Author: andrewlenz (Page 91 of 328)

Sunday, July 7, 2024. (Court Day #683)

Last night, I had a layer of overgrip to my Rogue 2 paddle handle. I’ve been meaning to do it, I had worn a couple of spots on each side where my thumb rests. Now, the grip is thicker—helps with stress on the arm—and the worn spots are covered up.

My wife and daughter flew out to New Mexico yesterday morning. My daughter is moving from Las Cruces—where her medical school is—to Tucson where she will be doing hospital rotations as part of her third year. Since my wife is gone helping her, I am on dog duty. I asked Barbara Gerry to open up the courts this morning so I could get a bunch of things done, including getting the dogs fed and walked.

As of this morning, my Beginner class starting on Sunday is sold out, however, I still have three of eight slots open in my Advanced Beginner class. I took about 15 minutes this morning to make up a flyer to post a Derby this morning. Hopefully, I can fill those remaining spots. It’s so much easier to teach when you have full balanced courts so I can roam to watch and coach.

Derby

I pulled into the Derby Park neighborhood at about 10:30 a.m. It was cloudy and 61°F. Perfect pickleball weather.

It turned out to be a very busy day with at least 56 people there. That’s about as busy as it gets at Derby. Holiday weekend, I guess.

Rattle

Between games, I noticed that when I wave my Rogue 2 paddle, I can hear something shaking inside of it. I have to contact the Players Pickleball people and see what their policy is for the paddle.

Games

Towards the end of the session, I was in a game with firefighter Rob against Dieter and Brian. Brian was the weakest player of the group and I might give Dieter the nod for being the strongest, though it was close.

There was a pop-up where I was on the left and Dieter was straight ahead of me and slammed the ball down at my feet and he was expecting the rally to be over. Somehow not only did I manage to get my paddle on the ball, but I also did a passing shot down the sideline for a winner. I got a chorus of “nice shot!” and “nice hands!” A little bit later in the game, there was a very similar situation and again Dieter slammed the ball down at me. Only this time, the ball came back and hit him in the chest. After the second shot, Dieter announced, “I’m going to have to change my strategy for those shots!” There was a third slam, but this time, I couldn’t quite get the ball back over the net.

Skill Creep

Biggest annoyance today at the one point later in the session, 2/3 of the boxes signed up on the dry erase board were blue 4.0+. There’s no way there were that many 4.0 level players there. There might have been six, maybe. Maybe. But there is no way there was 20 of them. It was so absurd.

Last Games

I played a few games with James as my partner against a guy Kai and Mike. I don’t know Mike that well but he’s fairly regular. Kai is very quick. He is a good player who has has a complete game. I put him as a solid 3.5 player. He’s not quite ready to be a 4.0 yet. Between games, after asking permission from him, I gave James some tips, like not stepping in after the serve, not backing up when he could just as well volley the ball out of the air, and being patient. Additionally, not inviting opponents to the net by hitting a drop shot while the opponents are at the baseline but close enough to run and get the ball thereby inviting your opponents to a position of power.

I checked my phone. 2:27 p.m. Time to get home and let the dogs out and have breakfast!

Former NFL Quarterback

Tim Tebow, who lead the Denver Broncos to the playoffs some years back, then later returned to the NFL attempting to to play the tight end position, was spotted playing pickleball.

Yes, that’s his foot on the NVZ line. And that was the lesser of his foot faults in the clip. In the video, he does a volley and takes a big ol’ step into the kitchen! Oops!

Star WNBA Rookie

Rookie pro basketball player Caitlin Clark is the buzz of the WNBA right now.

She recently participated in charity pickleball tournament. She should probably stick with basketball. If you watch some of her videos, keep on eye on her flagrant kitchen foot faults!

https://athlonsports.com/wnba/caitlin-clarks-off-court-activity-boyfriend-blowing-up-online

Video: Caitlin Clark Plays Pickleball vs. Fever Teammates Erica Wheeler, Lexie Hull

I can’t help but think of a referee I overheard at Chamisal a couple of years go about unofficiated match he was observing from some elevated seating and he was commenting every minute or so about another kitchen violation. Obviously, it’s mostly a newbie issue, but sometimes more experienced players suffer the same issues.

