Sunday, June 2, 2019 (Court Day #275)
San Juan Bautista Tournament
(Competing using my non-dominant left hand. 36th day out playing lefty.)

Last night I set out all my things for the tournament. I was going to have to get up early and pick up Binh after his RN shift at Dominican Hospital by 7:30 a.m. I went to get my second set of court shoes and discovered that, uh oh, I’ve been wearing my second set of court shoes! Time to get some more! I’d have to bet on no shoe problems unlike that one tournament when I’d partnered with Dave Cox and ended up wearing his extra pair of shoes!

It was misting when I pulled into the hospital parking lot at 7:26. Binh was concerned that the moisture might delay the tournament. I figured that we’d cross that bridge if and when we got there. We were on the road in short order. About halfway to San Juan Bautista, the misting stopped. We made good time with easy early Sunday morning traffic and arrived at San Juan Elementary School with time to spare at about 8:15.

People warming up at the courts.

It was gray skies, but dry, and a light breeze with cool weather requiring a sweatshirt when not playing. Warmed up though, no sweatshirt. Aside from the slight breeze, it was perfect pickleball weather.

True to her word, Jen had given us the first bye. There were five teams, so one team would sit out each round. Binh and I did get an opportunity to warm up for about 5-10 minutes before we had to vacate the courts and wait about 20 minutes for the second round of the Men’s Doubles 3.0 bracket. In the announcements for our bracket, Jen said that we’d be playing to 15, win by 2. If there was a ties at the end, the teams would have a playoff game to determine the winner.

As one team came to the admin tent, it sounded like they had been beaten handily. Jen explained that that one team had told her that they’d play in either 3.0 or 3.5. With a light 3.0 bracket, she’d put them in 3.0 to get the five teams and balance the brackets. She apologized to them. Binh and I wondered who that team was, sooner or later, we’d find out!

With this being out first tournament together—and Binh’s first tournament ever—and me playing left-handed, there were a lot of unknowns. We could go down in flames, or we might do ok. I would depending mostly on whom we’d be playing. How good would they be? How good would we be in comparison?

Game #1

Our first game was to be against Tom and Earl. They’d already played one game, of course. Binh and I stacked, keeping our forehands in the middle. (We would be the only team stacking in our bracket.) We went down 2-6 then down 2-8. Ouch. But we started to warm up. We went on a run of points. It was a battle back and forth, but we were dialing it in. We won 15-13. Tom said it was his first time playing with Earl in a tournament and that Earl was playing hurt. 

Game #2

Our second game was against Z and Greg. We were up 8-4. But the tide turned. They came back and we ended up losing 15-13. Drat. We were now 1-1 in the tournament. That’s one we just let get away from us. It was definitely winnable.

Game #3

Darren and Mike would be our opponents for the third game. These I felt might be the strong team. They had faster serves than the others and hit harder. The breeze was getting a little bit stronger, but not too blustery, but enough at times to affect the flight of the ball. It started out tight, but we took a lead. Then built on it. Then built on it some more. We walked away with this one. Sometimes, things just snowball. Teams get frustrated and the mental game takes effect. I feel this was the case here. These guys were better than that 15-3 score showed. We were now 2-1 in the tournament.

Game #4 (Last in Round Robin)

Our last round robin game would be against Bob and Steve. While the score was a bit closer than the previous game, it was more lopsided. There was a more obvious skill-level difference in this one. We won 15-4. After we’d pulled far ahead, we got a bit to relaxed and let them score some points. One was me doing a slice backhand return with too much spin and it landed a few feet in front of me! Duh!

There were a lot of different brackets going on at the same time. Between games, we would catch pieces of various battles going on.

Jen (blue) and her partner playing Santa Cruz locals Cathy and Kim. Cathy and Kim went on to win this game. Kim told me later that the top three teams finished 2-1 (two wins, one loss) and Jen’s team ended up with silver and Kim/Cathy with bronze on tie-breakers. A team from Palo Alto took 1st. (The math seems weird to me but maybe so.)

Playoff

Darren and Mike had finished with the same 3-1 record as we had. We’d be having a playoff game. The woman standing in for Jen (who was on a court) offered us a choice: two games to 11; one game to 15; one game to 21. I was thinking 15 sounded good, but it was Mike who spoke up first, “Game to 15?” I voiced my approval. 15 it would be.

We battled back and forth, but Binh and I started to slip behind. Soon, we were down 8-4. Not good. I told Binh, “We just beat these guys 15-3. Let’s do this.” That seemed to make a difference. Soon it was 8-8. We went up 12-9. It wasn’t easy. It was work. But we finally pulled it off. 15-10. Gold medal!

The almost final results, awaiting the outcome of the bronze medal match. 

The winners! Silver (Darren & Mike), Gold (Andrew & Binh) and Bronze (Bob & Steve).

Santa Cruz Pickleball Club winners! Jean and Olga won all of their matches in Women’s Doubles. Dan Bliss kindly volunteered to take the photo for me. You can tell that it’s a touch breezy.

My first ever medal while playing left-handed.

Vi, the tennis pro from MPC, was there playing in a higher bracket. He came up and said, “Hi! Remember me?” I told him that I did. He was the one whose team beat Colleen and me in the 3.5 Mixed Doubles gold medal match in the November tournament here at SJB. Later, with the gold medal around my neck, I walked up to him. “I have a secret. I’m playing left-handed.” “What level are you playing in?” “3.0.” “What? You were playing in 3.5 at that tournament…” I protested, “But I’m playing left-handed.” He had to dash off at that moment, so our conversation ended at that. Did he think it was wrong for me to drop a level when playing with my off hand?

Binh and I were grabbing our things to go when I checked the time. Exactly 12 noon. We stopped for Binh to grab something from the market across the street.

