Author: andrewlenz (Page 84 of 327)

Tuesday, August 13, 2024 (Court Day #701)

My right forearm is feeling a little sore, as is the inside of my right knee. Mild ailments, but ailments nonetheless.

It was sunny and 72°F when I arrived at the courts in Scotts Valley. As I drove from work, my internal debate was parking near the courts or trying to park in the remote lot by the field. With kids’ soccer events going on, the remote lot has been pretty busy the last couple times that I parked there. I figured I’d instead try my luck near the courts today.

Drew, who got himself in with the local elite players group, was leaving just as I arrived and I took his spot on the street after he left with his truck. That was relatively convenient. He opened his window, “Good timing!”

Games

A very first game was with the mixture of weaker players and made for a leisurely warm-up game.

Crap

For the second game, Marco and Nicole were signed up in a box and I walked up and was about to sign my name when Nicole said that she wanted to play a mixed game. Laura (moved from Visalia) was standing nearby, so I asked if she wanted to play with me in that game. She agreed and we teamed up.

OMG. I was not playing well in that second game. Sure, there are some good rallies, but I made a lot of mistakes. For instance, in one rally, I was slamming drives at Nicole who is near the baseline and she returned all of them and then I hit one long, which ended the rally. So dumb.

I felt like I played horribly in that game. I felt bad for Laura. Granted, it was only my second game, but sheesh.

Just Off

It’s seemed like my play was all just a little bit off tonight. I was warming up over the tennis net with Gabe and I could feel the ball contacting my paddle off center. It was odd.

The game I felt the best about was Fabrizio and myself against a guy named Mike, I don’t know very well but I’ve seen before, and Alex, the 30-ish redhead with a trim beard. Fabrizio made a series of errors and we found ourselves down quite a bit, but then we went on a run and came back to nearly tied the score for down 7–8. We did end up losing that game, but the least we made it respectable. Alex has pretty quick hands.

Newbies & The Ninja

In a match with a couple of newbies, Jeff and Ryan, who know each other and live in Scotts Valley, I played with Ryan and Gabe played with Jeff. Ryan was pretty funny after one particular rally which we won… Ryan just had to watch that rally as I was taking a lot of shots. After I hit the winner, he said I was “like a ninja” and demonstrated by whipping his paddle around in a martial arts fashion. It is quite amusing!

We didn’t to get to finish that game since the lights clicked out with the score at 8–4. That was the last game of the night. I took one of the nets down, then hung out for a few minutes. It turned out that someone had locked up the bin , but had forgotten to put in the weight tray race board. Fortunately, I have the code so I was able to unlock the bin of the board and lock the bin back up.

Wildlife

Rachel was sharing some trail mix and some sour beer, and I took her up on the trail mix but passed on the beer.

Aaron Hicks mentioned he had seen a scorpion recently right outside the gate to the courts on the sidewalk. He went on with a the story of a house in the Santa Cruz Mountains which had been abandoned for 10 years and when the owners went to clean it out, they found the house full of scorpions! I guess we need to be a little bit more careful around the courts!

In response, Rachel pulled out her phone and shared some pictures of a beetle. She explained that in the middle of a game last Friday, the ball came over the net in the midst of a rally and it just died when it bounced on the ground. They were really confused until they looked and figured out a very large beetle on the court was to blame! The beetle didn’t seem too worse for wear after getting smacked with the ball. Sturdy bug!

Overall

There are up days and down days, and tonight felt like a slight down day. I guess the good news is, that the floor of my bad days seems to be gradually getting better. These days, a bad day for me is probably 3.5 level play instead of 3.0 as it has been in the past.

Number of days on a court: 701
Number of total hours: 2,924
Number of paid coaching hours: 63.5

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

Sunday, August 11, 2024 (Court Day #700)

I had a somewhat leisurely morning. That’s good news for a change after nearly 7 years of opening up Derby Park for club play. It was slightly hazy this morning and in the low 60s… pretty good weather for pickleball play.

René posted on Facebook that she is taking a break from pickleball to allow her shoulder to heal. I replied with a “Good for you.” We all tend to be addicted and want to play… though allowing time for our bodies to heal is often wiser.

I’m still learning the ropes for play at Brommer and figuring out my expectations. So far, the past two Sundays, I haven’t had much problem getting into games and those games were pretty good.

Brommer

I pulled into Brommer park at 10:07 a.m. and there were four empty parking spots. Convenient.

I think on Sundays it will behoove me to get to the courts earlier. Maybe even closer to 8 a.m. Ofer said that he had been there since 8 a.m. and that it was busy then. (And Ofer was still there when I left—that’s at least five hours!)

Oscar was there, along with Kiko, Josh, Drew, and some others. People I would have loved to play with. But it didn’t happen. Aside from Oscar, the rest don’t know my play level. I’m an unknown. When I get a chance to break in, I’ll have to play well or I’ll be shunned and it may be awhile before I get another chance.

Mimi, Rick, Maia

I played in a game against Rick Arnold and woman named Mimi. Mimi is a pretty good player—better than I was expecting. Not as good as René, but a strong player. I was partnered with Maia. Surprisingly, we took a strong lead and went ahead 7-3. They kept the game close and there was only so much I could do when they were obviously targeting my weaker partner. They came back and won.

