Author: andrewlenz (Page 98 of 328)

Thursday, May 16, 2024 (Court Day #662)

The days are flying by this week. This morning, I was planning on not playing tonight. My right knee has been bothering me for the past few days and I figured I would give it some rest. But my wife texted asking if I was going to play and while I was still undecided, I picked up what I needed from home during lunch just in case.

War!

I am so annoyed. Really, really annoyed. The PPA business group announced today that it’s launching a “global governing body” to manage pickleball.

What the hell? For 40 years, there has already been a “governing body” for pickleball. It was originally called the United States of America Pickleball Association (USAPA) and was rebranded a few years ago to USA Pickleball. Internationally, the USAPA was instrumental in founding the International Federation of Pickleball (IFP) to promote the sport worldwide. (The IFP went through some management problems and was relaunched as the International Pickleball Federation or IPF, last year.)

Rather than working with USA Pickleball, the business guys decided they’d just start their own association. What really gets me is them laying claim to the 52% growth of participation in the sport last year. What they don’t say is that the PPA and MLP had almost nothing to do with it. The volunteer network of USA Pickleball ambassadors—like me—have been working hard to grow the sport for years, along with local recreational players. It has been very grassroots, with support from USA Pickleball. A recent survey determined that over 90% of pickleball players have very little interest in pro players and pro matches . . . they just want to get out and play themselves. This is very unlike, say, football, baseball, or basketball where the majority of fans don’t play themselves but like to watch. So, again, the pro leagues have had very little to do with the growth of pickleball, they are just riding the wave but want control the sport anyway. Power grab.

(And just to be clear, I do not officially speak for USA Pickleball. The opinion above is my own.)

Weather and Whether

It h ad beenovercast all day today and a little bit on the chilly side. It was almost enough to make you think it was a late fall instead of spring. It was misting heavily as I drove to Skypark after work, but it was only a brief interlude on the freeway then stopped.

After my performance on Tuesday night, I was dejected about my play. Yesterday, I caught myself thinking, “Why do I play this game?“ But there I was this evening, on my way to Scotts Valley to play once again.

Skypark

I was on the courts shortly before 7 p.m. There weren’t as many people playing tonight as there had been on Tuesday. The whiteboard wasn’t brought out and there was only me and about half a dozen other people who are waiting to get into games.

While I played better tonight, I did hit a ball into the white tape three times and also missed about a half dozen of my serves—about an equal number sailed past the baseline as ended up in the net.

There were two passing shots along the right sideline where I left too much of a gap and my opponent took advantage. I have to trust my partner to cover the middle. I can’t leave the easy straight-ahead shot open. I was probably leaving about 4 feet beyond the reach of my paddle along that sideline. The good news is on a third attempt, I had adjusted and the ball was within my reach, and I took care of it and returned the ball over the net. It was a few minutes before 9:30 p.m. when the last game ended.

Ow.

The most eventful incident tonight was David hitting a hard drive from the kitchen across the net and right into my face. Aaron had popped up the ball and David leap up and slammed it square on my right cheekbone. For ball that is so light, it sure stung for a while! David apologized and felt bad. It wasn’t his fault. It easily could have been me hitting a ball like he did. And that is why I wear eyewear all the time while playing pickleball . . . you never know when you’ll get a ball to the face! My cheekbone mildly stung for a while.

Work to Do

There is still work I need to do in court positioning as well as trusting my partner in the middle. The problem is, when you’re playing with a partner who is weaker—which I think was every game for me this evening—you can’t always count on them to make the shot so there’s a temptation take a backhand shot in the middle instead of leaving it for the forehand of your partner.

I will say that overall, my drop shots are getting better and more consistent with this recent paddle change and tweaking. That’s nice to see.

When I got home after 10 p.m., I iced my knee . . . and iced my cheekbone!

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Saturday, May 18, 2024 (No Play)

No play for me yesterday or today. I have too many of my staff on vacation. We ended up four people short at work today.

New York

My brother John has been in New York City this week for his work. He sent a text to the group text chat with my parents and siblings…

John is a funny guy! I’d read previously about the courts in Central Park. From what I understand they were initially temporary as an experiment, but “stuck”. Regardless, neat that he got to see them in person . . . especially since John has started playing some himself.

Reddit

I recently installed Reddit on my phone to access pickleball discussions. This popped up and I couldn’t help but chuckle given the vocal subset of tennis players who keep talking smack about pickleball.

“…no one in my area seems to play anymore.”
Now, I have played tennis and enjoy tennis and I don’t want to see tennis suffer. But I do enjoy the strategies and skills of pickleball. What was it someone said? “Tennis is checkers, pickleball is chess.” A more physically-demanding and a “higher barrier for entry” checkers, but checkers compared to the “cat and mouse” of pickleball.

UPA-A

The flurry of over the announcement by the for-profit UPA that it’s launching a global association to essentially replace the decades-old non-profit USA Pickleball is continuing. The Pickleball Channel posted a poll today and here are the results…

I have some faith in humanity that only 5% of respondents say that the UPA-A is a good idea.

