’s a sequence that shows that I’m getting better. Here is Eric about to slam Jerry’s (too short) lob at me:

As you can see above,  I have my paddle in a neutral ready position. I successfully hit the ball back near Eric’s left foot and return to ready position:

Eric manages to get it returned, but it’s a touch too high:

And the slammer becomes the slammee!

“Way to hang in!”, commended Eric. Eric is still a better player than me, but I’m doing my best to improve! Which I need to do.

Just to keep things fair, a couple of points later, here I am hitting a return from Eric, right into the net! (You can just make out the ball hitting the net right where Eric’s left kneecap is.) Rats.

“That’s No Small Moon…”

One of my ongoing problems is not keeping the ball low. Here’s an example:
That yellow spot right above the fence line is not a small moon. That’s the ball that I just popped up . . . and Eric smashed it perfectly right between the feet of Jerry and myself—impossible to return. Watching the video I’m amazed at how high I popped that ball up! So bad!! “Keep it low!” Jerry and I went from leading the game to losing 11-7. Of their last two points, two came from me hitting the ball too low into the net. “Keep it low…but not that low!”

Sneaky Serves

In the above image from another game, you can see my serve landing just past the kitchen line. Wayne did manage to get his paddle on the ball, but he could only get the ball into the net. He did the same thing to me later! I did manage to get my first true ace serve though later against him with a serve closer to the outside corner. Battle of the sneaky servers! I don’t have it recorded since I forgot to erase the previous files of of my GoPro and it ran out of space mid-game. Too bad.

Eric and I did manage to take down the two Toms. Tom S. and young Tom L. 11-2. I think they were having an off day. Though it was a bit funny since Tom L. was kidding right before the game, “You recording me kicking your ass?” Not today! LOL!

Ouch!

Somewhere in the middle of the morning, I did something weird—hyperextended?—to my right big toe. Not enough to keep me from playing but a touch uncomfortable. Add to that my continuing strained right gluteus maximus muscle, my slightly tweaked right hip, my sore—but improving—back. At least might right knee is acting fine. Advil is my friend.

The day wrapped up about 12:20, Dave Allenbaugh stuck around long enough for us to squeeze in one last game before calling it a day. I was worn out, but it’s hard to stop!

Number of day on a court: 13
Number of hours: 37

Thursday, April 6, 2017

One of my staff walked into my office and exclaimed, “Your wand is here from Hogwarts!”

Well, it’s not a wand, but still something pretty fun—my brand new paddle arrived one day early! Figures that it’s raining today plus I have plans tonight anyway, so I won’t be using my new paddle until maybe Sunday.

At lunch time, I took the paddle out of the plastic baggie and tested the grip size. Too small. Not enough gap between my fingers and the fleshy part of my hand near the base of my thumb. And I found the raised ridges on the grip to be annoying. But I had ordered some overgrip too, so I installed that immediately. It beefed up the grip and smoothed out the ridges—both good. The telltale gap should still be a bit bigger, but I’m going to run with it as is and see how it goes. Regardless, I should try to get some paddle time in my garage to get used to it before I play on a court next.

 Paddle grip factory specs

 Paddle grip with overgrip installed

Aches & Pains

I’m not sure what’s up but my right wrist is hurting. It used to chronically bother me a few years back between computer use and preparation/practice for bagpiping competitions. Hopefully, it’ll get better quickly. Plus I have the usual assortment of sore muscles. I was pretty beat by the time yesterday wrapped up. During the last game I played, I could feel the effect of fatigue on my body. It was probably good that Allen wanted to head out and didn’t allow another game to start—though I was ready to keep at it!

Number of days on a court: 12 (Still)
Number of hours playing: 34 (Still)

Wednesday, April 5, 2017 (Court Day #12)

i arrived at Derby Park at 9:10 to find one game already in full swing, my friend John was amongst them.

Today was better than Sunday, I made fewer errors. My number one error is simply hitting the ball into the net when I mean to drop it over, typically when I’m moving up to the kitchen.

During one game, I was partnered with Tom S., a pleasant fellow. Tom is a tall thin man with a trim white beard. He’s a regular. Tom stopped me between points and told me to make sure to keep a player that is back at her baseline back by hitting deep. Of course, he’s right. It’s just implementing what I already have learned into an actual game.

Tom advising me to not hit short to a player who is back. Yeah. Oops.

Eric and I played two games against Allen and Lauren. We lost both by roughly a 2:1 score ratio. We were just making too many mistakes by either setting up easy shots for them or failing to get our shots over the net or within the bountries of their court. That’s not to say they aren’t solid players, they are. Not 5.0 players, but probably one notch above Eric and myself—not as many unforced errors.

I lost a few points over the morning by lobbing too short (smashed back) or too long (out). And you wonder why the pros only lob about 1% of the time.

Serving Hard

While Eric and I were waiting for our opponents, I figured I’d try a hard serve. I hit a serve as hard as I could with topspin. To my surprise, it landed in . . . right on the line in the corner! Not one I’d trust in a game quite yet! Though it still didn’t seem as fast as I’d like, it was promising.

Paddle

I checked the tracking on my paddle and USPS says it’s expected Friday. I had been hoping today, but as far as using it on a court, it makes no difference if it came later today or then. And I’ll still need to install the overgrip anyway.

SCPC Shirts

The Santa Cruz Pickleball Club came up with a new white club T-shirt with a big graphic on the back to go along with the small breastpocket logo. Karen Long kindly arranged the sales. I bought a medium one for $25. I was expecting a standard cotton shirt, but these are fancy wicking synthetics. Now if I can just get good enough to wear it and not dishonor it!

Dave Allenbaugh modeling the new SCPC shirt

Videos

I recorded another few games today. The one I wish I would have recorded was Dan and myself against Dave (former neighbor) and a 30-something tall guy named Mark with short blond hair. Some of the regulars knew Mark though I’d never seen him. I overheard Mark say he’d been in Costa Rica. Mark is a hard hitter. So was this guy Dan. Dan is about my height but stocky, sporting dark hair and a trim beard sprinkled with gray. I’m still trying to figure out how Dan was getting so much speed on his serves. Dan and I won, but that was more Dan than me. I managed to avoid losing too many points. Dan saved me a few times by successfully returning slams that I’d inadvertently set up. But it was nice to not be the reason had we lost. That felt like the most serious game I’d been in with the ball whipping back and forth. There was at least one point where I could take credit since I was volleying at the net and was able to put away the point between Dave and Mark. The match was like jumping onto one of those spinning top-like playground structures—most have removed these days as unsafe!—and hanging on for dear life! You are glad you survived afterward!

The Long Dink

One thing that I’m getting pretty good at is cross court dinking. In the video still above, you can see Dave trying to return my cross court dink. I’ve managed a few of those recently. Hmmm. Looks like Eric and I both should have shifted to the right. If Dave had gotten that he could have popped it down the line or around the post. He did manage to hit it, but not get it back onto our side of the court. Dave and John did come back in this game and win however.

The day wrapped up at noon. Allen seems to have a tighter schedule than Dave A. Dave often hangs out while players continue to play past the official noon ending time; Allen, not so much. I headed home and then off to work to muse about my next pickleball day with rain in the forecast this week.

Number of days on a court: 12
Number of hours: 34