We played a rubber match of this game. It was entertaining. Mimi commented, “You have really fast hands!” (That’s probably the 100th time I’ve heard that!)

Ofer, Kyle, David

Ofer and I took on a couple 50-ish guys who apparently are friends, Kyle and David. It was a close game but we won.

Brenden, who is the administrator/founder of the Santa Cruz Pickleball Facebook group, asked to play a game with me. (I’m a moderator for that group, Trevor Fish is the only other moderator.) We won 11-0 against Kyle and David. There was one service where they claimed that we were already on the second server (we weren’t) and it was side out, but I told Brenden we were going to win anyway, and we just let it go.

Brenden and David teamed up against Kyle and me. We lost. I didn’t play as well in that game… and of course, Brenden is very much a better than average player. Kyle’s and my play styles didn’t mesh very well. My forehand and his backhand would clack paddles, for instance.

Lefty Game

Pauly and I teamed up against Maia and Ofer. Ofer said, “I don’t think this is a fair combination.” I replied, “I’ll play left-handed.” And I did, every shot. Pauly played his standard righty and was being somewhat silly at times. He attempted 3 or 4 tweener shots and made one, if I remember correctly. He also did a pirouette, spinning around and hitting the ball out of bounds. I had a few “nice shot” compliments from my court-mates—fun to hear when you are playing with your offhand!

All Lefty Game—Kind of…

The last game was against Spencer and Mo. I was playing with lefty Greg, who is a low 3.5 at best. I kidded with Spencer about playing lefty. Spencer switches a lot, playing lefty while on the right to keep his forehand in the middle. Spencer said, “If you play lefty, everyone on the court will be playing lefty!” Mo played really well in that game, even lefty… well enough that I had to switch to my right hand.

At 12:45 p.m., the crowd had cleared out to the point were getting into games was becoming difficult—especially with foursomes immediately launching a new games without taking into account people who were waiting. It was time for me to go.

I was about to leave, I complimented Mo, “Really nice play with your left hand!”
That’s when she reminded me that she’s naturally a lefty!
So hilarious! I went through the whole game thinking Spencer and Mo were both artificially playing lefty. Spencer, yes. Mo, no!

Today was pickleball outing #700! I forgot to mention it to anyone. Another milestone.

Uncle Pickleball Exposure

My 73-year-old uncle Jerry, who lives about 6 hours away, texted me tonight and told me that he was watching pickleball on TV for the first time, “Interesting.” He has sent me some photos of his TV screen showing pickleball last week, but apparently, he didn’t actually watch any of it!

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Monday, August 12, 2024 (No Play)

On a whim, I emailed Jerry Louis—part of the Santa Cruz pickleball OG but moved out of state about 5 years ago—and asked him if I could interview him about the history of pickleball in Santa Cruz. He got back to me pretty quickly and said he has a lot of photos and history to share and he wanted my phone number since he prefers texting and chatting over email. I’m looking forward to that!

Number of days on a court: 700
Number of total hours: 2,922
Number of paid coaching hours: 63.5

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

Friday, August 9, 2024 (Court Day #699)

I took a big chunk of the day off from work today. I had a busy morning. I took our older corgi Oliver to the vet. On my way home, I got a call from my daughter asking me to confirm that her passport was here in Santa Cruz and not among her things after her move to Tucson. (It was indeed here.) After that, I had a little bit of prep to meeting minutes from last month for the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club board meeting today.

Brommer

I stepped out of my car at Brommer Park at 9:52 a.m. There was one spot in the parking lot that I was able to grab, which was great.

Bruce and I played a game against Dean and Leslie. Leslie was not having a good day. Bruce and I won that one.

I was playing against Bruce and Soji. I hadn’t met Soji before. She’s tall, thin, sports bleached blonde hair, and about 10 years younger than me. Her play is not flashy and she doesn’t have a ton of power, but has good drops and is very consistent. She’s a good player. She said she started playing during the pandemic in 2020.

I felt a bit bad. There was a crosscourt dink from my right high enough for me to attack and I did a backhand flick into Soji’s torso. (My partner told me, “You’ll need to teach me that!”) Soji wasn’t expecting it and ended up on the ground. But we were signed up in a blue 4.0+ level game, this wasn’t a mixed skill game. There are going to be attacks.

Soji had a really nice crosscourt shot and I didn’t have a lot of choice and went for an ATP. I never use a two-handed backhand, but I did for this particular shot. Don’t ask me why, it was automatic. Regardless, I hit the ball alongside the sideline, and it dropped in behind Bruce near the corner of the court for a winner. While it was an ATP, it was a higher shot, about shoulder level. I suspect that Bruce didn’t think it was going to hook back and land in the court.

SCPC Meeting

I squeezed in one last game and was over at the park tables for the our board meeting at about 12:20 p.m. It was supposed to start at 12:15, but I was a little late. But Dan Bliss was even 10 more minutes, so I wasn’t the worst!

Number of days on a court: 699
Number of total hours: 2,919.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 63.5

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