Author: andrewlenz (Page 325 of 331)

The Perfect Game

So, I’ve been watching these videos of matches analyzing what I’m doing wrong and what I’m doing right.

I came to the conclusion that there are sometimes shots made by an opponent that are just really, really good shots and there is nothing you can do.

There was one that I thought was one of those, but after watching it a few times, it may have been preventable. In motion up from the baseline at midcourt, I drop the ball cross court from my right to left. It’s a decent shot. Low and fairly shallow. But it’s still high enough to volley. My opponent (in this case Marie) dinks back cross court and it’s perfect, right on the edge line. I just cannot reach it to hit it back. Once she hit that, the only way I could have returned it was to have a six or seven foot arm and I don’t have one. (Not that I’d really want one, it’d be hard to find shirts!) I might have been able to prevent her volley by doing a better drop shot on the run.

About to bounce right on the line. Nice shot, Marie!

But I keep working backward on that point. Back to the serve. My serve from the right service court. I served it shallow, which brought her up to the kitchen. A short serve is not necessarily bad, it’s good to mix up your serves. But generally, you want to hit it deep to keep your opponent at the baseline. This time, I didn’t catch her napping and she returned it down the middle into my court right by my left forcing a backhand by me. (It was a safe shot, about 4-5 feet short of my baseline.) Now, this is where I made a mistake. I should have done one of two shots: a drop shallow into the kitchen or a lob over her head. (Lobs are rare by the pros, by the way, since they have great drop shots.) Instead my drop shot wasn’t shallow enough. She volleyed it back short to my forehand. I had to take it on the move, I didn’t have time to set up then hit. That’s where the above paragraph takes over. My decent shot. And I moved into the right place at that point, on the kitchen line, guarding the middle. But being that she could take it in the air, she had the angle and put the point away.

Maybe there is a perfect game out there where you do everything right but still lose points. And it seems that should be winner shots that are simply unpreventable even if you do everything right. There was another lost point in one of my videoed matches where I figured it was just one of those perfect shots that I had to just notch up to my opponent’s skill or luck. But now I wonder if that one is also traceable back to an error or lack of precision/skill on my part.

All I can do is continue to analyze and get the hours in. Maybe I’ve mentioned this already, but in sailing, they talk about “time on the water”, that is, to get better, you just need to be out sailing—maybe it’s races, maybe it’s drills, but it’s time on the water.

For me, it’s still just a lot of time on the court that needs to be put in.

(Funny thing is, after watching it over and over, it looks like her shot on the line was actually out. Not by much, but out. And I told her I thought it was in. Ah, well!)

Number of day on a court: 11 (still)
Number of hours: 31 (still)

Sunday, April 2, 2017 (Court Day #11)

Panorama of Derby Park

My wife had an unrelated but apropos phrase that happened to apply to my games today: “You have to fail to learn.”

It’d be easy to blame it on my borrowed paddle that has dings in the face and a grip that is too small—except that I’ve been using it for two months and have played better while use it.

It’d be easy to blame my sore right shoulder, sore from hurling the softball yesterday for about half an hour with my college-aged son—except I didn’t even notice the soreness until the last 30-45 minutes and even then it was passing.

This simply has to fall on what’s between the ears.

Arrival

I got to the courts about 9:15 under cloudy skies that would later give way to sunburn. I was a bit late since I was copying game video files over for John. If I had another data stick around, I would have made some copies for Eric too, but as it was, he gave me one when I got to Derby. Anyway, being that I left at 12:20, I still got a solid 3 hours in. Even with the largest crowd I’ve ever seen there—Dave, the SCPC head, loudly announced, “We’re playing games to 9, not 11. We have a lot of people waiting.”—waits weren’t too bad between games.

I played a game with John where I hit a serve low and short and the receiver ran up and returned it into the net. John—cracks me up—said, “Oh, that was sneaky, Andrew. Nice mixing them up. Did you do that on purpose?” “Yep!” There were a few failed returns like that today off of my serves. That’s a plus, right?

My serve dropping just past the kitchen line. (Just right of that white line.) Yes, it was intentional!

But it was just one of those days with more bad than good. I had my moments, but there were too many bad ones that stick in my mind. I’m a perfectionist. I can’t help it.

Hey, Nice…

Later in the morning, it was nice that Bruce and I were able to squeak a game past Ray and his wife Robin, both solid players. I was pretty pleased with myself and Bruce.

