Author: andrewlenz (Page 96 of 328)

Thursday, May 30, 2024 (Court Day #668)

I had volunteered weeks ago to assist with the “advanced” training session for SCPC members. Shawnte would be the lead instructor. Today was the day that it finally rolled around. And it was a good day for it—sunny and pleasant. As it turned out, this was an “intermediate-advanced” session.

I changed at work then arrived at Derby Park at 3:35 p.m. When I pushed myself out of the car with my right leg, my knee complained. It has been bothering me a bit more than the last week, but that push particularly hurt.

When I walked in the gate, there were a couple young women hitting a ball back and forth on a court. Nearby, a man was lying down on the aluminum bench, his face obscured by a broad-brimmed hat.
“John?”
Yes, it was John Pacholski—my one-time tournament partner and instrumental in me trying pickleball for the first time about 7 1/2 years ago. Puzzled, I told him, “I was expecting to see Shawnte here.”
”Why?”
”Well, it starts at 4, right?”
”4:30.”
”Ahhh…..”

I don’t know why I had 4 p.m. in my head, though that was probably my planned arrival time, not the clinic start time. Obviously, I should have double-checked the time during the intervening weeks!

A Game

Since we were very early, John suggested we play skinny singles. Eric Schmidt and John had played a ton of skinny singles during the pandemic. Playing sounded good to me. We did a combination of cross-court (even score) and straight ahead (odd score). Soon, I was up 4-1. I went on to win 11-1. We finished that game at 4 p.m. Between the skinny singles game and warming up a couple of players shortly after, I figure I got in about half an hour of court/play time.

Clinic

So, the 90-minute training session was scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m. Shawnte gave an extra 10 minutes to allow for people running late. Barbara Gerry said there were 17 registered, but when we started, we only had 15.

Before we started, Shawnte gave the four assistants—of which I was one—a very quick overview of what he had planned: warm-up, topspin dinks, ATPs, and stacking. The assistants would be me, Dan Bliss, John Pacholski, and Larry Yien.

Introductions

After we gave plenty of time for students to arrive, Shawnte started introductions, introducing himself, then he gave time for me, Dan, John, and Larry to introduce ourselves. We didn’t take the time for 15 student introductions, and I knew almost all of the students already . . . though there were one or two that I didn’t know.

Warm Up & Sorting

Shawnte asked every student go to a random court which he numbered 1 though 4. He looked around and immediately changed the court numbers so the stronger players would be on courts numbered 1 and 2. Each court had two simultaneous games of skinny singles which was played for about five minutes. After five minutes, the winner would move up half a court and the loser moved down half a court. We did this about four times to sort players so they would be of similar skill level on a given court.

A 16th student, a woman I didn’t know, showed up 15-20 minutes late. Larry then could assume his role as an assistant instead of acting as a student to fill a court.

I ended up instructing on the #1 court with the strongest players. John P. had the next court. Dan covered court #3, and Larry covered court #4.

Drilling Dinks

The first skill activity, we drilled topspin crosscourt dinks. One diagonal pair worked on forehands while the other pair worked on backhands. Then they switched.

Long Time No See

Midway through the session, Tristan showed up with three buddies to play. They settled in on one of the two courts we weren’t using for the clinic. I hadn’t seen Tristan in a long time. He looks like a full adult! I asked him, “What are you now 18? 19?“ He smiled and replied, “20!”

ATPs

Shawnte came to me partway through the session and wanted my opinion if we should cover ATP or stacking, since we didn’t have time for both. I told him ATPs and that’s what we did.

We ran an ATP drill. The ATP drill required the full court. There is the feeder who is trying to hit the ball wide enough for the diagonally opposite player to attempt an ATP, to the defender who would hope to return it to the fourth player. We rotated through backhand ATPs first giving each player a chance to do it, and then we switched and had the players do forehand ATP attempts.

Validation

There was one nice moment, where there was an ATP, an ATP return, then the shot by Eugene, who is properly position and covering the middle and hit a winner. Shawnte complemented Eugene on the shot and Eugene told Shawnte, “Andrew taught me that!“ Validation and success for a student! 

When time ran out, Barbara Gerry gathered everyone for a group photo.

Post-Clinic Games

After the session broke up at 6 p.m., some of us wanted to stick around and play some games. (John P. was funny. He smiled and shared, “I’m going to go lick my wounds from skinny singles!”)

Jax and I played a couple of close games against Paulie and Larry.

Then Julianne and I played against Jax and Paulie. I believe we won 11-9 after being down 8-3. But maybe that was a different combination of players. (It’s been a long day!)

