Author: andrewlenz (Page 40 of 327)

Sunday, July 27, 2025 (Court Day #834)

Today is the annual “Wharf to Wharf” race. This year, my wife, our son, and her friend are participating. I would say “run” it, but that’s not really true. They registered for the race and have bib numbers, but they are joining the race somewhere in the middle and will be walking it.

Brommer

I dropped them off where they asked to be, then I headed the few blocks to Brommer Park to go play. The bad news is that as I drove up the hill next to the park at 8:15 a.m., I was surprised to see, off to my left, a line of apparently circling cars in the parking lot. After I turned into the lot myself, my newfound fears were confirmed. The Brommer Park lot was completely full of race participant cars—and the sides of the roads in the surrounding blocks were full of their parked cars as well! I was very annoyed. I spotted a few players on the courts from my car, but with no place to park, irritated, I decided head back home and then onto Derby Park for club day.

Last year at this time, I was still the long-time Sunday site coordinator for Derby Park and therefore was never at Brommer on a Sunday. I will have to keep in mind for next year that on race weekend, the Brommer parking spaces will all be snaked by runners not using the park.

Derby Park

After driving back to Santa Cruz, I walked into the Derby courts at 8:52 a.m. The courts were already full.

As is typical at Derby Park, it started out overcast. Then the fog burnt off, and it got sunny while still being cool. 

Most of the games this morning were uneventful, however there were two games that were of interest. Both were against a guy named Frank who was sporting a PPR (certified coach) cap—like the one I own—and his friend named Tim. Tim is tall and thin with white hair and Frank is about my height with short-cropped hair and a fit build. I’d never seen either of them before and I’ve never heard of Frank as a local coach. I suspect that they may have been visiting.

Tim and Frank both returned shots that I would otherwise not expect to come back. They were worthy adversaries. In the first game, I was paired up with Jeff’s brother Scott against them. Scott imploded in the middle of the game and we couldn’t recover and lost.

It wasn’t entirely on Scott. Tim hit a rocket, which was passing near my head and I tried to pull my paddle down out of the way in time, but unfortunately the ball clipped the edge of my paddle in careening off into a neighboring court. I guess I can say that at least I was pulling my paddle down and out of the way and trying to do the correct thing. Had I simply gotten out of the way, that ball would’ve easily hit the fence behind us at least 3 to 4 feet above the ground.

Scott apologized later. My right hand hurt. He had popped up a ball and it was slammed down onto my hand. “If you were my brother, I wouldn’t apologize!” (That’d be Jeff who arrived later in the session.)

In the second game, I was paired up with Marin who is Soji’s husband. Marin is originally from Glasgow, Scotland and sports a Scottish accent. It is pronounced “MAR-in”. Marin is a good player. I’m kind of surprised that I hadn’t run into him previously. I think we won, but all I can remember is that it was a good game.

At 11:40 a.m., there are too many players waiting for me to get onto a court and still be done with my next game by noon. I needed to get home to eat lunch then go teach my classes. So I called it a day.

And?

Overall, I felt good about my play, but aside from the games against Tim and Frank, the competition wasn’t particularly strong. Even against him and Frank I still got at least four or five points from serves that they returned into the net or out. Yes, serves can be a weapon.

Referee Tom

Tom Sherwood is working his way to become a certified referee. I spotted him talking to Maree—who has been refereeing at tournaments around the country for years—a few times this morning. 

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Monday, July 28, 2025 (No Play)

Fake A.I. generated videos are still a novelty—”1984″ is arriving—and sometimes they are hilarious, like this one…
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMp92l9MSMZ/

Number of days on a court: 834
Number of total hours: 3,240
Number of paid coaching hours: 156.5

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

Tuesday, July 22, 2025 (Court Day #833)

It was sunny and in the low 70s when I left work at 6:30 p.m.

Gas?

While I was on the freeway between Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley, I looked at my gas gauge and noticed that the gas light was on, then I looked at my dashboard to see how many miles I had left… a big red zero! I was hoping there would be enough in my tank to finish my trip to Scotts Valley and their gas stations right off the freeway. I did my best to kind of draft off of other cars—from a safe distance, of course—and keep my speed down and avoid braking to conserve fuel. 