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Monday, July 8, 2024 (No Play)

When my wife Kristen helped move my daughter Charlotte into her new apartment in Tucson, she found that the complex has pickleball courts. I’ll have to visit during nicer weather and use their courts! Charlotte spends a whole lot of time in her medical studies, but a break now and then can recharge your brain.

USA Pickleball

USAP has launched a new website for membership. It’s in conjunction with Sport:80 which hosts membership services for a wide variety of sport governing bodies, such as USA Track & Field, USA Archery, USA Water Polo and also many for other countries as well.

There are significant hiccups right now but hopefully, those will be worked out in short order.

Protest in Virginia

Officials in Fairfax County are converting dual-use courts back to just tennis:
“Residents say county workers have taken their nets, scrubbed their stenciled pickleball lines and hired security to be present while workers made the fenced-in area suitable for tennis. Residents, meanwhile, have petitioned community members, consulted with an attorney and even staged a sit-in here, hoping to preserve the area for pickleball.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/07/07/annandale-pickleball-courts-tennis-residents-protest
The decision was driven by neighbors annoyed with the sound of pickleball. Where have we heard that before?

Milestones

I realized that I should hit 3,000 hours on a court playing in by the end of this year.

Number of days on a court: 683
Number of total hours: 2,883
Number of paid coaching hours: 49.5

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

Thursday, July 4, 2024, Independence Day (Court Day #682)

There was a mild ache on the inside of my right knee as I walked around getting ready this morning. This is a common state of affairs that simply comes and goes, but, fortunately, it doesn’t seem to bother me on the courts except in rare circumstances.

I left my house at 8:45 a.m. It was already 66°F and I was betting that it was going to be in the 80s today . . . but I’d rather have hot than get rain on a holiday!

I arrived at Brommer Park right about 9 a.m. and there were about half a dozen parking spots left.

Game

My first game was with a man named Tom, whom I’d never met. He came with a group, but the rest apparently weren’t ready to play. We took on Tony Sloss and Alan Cable. Tom and I lost. I wasn’t playing great, but Tom made some shots where his inexperience or lack of strategic acumen showed. Afterward, Tony told me that he was making an effort to hit to me to keep the rallies going. I told him that I hadn’t noticed, but I believe him.

Better games

My second game was with Alan against Tony and Paul, a regular at Brommer, bit older, whose last name I don’t know. Alan and I lost. Alan and I were both not playing our best.

We played a rematch and while it was much closer, I believe we lost that one too . . . after having a significant lead, to boot.

Alan had to leave, so we all left the court and went to get hydrated along the wall.

Patty

Patty D. showed up and there was an empty court at the end. Patty asked if I’d help warm her up and I agreed.

After about 10-15 minutes, we went back to the wall and Patty asked Pauly and Mike O’Brien if they’d play. Mike said he wasn’t here to play but we got Ofer instead in addition to Pauly.

Patty and I lost our first game against Pauly and Ofer. It was close, but we lost.

We played a second time, but this time the outcome was very different and we won 11-1. Patty was getting warmed up! A scary moment, I hit Ofer in the face and knocked his glasses off onto the ground. He—and his glasses—were ok, thankfully. While the speedup was intentional, hitting him in the face was not, believe me. Ofer is a nice guy.

Patty and I went on to also win the third game 11-6.

It’s only 70° but it felt really warm in the sun.

Laura

At this point, we all headed back to the wall to mix things up and also get water. It was warm on the courts.

I got into a game with René against Pauly and a woman named Laura. Laura is a good player.

That first game Lauren and Pauly went up by a few points, but then René and I went on a big run to take the lead. Serving swapped back-and-forth then René and I pulled off the win.

We played a rematch and again Pauly and Laura went up with the lead, 5–1. René and I came back to win 12–10.

It wasn’t until I was about to leave when René said that Laura had just moved here and I realized that Laura might’ve been the woman who played a couple weeks ago at Skypark who was also a strong player. I caught up with Laura in the parking lot and confirmed with her that she had just moved to our area. Then I asked her where she was from, and she answered “Visalia.” I remembered that being the exact same city of the other other woman was from, so the “other” woman was also Laura! So I explained to her we had actually played together Skypark a couple weeks ago and that I didn’t recognize her today either . . . she had not recognized me when we introduced ourselves on the court before our game across the net from each other.