I played a game with Misa against Paulie and a fellow named Adam whom I may have seen around before but I don’t really know. It was a very close game. I think we end up winning 14-12. It kept going back-and-forth.

I was missing an unusual number of serves during this session. I missed maybe half a dozen. It was odd.

By 7:06 p.m., I was in the car and on my way to Skypark in Scotts Valley to play more.

Skypark

As I was walking in on the path from the remote parking lot, I was already tired. Maybe it was a lack of sleep. Dunno.

Paddle Reunited

Kiki and I finally connected up and I was able to return her paddle tonight that I found last week. She said it’s not an expensive paddle, she bought it from Jon Barlow for $50. She said Jon has a factory in China knocking off some name brand paddle . . . China is the wild west when it comes to things like that. She remembered me from a few years ago while she and her now ex-boyfriend were playing Sundays at Derby. As much as I try to remember everyone, I honestly, just can’t remember everyone I meet on a court, as much as I try!

Games

Jax and I played a game against David L. (of David and Minori) and Spencer. We got our clocks cleaned, losing 6-11. But we won the rematch 11-2. That felt better!

Tonight was a really fun enjoyable evening. The crowd is a little bit lighter, although they did eventually bring out the white dry-erase board to organize those waiting, but the waits were not very long.

The only game was not as much fun/balace, was the game where I was partnered with the new guy, Jason. Jason did ask me advance if I’d be willing to play with him since he’s a newbie. Of course, I said I would. We teamed up against Tim Fekeirt and a man named Daniel, who is tall and I never met before. I asked Tim about Daniel’s skills . . . part of the pre-game ritual to try and balance teams. Tim said Daniel is new and not very good. Tim, of course, is a very strong player. And . . . it turned out that Daniel is pretty good too. Daniel hit some strong shots and was a steady player, and after Daniel hit a winner, I walked up to the net and—with a big smile—pointed out to Tim, “I thought you said Daniel wasn’t very good!” Tim laughed. He knew that he’d been kidding with me. Jason had more of a soft game than many beginners, but he has a ways ago with that yet. He also has a strong tendency to stay back at the baseline. But Jason is definitely a good rough blank. Lots of potential there.

Last Game

The last game of the night was Rachel and myself against Ofer and big Mike. Initially, the game was close and back-and-forth and then Rachael and I pulled out ahead and won 11-6. I was playing quite well at that point. We squeezed it in just before the lights clicked off shortly after 9:30 p.m.

I got nearly all of my serves in at Skypark, however, I hit at least half a dozen shots into the white tape of the net. That was a bit frustrating, but overall, I was happy with my play tonight.

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Saturday, June 1, 2024 (No Play)

I can’t recall if I shared this, but this video popped up during the past week, mocking pickleball:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6L9Wy9u6yz/

Tennis Pro Playing Pickleball

Nick Kyrgios, famous bad-boy pro tennis player, talked some months back about eventually playing pickleball after retiring from tennis. Well, here he is in some recreational setting, playing:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7jrGhhA5vO/
And I’ll note, he switched to his left hand to take a shot. Nice. I’m not the only one!

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Sunday, June 2, 2024 (No Play)

I’ve had all kinds of extended family stuff going on this weekend and no teaching this afternoon. Val Rathbone was available to open Derby for me today. It’s probably good. My right wrist is bothering me and my right knee continues to ache more than normal.

Number of days on a court: 668
Number of total hours: 2,843
Number of paid coaching hours: 37.5

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

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 (Court Day #667)

This popped up today. Former tennis pro Genie Bouchard interviewed by CNN about pickleball:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/sports/2024/05/24/exp-tennis-pickleball-bouchard-wire-052407aseg1-cnni-sports-fast.cnn

In the interview, she describes how pickleball is entirely different than tennis and that coming into pickleball she feels like she did when she entered juniors tennis. Vindication for those who imply that pickleball is not challenging to tennis players.

DUPR

DUPR sent out an email message today:
“We are excited to announce the release of the DUPR Reliability Score, a new metric to help you understand your rating better. Your player profile will now feature two numbers: your DUPR rating, reflecting your current pickleball skill level, and the Reliability Score, indicating the confidence level of your rating based on match data.”

What stinks is that I entered games into DUPR from the Santa Cruz Classic Tournament a couple of weeks ago, but since DUPR requires all four players to verify the result for games not provided by a tournament itself, the games remain unverified and don’t count toward my DUPR rating.