…But Back to Reality

But the next game, a tall nice fellow named Jeff along with young Tom L. took Bruce and me apart. Tom is roughly as skilled as I am. Then the following game pitted Jeff and Ileana against Tom and me, figuring it’d be more fair since Ileana was the weakest player of the four. But Jeff is a force of nature. He and Ileana still clobbered us with a final score something like 11-3. Jeff has an excellent command of intense spins and reliable ball placement. He shared that he had a lot of experience with a variety of racket sports . . . as they used say back in the day, “No doy!” (Which translates, “no duh” or “no surprise there”!) Jeff is at least a 4.0 player and maybe a 4.5 player. Heck, maybe even a 5.0.

Frustration and Hours

I have to admit that I’m a bit depressed and frustrated with what felt like a relapse today. But I have to remember that I have a grand total of 10 days and almost exactly 28 hours of playing so far over two months coming into today. What is it that they say? 10,000 hours to truly master something? I have a lot of hours to go.

*sigh*

Shopping

My wife Kristen and I dropped off our son Nicholas at the San Jose Airport to head back to UCLA for the spring quarter. Kristen wanted to stop by Sports Basement to pick up a knee brace. John has her and his wife Diane and myself on the docket for an evening game using  his own portable net and Kristen doesn’t want to run the risk of the pivoting and strain on her knees to affect her running. She found a brace while I checked out their pickleball selection. The clerk apologized in advance as she walked me over. They only had starter paddles and sets. You know, those heavy wood paddles. But I did pick up a new pair of running shoes for the court and—at the prompting of my wife—a pair of socks to at least sometimes replace my standard white “ugly socks”. Maybe I’ll be fashionable!

Number of day on a court: 11
Number of hours: 31

Friday, March 31, 2017

New Paddle Time!

I pulled the trigger at lunch time today. I ordered a new paddle. I decided on the Paddletek Tempest Wave. I also ordered some overgrip to beef up the handle. The SCPC has a deal with Pickleball Central where the purchaser gets a 5% discount and the SCPC gets a 5% cut of the sale. The price on the paddle was $10 more than I could find elsewhere but since the other supplier was here in California, it was more or less of a wash with sales tax, so I opted to get the SCPC their 5% donation and wait an extra day or two for shipping from Washington State. There may be a paddle that’s better for me, but this Paddletek model is popular locally and according to one interview online, it holds up well and doesn’t need replacing as oft as others. I can always sell this one later or save it as a backup. I don’t want to keep using John’s loaner paddle forever!

Videos

I recorded four games on Wednesday morning. I haven’t watched all of them in detail yet, but I very much have a tendency to hit the ball too high that often results in a slam back to my side of the court. There’s a reason that “Keep it low” is a pickleball saying you hear frequently! The last game of the four was lost on a slam down the middle from a hit that I popped up too high. (My teams won the remaining three of the four recorded games, but that can be a function of an opponent’s weak play more than my skill.) If I can eliminate popping a ball up, it’ll make a world of difference in my play. While I’ve won a few points so far on unreturnable serves, serves aren’t a make or break part of the game—oh, you can maybe give yourself an advantage, but you aren’t going to immediately lose the point merely by hitting a serve where you opponent can run up to the kitchen line. But popping up a short lob right in front of your opponent at their kitchen line is asking for big trouble!

Another thing I notice in one video was a point where I favored my forehand in dinking. I moved myself out of position to my left leaving an unreachable gap between my partner and myself (bad), followed by an apparently impatient forehand hit crosscourt too high (bad) that was slammed back down the middle to close out the point. Duh. I was hitting it hard though my contact with the ball was below the top of the net. Notice in this video still (below) where I am (foreground, left, in blue). My forehand followthrough is obvious and my hit is high—you can see the ball right above the centerline across the net. What’s coming is the winner that I was just talking about. Bam. Right down the middle. Rookie move on my part.

Maybe I’ll post the videos to YouTube. They are like watching paint dry, though there are a handful of points that make it to a respectable rally!

Eric (in yellow) did make a perfect crosscourt drop shot from near the baseline to John’s (in white) backhand. It was a thing of beauty! Notice that I (right) am slow getting started to the kitchen line. Proof of yet another thing to work on! (Maybe I was just in stunned awe of Eric’s pro-level execution! Maybe by now I should be used to those appearing from Eric!)

The question is “will I be playing Sunday?” My son Nicholas is flying out Sunday afternoon back to UCLA after spending his spring break in town. Pickleball might be Wednesday next week—though I may have my new paddle by then!