Wednesday, May 29, 2019 (Court Day #272)

Day 33 playing left-handed. (33rd day out.) Tennis elbow.

Tournaments

Yesterday afternoon, Binh texted asking if I had Art’s contact information. I let him know that I didn’t. He said Art had asked him to be his partner on Saturday at the San Juan Bautista tournament. SBJ tournament? I knew nothing about it! In a later text, Binh “confessed” that he is signed up to play with Mark G. in a tournament in Sunnyvale in August the week after Binh and I are to play in the Cabrillo Tournament. I emailed Jen, the organizer for the SJB tournament, asking for details. It turns out men’s doubles is on Sunday, not Saturday. I forwarded that information to Binh’s email.

Derby

I got up and my back was sore. I arrived at Derby Park at 9:15. Dave Allenbaugh had jury duty so he got Tom S. to be the site coordinator in his stead.

Binh talked to Art and Art said he was fine with Binh playing with me this weekend. Good news for me.

Greedy

I played a game with George as my partner. There was one shot down the middle slightly to his side where I got greedy and took the shot. I should have left it for his forehand so he could slam it instead of me simply getting it back over the net with my overly-stretched weaker left-handed forehand. George gave me a polite “talking to” afterward on the bench. He was most certainly right. Truth is, we were losing and I decided to be more aggressive on my shots—the problem was I may have cost us a point by not letting George attack a shot that should have been his.

Binh and I played a game against Karen Long and Gary. Karen, of course, is an advanced player, and Gary is a 3.0 on a good day. Binh and I lost. Karen felt bad after she beaned me in the left shoulder. A “chicken wing” shot is hard enough with your natural arm, let alone trying to play using your non-dominant arm! Afterward, Binh apologized to me for taking it easy on Gary. I laughed and told him that it was fine. (I didn’t take it easy on anyone though I’d made an effort to intentionally hit shots to Karen now and then.)

Binh and I lost several early games in sound fashion. Unfortunately. But we got better. Binh and I beat Eric S. and Grita 11-5. That was impressive, though Eric wasn’t playing his best game.

We went on to beat Wayne and new Dave 11-5. We had a rematch and beat them again, 11-0. (Bagel!) They got just one serve. We scored 5 points on my only service then the rest on Binh’s only service. Game. Binh is doing better with employing a soft game. Wayne likes to bang the ball and our style of play was a very good match to that.

Then we played Eric S. and John P. We lost 11-6. Expected, but we still gave them a fight.

I noticed my ankle between points once or twice. It’s still causing pain at times. I’m not sure why the injury has come back. (I rolled my ankle . . . maybe 18 months ago now? It’s been a while.)

Things to Work On

Low backhand. Serving. Trying to dink volley low semi-drive shots back over the net—I’m taking far too much off the shot and the ball is dropping well short of the net. I noticed today that I did far better serving if I lobbed it a bit more than hitting low over the net, I think I’ll use that more frequently.

I was done and off to work at 12:06. I had a plumber meeting me at work at 1 p.m. Little did I know at the time that he’d be 40 minutes early and would be already asking questions when I was about to step into the shower at home!

San Juan Bautista Tournament

Later, I emailed Jen and told her to sign Binh and me up for 3.0 and to try to give us as much time as possible since we’d be driving down right after Binh got off from his RN job at 7:30 a.m. She confirmed and even said she’d give us a first round bye. Nice!

Dave Allenbaugh responded quickly to my email asking if he’d cover Derby for me so I could play in the tournament. He said since he’s stuck in jury duty instead of playing pickleball, he was happy to cover!

Number of days on a court: 272
Number of total hours: 749.5

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Monday, May 27, 2019 (Court Day #271)
Memorial Day

Day 32 playing left-handed. Tennis elbow.

I arrived at Brommer Park a mere few minutes after 9. The parking lot was already over half full. It was overcast and breezy. One temporary net would blow over more than once during the session.

My back was pretty tired from the start. About an hour in, the temptation of leaving crossed my mind. I powered through. My right ankle also would hurt now and then, but typically not during actual play, but when just walking around.

Tom (visiting from out of town) and Cal take on two players (nearside). Overcast.

With the holiday, it was very busy. Early on, Leslie announced we’d be playing to 9. When I stopped to count players, there were 61 people at the courts, and some had already left!

A big crowd today. Tony (leftmost, tan hat) and Daniel (rightmost, red) don’t mark the limit of waiting people! Alan K. has his hands on his hips while Terry Long (purple) does some managing of the court board. Sun!

Binh and I beat Mark G. and Allen 11-8. (Not be confused with Alan K. or Allan C.)  It was a long game. Mark was having about as much trouble with his drops shots as I was—a lot.