At 12:05 p.m., it was time to go and get ready for the big annual holiday gathering at my parents’ house. Unfortunately, my daughter Charlotte will not be there today since she is shadowing orthopedic surgeons up at UCSF for the rest of the week. She’s heading into her third year medical school and UCSF is great experience for her.

Overall

I didn’t feel that I was playing stellarly today, but I felt I was playing reasonably well and definitely not poorly.

While I have some execution errors today, there were also shot selection errors. Shots that you would get away with while playing weaker players, but not stronger players.

Number of days on a court: 682
Number of total hours: 2,879
Number of paid coaching hours: 49.5

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

Tuesday, July 2, 2024 (Court Day #681)

After driving from work, I parked at 6:45 p.m. It was sunny and hot in Scotts Valley.

Walking along the path to the courts from the remote parking lot, my right knee had mild pain with every step. Though once I was on the courts and playing, I didn’t even notice it, fortunately.

First Game

I immediately got into a game. Binh called me over before I even had time to hang up my backpack. They were two courts down and were missing a fourth. I don’t know exactly what happened but from what I understand fourth was a newbie and wasn’t comfortable taking on strong players.

Binh and John Funky are playing together in a tournament down in Newport this weekend, so it was Rachel and me. I got in about a dozen warmup shots, then we rolled right into the game. They scored a few points, we broke their serve, they broke ours, they added a few points . . . this repeated until Rachel and I were shut out 0-11. Ouch. It was miserable.

My next game was partnered with a middle aged man, about 5’11”, stocky but not fat, named Gabe. I had never seen him before. I played better in this game against Binh and John. We scored a few points, they broke our serve, we broke theirs, we added a few points . . . this repeated until Gabe and I won 11-1. Binh commented, “You feel better about this one, eh, Andrew?”
“Yeah!” Redemption!

After that game, while waiting, Binh told me that his fiancé Laurie enjoyed my pickleball class and even asked Binh to go to drill with her. Binh said that he was too tired after work to drill though. But that Laurie wants to drill is a fantastic thing to hear . . . especially given the fact that Binh had texted me before that class started, “Take you out to dinner if you can get her to like pickleball.” I think he may owe me dinner!

Tennis but no Tennis

While waiting for my third game, I noticed that both tennis courts had pickleball on them! There was a man and a woman hitting a pickleball over one tennis net plus there was a group of seven people who appeared to be family or friends on the other tennis court hitting pickleballs around. That was a first. I’ve seen folks use one court for knocking a pickleball around, but not both tennis courts!

I wrote my name up on the whiteboard and ended up in a game with Gabe again along with Mo and a tall woman named Christina. When we got to our court, Kristina asked who the best player was. Gage immediately pointed to me and unequivocally said, “him!” Christina said, “Okay, I’m not that good, I’ll play with you.” And I was perfectly happy with that. I think we lost that game 3–11. There’s only so much magic I can pull off!

The lights clicked off in the middle of a game at 8:30 p.m.

Mo and I had played a few games together and were walking off the courts after the lights have gone off. Marco convinced us to play a game with Ofer and him.

Marco and Ofer clobbered us in that first game.

Marco wanted to play one more. Of course, Mo and I said yes. Can you say, “Addiction”? It continued to get darker and darker. We came back and won that second game 11-9.

I played again with my Players Rogue 2 paddle tonight. As I drove home, my right elbow where the bones meet was stinging a little bit. I really didn’t like that, that’s worrisome.

I was not particularly happy with my play tonight.

Home

When I got home, I intended to ice my knee, which has started to bother me. But after a dinner, it wasn’t until I was snuggled in bed and my wife was asleep, that I remembered I was going to put the ice pack on my knee. Oh, well.

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Wednesday, July 3, 2024 (No Play)

Driving to work this morning, my right knee was aching a little bit. Par for the course.

Holiday tomorrow!

Number of days on a court: 681
Number of total hours: 2,876
Number of paid coaching hours: 49.5

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