Pro Fined

Romanian pro pickleball player Andrei Daescu had his paddle tested two and a half weeks ago at MLP Atlanta. (Pickle Pro Labs does the testing for MLP.) Lo and behold, they found a “foreign substance” on the paddle which made it more grippy. Well, in the last 24 hours, Daescu has been fined $50,000 (ouch), suspended from MLP and PPA events for two months, will be on “probation” for a year. I’m don’t know what probation entails other than the obvious . . . they’ll be keeping a close eye on him and his paddles. I guess the good news is that he wasn’t able to use the paddle in Atlanta as it was caught before play commenced.

_{LATER NOTE:
On May 30, Daescu issued a statement on Instagram:
“I am pained by the recent events. This was an unfortunate mishap. I would NEVER cheat.
There was no intent to use the paddle in question during competition; it was mistakenly submitted for testing. The paddle has never been used in competition.
The UPA has rules and policies. Paddle testing is the player’s responsibility. I will abide by their decision.”
The rumor has it the paddle was given to his practice partners to give them an advantage and make practice games more difficult for Daescu.}

Skypark

It was 7:09 p.m. as I was walking on the path to toward the courts from the remote parking lot. It was sunny but breezy. I was depressed over my play in my last game yesterday morning.

I was suddenly distracted by the sound of very distant fire works or the sound of nearer popcorn popping. Of course, it wasn’t. It was pickleball around a curve in the path and through the grove of trees.

It was a light crowd, with only a handful of people waiting to get on courts.

First Game

I got in my first game about 7:20 p.m., with Ethan and the young woman Caitlin (UCSC senior) against me and a woman who said that she just moved to Santa Cruz from Visalia—which is out in the Central Valley between Fresno and Bakersfield. She said her name was Laura or Lauren, I can’t remember which but she’s a good player. She has a really nice powerful two handed-backhand. It wasn’t a blowout, but we did win against Ethan and Cait, who is about a 3.0 player. (I strongly suspect that Ethan may have been dialing it down a bit.) I did go out of my way to hit more shots to Ethan than I did to Cait. I wanted a little bit harder game. There was some fun firefights in that game. Ethan is really, really good player. Easily better than me. He made a great shot . . . we were across from each other, Ethan to his right and me to my left. There is a wide shot by my partner. Ethan ran out, got it, and the ball looked like it was going to land out but he put so much spin on the ball that it curved back in and landed a few inches in from the corner of the court to win the rally. Nice.

Midway in that my first game that I realized that I grabbed my Rogue 2 paddle instead of my new Gearbox Pro paddle. Just as an experiment, I end up playing with the Rogue 2 paddle for number of games until I decided later tonight to change things up and see if the Gearbox would help me play better.

I went from game to game to game with very little waiting.

I played a few games with Daryl against Paul and Aaron. Daryl wasn’t playing his best and apologized to me. He didn’t need to, but I’m sure he felt more frustrated than I was at his play at that moment. I’m used to playing with weaker players, I’m patient.

Out balls! This continues to be my Achilles Heel. Paul mentioned after a rally that I’d hit several balls that had been heading out. Dang. I hate that.

After Play DUPR Chat

After the lights went out at 9:30 p.m., a few of us briefly gathered over by the bench and talked. Matt Babb was talking about the new DUPR announcement—the one announcing the new reliability score for one’s DUPR rating. I opened the app on my phone and I didn’t see where my reading my reliability reading was. Matt pointed it out—a small circle with a tiny “2” in it to the right of my numerical rating. He was saying that he has a 4% reliability rating, and apparently mine is just 2% . . . same as Paul’s.

I was complaining how I had entered a number of games from the recent tournament, but all four players need to validate the result for a player-entered game. Ofer was trying to convince me that you needed only one player from each team but I told him that any game not entered by a tournament requires all four players. Ofer didn’t believe me so I grabbed my phone and pulled up an announcement from April saying that, indeed, all four players in a match had to verify the score if it was a recreational game. (Recreational being any game not submitted to the DUPR system by a tournament.) It’s kind of a drag, because it takes only one player to either be lazy, or not be happy with the result of the match, to have the game not validated. So far, for me, none of the matches from the Santa Cruz Classic Tournament earlier this month been used to help calculate my DUPR rating since none have been fully validated.

I felt a little bit better about my play tonight, but not a ton.

My right knee is hurting a bit. I’m probably going to need to ice it the next few nights.

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Wednesday, May 29, 2024 (No Play)

Today, I shared on Instagram about my play this week on the court built 1977. A bit of a surprise, I got a comment from senior pro player Jennifer Lucore of Florida. Jennifer and I corresponded in November 2017 when she was asking for editors for her book coming out—her book about the history of pickleball. To date, I haven’t finished reading her book . . . I need to get it back out! Anyway, Jennifer posted:
“Hey Andrew, that is so cool! You know I love my Pickleball History 🤓 Can you send me more info on that court? I could add it to the continuation of the history of the sport, there is not a lot of documented courts in the 70s.”