Fortunately, I did make it to the gas station. Maybe I was coasting in on vapor, I have no idea. Surprising for an evening, as I filled up, the sun was warm enough that I stood in the shade to keep cool. The car took just over 18 gallons, a new record! (A record that I hope to never break!)

Skypark

Hugh was leaving as I pulled in the lot, but David L. took that last spot. I had to park a full block away. 

I walked into the courts at 6:50 p.m. I played a number of unmemorable games.

Adam and I played against David and Kirby. We lost 6-11. Adam shared that he wasn’t playing his best. I wasn’t either. It was getting pretty dark. We wrapped up that last game at 8:50 p.m.

And?

Boy. I was not happy with my play. This was one of those nights where I feel like it’s time to give up pickleball.

I sweaty when I left. It was still 64°F.

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Wednesday, July 23, 2025 (No Play)

Andre Agassi and Anna Leigh Waters presented a testimonial about pickleball that appeared on social media today:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DMddJ7Zqf2h/

Rec Sighting

Here’s a reporter up in San Francisco talking about new court booking fees:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMdvS0sB8Sa/
If you look closely at the sign in the background, you’ll see the “Rec” logo. Yep, that’s the same company that is contracted with the County of Santa Cruz and the City of Scotts Valley, and also employs me to teach pickleball classes.

Pickleball Teens Participation

SFIA is the Sports & Fitness Industry Association which does surveys to determine trends in the sports world. Here’s a stat from them:

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Thursday, July 24, 2025 (No Play)

Here is an hour long interview about DUPR…

I haven’t watched it yet, but I’m looking forward to doing so.

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Friday, July 25, 2025 (No Play)

This little video short is hilarious. In it, you can see pro player Zane coaching and the reaction of his student!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMffkubgIJi/

Dating?

A new dating app for pickleball players, PickleMatch, is launching today. I’m sure—or hope—this is better for those who actually need (or want) this. There is a Facebook group for pickleball singles, but it’s full of fake profiles seeking to scam people. Well, except for the male posts. The male posts are real. (Mostly.)

Rules Stuff

The “starting server” and “first server” are not the same thing. The starting server is the server who serves for the very first time for a given team. In a tournament, the starting server wears a band to indicate so—also called the “banded player”. On the other hand, the first server is whoever happens to be on the right side after a side out. 

Pro Player Representation

Wanting more control over their destinies, pro players started a new group:
“The World Pickleball Players Association (WPPA) is a player-led organization dedicated to uniting and empowering professional pickleball athletes.”

The UPA (parent of the PPA) issued a statement that the only player group they recognize is their own committee, their Pro Player Committee (PPC).

It seems that the pro players weren’t happy with the PPC situation and make their own organization.

Number of days on a court: 833
Number of total hours: 3,237.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 153.5

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

Sunday, July 20, 2025 (Court Day #832)

I left my house at 9 a.m. sharp. It was overcast and 57° and the street had damp patches from precipitation.

I needed to teach this afternoon so I couldn’t stay and play indefinitely this morning.

At some point, I’ll probably need to take a break from pickleball and give my right knee some rehabilitation time. When I sit too long, my knee gets stiff and a little sore. My knee was complaining some yesterday afternoon at work.

Brommer Park

I parked in the Brommer lot at 9:14 a.m., grabbed my backpack out of the backseat, and walked in.

I played good games with Hugh, Dan Dewey and the tattooed, tanned, bearded guy named Aaron who serves hard and likes to use inside-out deceptive shots.

It was another day of lighter attendance, so I went from game to game to game.

While I didn’t get to play against the strongest local players, most of the games were reasonably challenging. And there are a few rallies today where I really impressed myself.

The last game was Hugh and myself against Marquis and a guy I met once before at club play named Kris. That was the only game of the day that I lost. We lost 7–11. Hugh kind of imploded in that game and apologized to me as we walked up to the net together to tap paddles with Kris and Marquis.

While I had a couple of streaks where I was missing shots, most of the morning I was playing extremely well—I was on fire.