While traveling back to Santa Cruz, Binh said that my pep talk in the gold medal match made a difference. It worked.  I had given him confidence and helped him focus. Nice.

Binh was “amped”, he said. A gold medal at his first tournament! I know exactly how that feels, that was my first tournament experience too. Gold. Binh said he would have been disappointed if we hadn’t won gold since he felt we were the best team there. Me? It’s hard to say, players have good days and bad days, but it’s hard to argue that we weren’t the best on the day.

I was a bit torn. Honestly, I was feeling a bit guilty. Officially, according to the USAPA, I’m a 3.0 player. (A UTPR rating of 3.469 rounds down, not up.) But I feel that UTPR is wrong. I believe I’m easily a 3.5 player . . . when I’m healthy. Playing lefty, it’s a different story. I’m not the same player.

My feelings are flipping from elation of winning a gold medal while playing left-handed—crazy, right?—to feelings of “did I do the wrong thing playing in 3.0?”. I posted my quandary in the Pickleball Forum on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1340630926008388/permalink/2793442304060569/
The responses were almost entirely supportive of my decision to play in 3.0, but there were a handful of dissenters. Honestly, I didn’t know if I’d be competitive in 3.0 while playing left-handed. Now I know. At least in a small, barely publicized, tournament. In a big sanctioned tournament, I think we would have been clobbered.

I talked to Binh and told him that I was thinking we should play in 3.5 in the next tournament even if we weren’t nearly as competitive. He agreed.

Ongoing Medal Count:
Gold: 3
Silver: 2
Bronze: 0
(Zilch/Crash & Burn: 4)

Number of days on a court: 275
Number of total hours: 757.5

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Friday, May 31, 2019 (Court Day #274)

Day 35 playing left-handed. (35th day out.) Tennis elbow.

I went to physical therapy this morning for an 8:30 appointment. Being that I was there early, Ruby saw me at 8:20. She gave me a new exercise: stand in a doorway, face the door frame, elbow down against my ribcage, forearm out with palm up and hand rotated out, rest the pinky side of my hand against the door frame then turn my body away from my hand to stretch out the shoulder. She’s been testing my grip strength with a device each visit and my right arm is improving.

By 8:45, she was done working on my right arm and shoulder and I was off to Brommer Park. I pulled into the lot a few minutes before the 9 a.m. start time. I’d packed some nose tissue. I’m still clearing my throat and blowing my nose from this cold that’s dragging on, but at least I don’t have the sore throat anymore and I don’t have the sinus pressure, only drainage.

First game of the day. Eric S. and Dan take on John P. and Barb.

It got busy quickly and Dan Bliss announced that games were now going to 9 instead of 11. Leslie counted and we had over 50 people before even 10 a.m. rolled around.

My title for this blog post is a bit dramatic! But Binh and I were both not playing well. If we play like this at the tournament, even in 3.0, it’s going to be a miserable day on Sunday.

Binh and I played a game against Leslie and Dean. We were in for it. Dean was taking it easy on us, but even then, we lost 9-0. We were popping up shots, hitting balls into the net . . . it was bad. Subpar for us. Binh said part of the  problem for him was he was trying extra hard and messing up as a result. Maybe that applied to a certain extent with me as well, but playing lefty becomes more and more obvious the stronger your opponents who can take advantage of any little opportunity to attack!

We did get better later, but it was still not a good performance.

A nice surprise today was a visit by Jerry Louis. Jerry had moved to Arizona but was back until Tuesday, he said. I would have loved to show him my improvement, but with my not using my right arm, that’s kind of hard!

I’ve opted to stay with the Prince Response paddle. I think I may return to the Tempest Wave and see if that helps with my play. And see if that makes any different with my wrist. I’ve played a ton in the last week, so it’s been a stress test of sorts.

My last game ended at 12:03, then it was home, then to work.

Number of days on a court: 274
Number of total hours: 754.5

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Thursday, May 30, 2019 (Court Day #273)

Day 34 playing left-handed. (34th day out.) Tennis elbow.

I had so many things going on, I forgot about Thursday night pickleball until my calendar reminded me with an email around closing time! At work, we had a customer who appeared 15 minutes before closing and kept us half an hour after closing time. My cashier wanted to go see the first game of the NBA finals with the regional Golden State Warriors playing. Me? I wanted to get to pickleball, though I did listen to the game in my car on the way to Scotts Valley. The Warriors were down by 10 points at halftime, which is when I got to Skypark at about 7:20 p.m.

I played a number of games before I left at about a quarter after 9.

Sharyl noticed my paddle after I played against her and Olga with Shawnte as my partner. (We lost, Shawnte is pretty green yet and I’m playing left-handed!) She said she has a Prince Response paddle for sale—she started experiencing wrist pain when  she started using it so she stopped. This did get me to thinking, Could that be part of the cause of my tennis elbow? When did I switch over from the Tempest Wave? Regardless, I did notice my left wrist aching a bit coming into tonight. I’ve played a lot in the last week, six times in eight days?

The last three games were Olga and me against Oleg and Shawnte. Olga and I lost pretty lopsided games until the last where we actually lead at times and only lost 11-9. To my credit, I only failed to return a few of Oleg’s powerful serves in those three games.

Olga and her husband Oleg pack up as Shawnte gives a smile.

Overall, tonight was frustrating. I was doing my best to get into “tournament mindset” during games, yet still shots occasionally went wild despite my best intentions and focus. I did bestter serving, missing only a handful over the two hours.

Tonight, I didn’t bother to explain to anyone that I was playing left-handed. People either already knew or I didn’t care. It came up regardless. Like Larry asked how the elbow was doing. And Stuart mentioned it during his game with me.

So frustrating.

Number of days on a court: 273
Number of total hours: 751.5

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