I replied that I’d email her and I did . . . replying to that November 2017 email!

Vandalism

In New York, Manhattan specifically, a vandal has been causing all kinds of repeated problems for local pickleball players . . . putting equipment in garbage bags with the trash, cutting nets, and more devastation. It makes our local net disassembly pale in comparison:
https://www.mensjournal.com/news/mystery-pickleball-hater-vandalism

Number of days on a court: 667
Number of total hours: 2,839.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 37.5

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

Monday, May 27, 2024 (Court Day #666)

I had dilemmas this morning. All of them really good problems they have. Play or not play? Go to club play at Brommer Park and face long waiting times, but it has organized play? Or go to Derby Park and face an unknown group of players in terms of size and skill and with no organization?

At 9:40 a.m., I was in the car and on my way to Derby Park under cloudy skies and 54°F temperatures. I was sitting there, driving, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to stay for a long period of time since I had to come home and eat lunch in time and be on the road to San Carlos by 12:45 p.m. to meet up with my sister-in-law Liz.

Derby

As I walked in, some games were going on but at least a couple of courts were empty.

Rick Arnold was at the far end in a game with Tiffany and two men I didn’t know. Rick is always good for a strong game.

I warmed up with barefoot Terry and regular whose name escapes me. Maybe Judy? After about 10 minutes, Rick called over, “We’re ready for you, Andrew!” One of the two men passed me on his way off the court as I walked on.

Rick had left shoulder surgery a few months back and is now playing with his natural right hand instead of the left hand that he’s been using for the last few years. Poor guy!

I overheard Tiffany mentioning something about her sister Nicole not coming due to an injury. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound serious. The man that stayed is an Italian fellow in his 50s named Marco. I’d never met him before. It turns out, he’s a good player.

Games

Rick and I played Tiffany and Marco and won 11-8. Tiffany has gotten better over the last couple of years.

Next, we rotated and I played with Tiffany and we lost a close one 10-12. By now, it was 10:43 a.m. and the courts were filling up.

In a third game, Marco and I had a big lead, but we ended up losing 10-12.

Mixed Doubles

Rick and Tiffany both had to go. Marco and I were looking for someone—”Anyone?”—to join us to play more. A couple of women came over, Lauren and Amy. I’d say Amy is a 3.0 and Lauren is a 3.5. Amy played with me and Lauren joined Marco. We were down a lot but came back to win 11-8. Amy started slow but played better the longer we played in that game.

Games with Mike and Terry

Terry and me played a game against Marco and tall, white hair Mike. I don’t see Mike much. Mike is one of those people you can’t judge by appearance. Sure, a long reach and athletic build, but closer to 70 than 60. We lost 7-11. Terry likes to drive everything. Baseline? Drive. Midcourt? Drive. Net? Drive. Still, she manages to make a game of it regardless.

Marco and I played a game against Terry and tall Mike. Initially, they were leading but that didn’t last long and we came back and beat them 11–4. It would have been the upset of the month had we lost.

Hmmm.

I’m a bit hesitant, but I’m going to share this just for educational purposes. Not everything is always “flowers and sunshine” in the pickleball world. No matter where you are in the world, you’ll run into a situation like this sooner or later. It is what it is. Nothing major.

My plan was to leave after that game, but player who also does 4.0 tournaments showed up and he’s always a good challenging opponent. I’ll leave his name out. I really should have headed out to get prepared for my trip to the Bay Area, but he was insistent that I stay. Honestly, it’s not hard to convince me to play just one more game! I was hoping to play against him for the best challenge and Marco stood next to me waiting, but no one was willing to join the player. There was an awkward period of time as people waiting nearby simply tried to look busy or turned down the requests to join the game.

I figured that the only way to get this game to happen was to cross the net and play as his partner. After I did, Lauren came in to join Marco.

My partner for that game has a habit of providing a flow of corrections during games, so before we got started, I told him that I was there to relax and then I didn’t want him to coach me. (“Where did that come from?”) And, to his credit, he didn’t.