Number of days on a court: 662
Number of total hours: 2,824
Number of paid coaching hours: 34.5

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

Tuesday, May 14, 2024 (Court Day #661)

So, there are up days and down days. Today was a disaster. My first game was paired with Avery against Sean and his brother Danny. I had no warm-up and went directly into the game—but that is little to no excuse. That game, I hit at least three shots wide outside of the sidelines—two to the right side and one to the left. I was just not playing well at all. It was embarrassing. About two-thirds into the game, it seemed as though Sean stopped hitting to me and started hitting Avery so he could continue the rallies. Ugh. It was so bad.

The rest of the night wasn’t so great either. While I had my moments, overall, it was crappy.

Paul, W. shared a drone shot that he took of the courts at 5:45 p.m. today:

I ended up in a game with Shaya (Mauricio’s wife) against Aud and Jax. I hadn’t played with Jax before. He’s a good player. Shaya and I lost. Then Jax played with Shaya and I was with Aud. Shaya started playing better. I kidded her after a good shot, “Why did you make shots like that while you were playing with me?” Shaya said she was “in her head”. There is definitely a mental aspect to the game.

After those games, Shaya complimenting me, saying that my hands are “so fast”.

It was weird, at 9:11 p.m., there were only four of us left, Tim Handley, Matt, and Paul. Everyone else was gone. Maybe everyone came early and left early. That last game of the night was us. Tim wasn’t playing his best and I already said I wasn’t playing my best either. We still played somewhat respectably, but I think we lost 7-11.

Number of days on a court: 661
Number of total hours: 2,821.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 34.5

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

Sunday, May 12, 2024 (Court Day #660)

Last night, my wife and I went out with my son Nicholas to dinner for Mother’s Day. At dinner, Kristen pointed out all the days this week that I played pickleball. Today, Sunday, would be the seven day out of eight that I’ve been doing at least some pickleball activity. I played last Sunday; Monday was SCPC’s Dinko de Mayo tournament; Tuesday night I played at Skypark; Wednesday, I didn’t do anything; Thursday night, I played at Skypark; Friday morning, I drilled with Mauricio; and yesterday was the Santa Cruz Classic Tournament at Brommer Park.

Today, I think it’s a record for me. Seven out of eight. I think my previous record was six out of eight days, but to be honest I can’t remember with absolute certainty, but I’m fairly sure.

Puddles?

There was a puddle on the top of our jacuzzi cover that did concern me a bit, but the street looked mostly dry. As I drove to Derby Park, there was mist on my windshield from overcast skies. Still, I wasn’t expecting any puddles at Derby Park, and it turned out that, indeed, there weren’t any.

It was just about perfect pickleball weather . . . 61°F, overcast, and very little breeze. It can’t get much better than that.

Considering how much a I played over this week, my body is doing reasonably well. I did wear my elastic knee brace for the tournament yesterday as my right knee has been slightly bothering me and I wore it today as well. No major pain, just a very mild annoyance at times this week.

Blast from the Past

One of my former staff, Matt Z., was at Derby today with his sister Deanna. (He worked for our family business for three years, 2018-2021.) Matt is a 3.0 level player. I’ve seen his sister at Derby before. I played with Matt in an early game against his sister and Steve B. They took a big lead, then Matt and I made it respectable, but they finished us off.

Troublesome Serves

Chris, heavier set with a beard, was mildly complaining that my serves were so deep and low that he couldn’t backswing properly to return them. He was backing up nearly to the tennis net divider. I told him he should backswing less and use the pace of serve to get the ball back.

My last game ended at 11:26 a.m. After the games yesterday at the tournament, today couldn’t compare with regard to the skill level of the players.

I left at 11:30 a.m. to give me enough time to go pick up my son and head to my brother John’s house in Scotts Valley for a Mother’s Day brunch. I couldn’t stay for a long time since my class that I needed to teach at Willowbrook was at 1:30 p.m.

Coaching

A nice thing. Annette stopped me during class this afternoon. She thanked me for the change that I recommended to her serve last week and that it had made a big positive difference. And, that, my friends, is why I teach.

Oh, and I should mention. I was covering the basics of drop shots today in my class. I was demonstrating by having a student cooperatively hit the ball back in front of me. Drop shot. Take a step back. Drop shot. Take a step back. Drop shot. The nice thing is I did make all my drop shots. It’s embarrassing if you hit one into the net. One of the students even commented: “You are pretty good at that!”

Sports Shopping

My son wanted to get a tennis racket. I think he wants to play with his housemate. After class, we stopped by Play It Again Sports and he got one. While there, since I can’t find mine, I bought some more lead tape. I want to adjust my Gearbox paddle just a bit. The tape wasn’t cheap, around $15, but it should last for a while.

Evening

My son and I spent an hour discussing how many games it would take to cover all partner permutations with 20 players. This stemmed from the SCPC Dinko de Mayo event on Monday. You might think this is an easy problem, but it’s a somewhat complex math problem involving combinatorics and factorials. The numbers get really, really big fast! [Our discussions and my additional investigation resulted in the section at the bottom of that earlier page about fairness concern.]

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Monday, May 13, 2024 (No Play)

An promotional video for The Hub appeared on Instagram this morning:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C56LVBbxuSP/

And this came up, it’s an interesting breakdown of Ben Johns’ serve and how to implement it:

Aches & Pains

I got up from sitting on the couch for an hour and my right knee was 4 out of 10 pain. The back of my right wrist was also complaining. Playing seven out of eight days seems to have caught up with me a bit.

Number of days on a court: 660
Number of total hours: 2,819
Number of paid coaching hours: 34.5

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