Between games, I sat next to Joe, the new guy whom I’d played singles with a couple of weeks ago. I mentioned the pain in my right shoulder when I raise my elbow and he said it sounds like a rotator cuff problem. He said he’s having rotator cuff surgery and will be out for a few months for recovery. “Today will be my last time playing for a while.” He said I should go see Dr. Warren Scott in Soquel, who diagnoses sports injuries. I didn’t mention this before, but I’d asked my PT on Friday about that pain and she mentioned that it could be my rotator cuff, but she didn’t go beyond that and we didn’t discuss it more.

Binh and I played our our last three games against Aidan and Karen. (Little Karen, not Karen Long.) We won all three, though we had to come back the last game down 8-3.

There was a first in one of those last three games. I hit my first deep forehand slice service return as a lefty. That’s a decently advanced shot that I rarely see from intermediate players. I’ll take whatever little victory I can get right now!

I checked the time, 1:39 p.m. Four and a half hours. No wonder I was so fatigued!

Number of days on a court: 271
Number of total hours: 747

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

Sunday, May 26, 2019 (Court Day #270)

Day 31 playing left-handed. Tennis elbow.

The prediction had been for a 60% chance of rain this morning. And it did rain. We email blasted the club with a delay until 10 a.m. with a possible cancelation. My wife wandered in about 8:30, I was still leisurely lounging in bed, saying that it was sunny outside and even raising the window shade to prove it. Well, what do you know? There was a solid chance that the courts might dry out. With no sun, the courts take many hours to dry.

I had woken up with some mild pain in my right forearm, where my tennis elbow manifests itself. (Aside from the pain on the bone at my elbow.)

I drove down and arrived at the courts at 9:35. Aside from half a dozen small and shallow puddles, the courts were dry. I’d brought two large towels and only had to use one of them to dab the puddles to the point of no standing water. I blew off the courts, but it was quite windy and there was a certain amount of futility in the exercise. Later, at least two nets blew over. That’s gusty!

Tom M. showed up first at about 5 minutes to 10. He offered to help set up and I accepted the offer! And it would be another 10-15 minutes before Eric S. showed up then a trickle of others. We never topped 20 players today. I think the delay and the wind scared off players. Or they didn’t care to check in after the initial delay email.

Play

Mid-morning, three newbies in their 30s showed up. A man named Chris later told me that he’d played before, and his two friends, rank beginners, Steve and a tall Asian woman, Lily. I didn’t play against Steve and Lily, but I did get to play against Chris. Chris was partnered with Tom S. against Binh and me. They went ahead, we battled back, the game went into extra points and I believe lost 13-11.

My play was generally icky. I did get a lefty ATP around the left post, but it was only during warmups.

The best showing of the day was Binh and me playing Eric and John P. Yes, we lost, but it was only 11-9. (Eric and John P. had won bronze at the large Paso Robles tournament a couple of months ago in the 3.5 60+ bracket.)

I told Binh that it would probably be wise if we sign up in 3.0 instead of 3.5 for the tournament. This time he agreed. He pointed out that we’d lost every game we played, including our last two games against Greg (Angie’s husband) and Karen. Games we should have won.

I’ve been so focused on my play, I’ve been neglecting to coach up my partner as I’m the more experienced player. Binh has the ability to dig out low balls and has quick hands at the net. Where he needs work is he lapses into some banger tendencies. At one point, I told him, “You’re not going to drive the ball through them at the net. Sometimes, if they are weak players, you can get away with that, but often they can just drive the ball off the court.” And he did do better. One point stuck in my mind where he played an excellent soft game and we won the point with patience and control. I told him that’s it’s weird for me to give him advice with me having so much work to do on my lefty game!

I counted the donation cash, made sure everything was stowed, then locked the bins. It was 1:24. Time to head home.

Later

I was about email the Monterey/Salinas tournament TD (tournament director) about the timeframe for the 3.0 bracket. Would it be done by 1 p.m.? Or would it be starting later in the morning? Then I noticed that the early cutoff is today! Oops. I texted Binh and told him that the early cutoff is today and we should sign up. Granted, it’s not a big savings, but, hey, $5 is $5!

I signed up and added in the notes that we want to playing 3.0 since I’m playing left-handed. (PickleballTournaments.com has me entered with my “Legacy Rating”, which is 3.5, as opposed to my official UTPR of 3.469, which rounds down to 3.0.)

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is Memorial Day. There will be play at Brommer Park. It’ll be great to play four times in five days. I just hope I play better.

Number of days on a court: 270
Number of total hours: 742.5

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