But, boy, I played a bad game. We lost something like 3–11. I was not playing well at all. After getting water once the game was done, I walked up to my partner and told him that loss was on me. He took that as an invitation. “That was a 3.5 game.” (Since I do tournaments in 4.0.) I replied, “At best. That might have even been a 3.0 game.” He went on, “You were hitting out balls. How many years has that been?” Ouch. He was talking about the high drive by Marco where I put up my paddle then tried to pull it back down but I was too late and the ball deflected off my paddle and landed out of bounds. But my partner was 100% accurate. Hitting out balls continues to be an Achilles’ Heel for me. “Yes, something that I need to fix.”

I said my goodbyes and headed out.

I ran into the Laurie on the street when I was walking to my car. I told her about my conversation with my partner after the game. She said, “He made plenty of mistakes.“ She added, “People like that take apologies simply as an opportunity to let you have it.” Instead of being encouraging and giving gentle criticism, it’s a chance to double-down on pointing out mistakes and shift blame. (Though I take the blame for the loss since I did not play a good game at all.)

I left feeling miserable. If you’ve been reading my blog entries, you’ll know that probably like most players—at least the ones who care about improving—how well I played in my last game determines my mood.

San Carlos

The original plan was for my son Nicholas and I to leave Santa Cruz at 12:45 p.m. in order to get to San Carlos about 2 p.m. As it was, between that one extra game, getting some things done around the house, and a phone call from my sister about my mother‘s health—she’s doing ok—we left closer to 1:15 p.m. Nicholas was in his car and I was in my car. We stopped at his apartment in Santa Clara, dropping off his car, and then the two of us continued in my car to my sister-in-law‘s house.

We arrived and we said our hellos. The group would be me, Nicholas, Liz, and her husband Steve. We gathered up our things and walked about a block in their neighborhood to the home of Bill and his wife Betsy, who have their own private pickleball court on the side of their house. Nice!

Bill and Betsy

Liz introduced Nicholas and me to Bill. Liz told me in advance that Bill reminds her of her late father—and my father-in-law—Ron. I could see why. Ron was about half a foot taller but Bill has similar build . . . and the warm, carefree attitude was there.

Bill explained that the president of Sport Court was personally responsible for building this court in 1977. (I looked up Sport Court and it was founded in 1974, assuming that’s the same company.) I have to wonder if this court is one of the first pickleball courts in the State of California. Pickleball was still mostly a Pacific Northwest sport at that time. Bill says they had done a miscalculation on the amount of concrete needed and had gotten too much, so the pad is really thick. This may be why the court is in such good condition as the surface of the court only has a couple of very minor cracks. Bill says the only maintenance they do is having the surface repainted every couple of years and have the landscapers wash it off of the hose once a month. The only real downside to it was net posts are not regulation and while the net was legitimate—even with a “Pickle-ball” company logo on it—it was bit too low. I didn’t measure, but I’d guess probably 2″-4″ shy of the proper height.

Liz, Steve, Nicholas, and I rotated partners for as many games as we fit into the roughly 2 1/2 hours that we played. Amazingly, though he didn’t play at all, Bill stood and watched the entirety of our session there. His wife Betsy came and joined him for maybe an hour, but she wandered back into the house to get things done.

Bill is pretty hysterical. He would poke fun at the level of play. His target was Steve or me or Liz or Nicholas whenever its struck his fancy!

Liz has good hand-eye coordination, though she tends to play tennis on a pickleball court. She has a tendency to stay back at the baseline and not come up to the kitchen, and she also has a tendency to drive balls all the time. By the time I left, Liz is doing better getting up to the net. She and Steve were demonstrating some semblance of a soft game too. They definitely made progress!

History

Once it was decided that we were done playing, I wanted to see the purported old paddles that were in Bill’s storage bin. I walked over and, sure enough, there were two really cool vintage wooden paddles with the Pickle-ball brand logo on them and a model name, “The Diller.” I took a photo of the two of the paddles in the bin and decided I wanted another shot with better light so I and walked out with one paddle onto the court.

“Those aren’t even the old ones!”, exclaimed Bill. “There are some older ones in there with no logo.”

I walked back to the bin and dug around a little bit and sure enough, there were two paddles completely devoid of any markings. Wow. These are certainly from the early days of pickleball. I remember reading about the founders making wood paddles in their garage! I was touching history!

We wanted to get some group photos.

Steve and Liz wanted a patriotic shot too.

We walked back to Liz and Steve’s home, got brief visits with their two teenagers, my niece Piper and nephew Grant, who were coaxed out of their holes.

From there, Nicholas and I made a stop at In’N’Out Burger for dinner. Once I dropped him off at his apartment, I was soon on my way over the Santa Cruz Mountains to the coast and home!

It turned out to be an amazing day! Not too bad for “court day” number 666!

Number of days on a court: 666
Number of total hours: 2,837.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 37.5

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