At 11:50 a.m., it was time to call it a day.

Over the course of the 2 1/2 hours that I played this morning, I may have had as many as ten of my serves returned into the net by my opponents. And I only missed one serve today. That’s a pretty good ratio of miss servers versus returns into the net.

It was still overcast in 63° when I left, but I was sweating nonetheless.

Stolen!

Mid-session today, Hugh arrived, was inside the courts for a few minutes, then left, then came back about 10 minutes later. He said that his backpack, which he had left outside the men’s restroom door and included two of his paddles, was stolen. Such a drag. I loaned him my Players Rogue 2 paddle and told him to keep it until he had a new paddle for himself.

Teaching

I taught my two classes from 1:30 until 4:35 p.m. when I called it a day—I gave them an extra five minutes.

Cole from Michigan

As I was talking to some of my students after class, a tall, young man with a trim beard walked up and asked if we wanted to play. My students said that they were worn out and didn’t want to stay. The young guy thanked us and returned back across the courts to stand near the gate, looking on.

I was about to collect my things and go when I figured I could spend 15 minutes drilling, so I signaled the fellow across the courts and as he made his way over, he was stopped by yet another fellow who wanted to get into a game along with the woman who was with him.

Cole, John, Stephanie

The 6-foot man with a beard turned out to be Cole and he moved to our area from Michigan back in February. The other two were John and his lefty mom Stephanie. Cole had his moments, but he is prone to some errors, especially with his backhand. John is definitely a stronger player than his mom, though she is decent. I would say Stephanie is in the 3.0 range, John is at least a 3.5, and Cole is probably a high 3.0.

Cole and I were losing the first game but then came back and dominated to win the game and a lopsided fashion.

In the second game, we lost 10–12.

Before that last game, Cole changed out his paddle and then mid-game—when he was still unhappy with his play—he switched paddles back to his original one. It was not the magic bullet however, since we went on to lose that game too… in a lopsided fashion.

It was about 5:25 p.m. when I left. I had to get home to shower and get ready for dinner with my wife and a couple of friends.

Wilson

Of course, Wilson is well known in the tennis world. I remember playing with Wilson tennis balls—along with Penn balls—back in the 1970s as a kid. They’re entering the pickleball world by creating a paddle. Here’s an ad:

One thing that rubs me the wrong way, but it shouldn’t, is the “racquet” reference. While pickleball is considered a racquet sport, there are no racquets in pickleball. A way to tell someone that you are either new to pickleball—or are simply are disrespectful of the game—is to call a pickleball paddle a racquet.

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Monday, July 21, 2025 (no play)

Zane Navratil on his The Dink podcast had a really good point about DUPR. He indicated that you could have two games that end with the same score of 11–2, but that final score is not necessarily representative of the skill involved. You could have an 11–2 game that ends in 10 minutes or you could have an 11–2 game that takes 45 minutes. In other words, one game could have just one side out, but another could have 30 to 40 sideouts. Both are treated exactly the same by the DUPR algorithm. But until DUPR allows you to put in score and server as you go, it won’t be able to account for these situations.

More DUPR

Wow. This was posted on Facebook. This is crazy. You beat another team 15-2 and your DUPR rating goes down? Down?

I looked up Kevin Chaves and he’s a 3.715. I found several “Stephen Fitzpatrick” players, with ratings higher than Chaves. One being a 4.813 and another being a 3.962. I suspect that in this instance must have been the former player. (I didn’t look up the other two partners, Matthew and Mike.)

This reminds me of years ago when Ben Johns and Kyle Yates came to Northern California for the Golden State Championships and Bryan from San Jose and his partner played against them, the #1 doubles team in the world. Bryan and his partner scored 2 points in their loss. (Bryan was not happy.) Now, if unranked players can score 2 points on the world’s best doubles team, should Ben’s and Kyle’s ratings should have gone down? (DUPR didn’t exist yet back then.)

The problem is this forces a team to be brutal against opponents. Mercy is punished. You can’t be nice and let the other team score a point to make them feel better. No mercy.

Number of days on a court: 832
Number of total hours: 3,235
Number of paid coaching hours: 153.5

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