Sunday, February 12, 2017 (Court Day #3)

I continued to watch videos and listen to podcasts about pickleball. I explored buying a book or two, but figured I’d exhaust free resources first and maybe use the money for my own paddle first.

Sunday, February 12 marked my third trip to a pickleball court. Being a church-goin’ lad, this particular day I couldn’t arrive to the courts until about 10:15. It wasn’t a warm day, low-60s, but sunny.

It was on this day that one of the opposing players exclaimed, “I thought you’d said you’d only been playing for three weeks!” I did come into this with a bit of an advantage, having played some tennis in college. While I didn’t play on the UCSC team, there was one quarter where I had won both lotteries to get into both the offered tennis classes so I was playing four days a week. Those were fun times! I haven’t played much tennis over the years since, maybe 20 times in 30 years, but some of the young brain settings are still in there, apparently. I’m told that it’s not uncommon for those with tennis experience to play pickleball.

Pickleball Player Ratings

The International Federation of Pickleball has a player rating system which ranks players from 1.0 to 5.0. National champion players are 5.0 players. Players who have never played racket sports would could be 1.0 players, but you’d have to be pretty darn bad to be a 1.0 player. Perhaps 1.0 is a designation commonly only applied to children. I’m only guessing. Anyone who can play and regularly get the ball over the net are going to be 3.0 players. I figure I’m a 3.5 player and might be approaching 4.0, though 4.0 states “can use spin shots with some success”—that’s not me yet. I had a pretty mean spin on tennis serves and could slice my forehands and backhands back in the day, but pickleball is a different animal and I need to develop a new set of skills.

[A years later note: I have to laugh. I was not a 3.5. I was a 3.0. If I was comparing myself to others who said they were 3.5 level players, they were 3.0 players also!]

The Lefty

This was the first time I went against a left-handed player. When serving right to left, I knew from videos that you want to ideally serve near the middle of the court to the receiver’s left foot to force a backhand return which is usually a weaker shot. Me, not being a dumb guy, served near the outer corner of the court to off the lefty’s right foot, forcing a backhand. I was pretty proud of myself for figuring this out all by myself. It worked pretty well too. Only later, I saw this idea in a video . . . so much for my clever strategy. Old news! Rats. Of course it had already been figured out! The game has been around for over 50 years!

Tough Crowd

Most of the players had left by 12:30/12:45. The players who were still around were good. And I mean solid. The women dressed in tennis outfits. You can imagine. It was guys against girls. As you might expect, with me on the guys team, we lost. But not too badly. This was an excellent learning experience. I was the weakest-skills player on the court, but I did ok. I didn’t embarrass myself . . . well, except that one time that I missed landing my serve. There isn’t too much excuse for that in pickleball, but it happens. It usually occurs when servers are trying to force a tricky shot. Or, in my case, simply missing the service court by a few inches! That’s why a lot of pickleball pundits recommend hitting more toward the center of the box—it gives you the largest margin for error. But I’m not that bad. I can generally place my serves somewhat reliably.

My guy partner (Kevin) pointed out a key strategy at the net: tracking with the ball. If the ball is hit to the left opponent, shift left in along the kitchen line. Conversely, if the ball goes to the right opponent, shift right. By doing this,  you close down the near sideline and reduce the likelihood of a passing shot . . . which I allowed, unfortunately, by not tracking!

I wrapped up my day about a quarter after 1 p.m. As we broke down the net and stowed the gear as the last players, we left the courts to the grouchy tennis player. He made some snide remark about pickleball to which one of the women players replied, “You should try it before you knock it!”

Sunday, February 5, 2017 (Court Day #2)

I couldn’t wait to get back on the court for my second day of pickleball. The Santa Cruz Pickleball Club arranges a number of venues to play throughout the week, but some of us work for a living! And some of us who run family businesses get to work six days a week! (Though I’m trying to cut back on that.) So Sunday, a week later on February 5, it would have to be.

As it turns out, my invitee John wasn’t going to be there. But that was ok, I’d met a number of friendly people the previous week on my first visit, including one man, Bruce S., whom I’d known for years through work. Bruce is a basketball fanatic—playing and coaching for years—but his wife Janet wanted something that they could play together as they got older. Enter, pickleball!

When I arrived at the courts a little after 9 a.m., Bruce wasn’t there, but his wife Janet was around. We played a game or two, if I recall correctly, one as teammates, another on the opposite sides of the net.

This was a colder day, topping out in the mid-50s, overcast with expected showers in the evening. There was no waiting for courts today, except at near the end of the morning.

As I played that day, I got more comfortable with the peculiar scoring and awareness of where the kitchen was. I’d be lying if there weren’t points that went the way of the wind due to my foot faults. Not all that many, but they certainly existed, unfortunately!

I played for a near-solid three hours. I believe I sat out just for a total of 10 minutes all morning waiting for a court. I was beat. I could feel the fatigue in my legs. Pickleball had worn me out! I was getting even more exercise than I had originally bargained for, which is great!

So there I was. I had finished my first day, a mere 90 minutes or so, of playing pickleball. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was hooked. I’d be heading back to Derby Park the following Sunday morning for more.

I’m not one to do things halfway. Once I commit, I jump in with both feet. I don’t leap blindly, but once I do, it’s “all in.”

Online Resources

I started watching video after video on YouTube on how to improve in Pickleball. The Pickleball Channel is particularly informative, as are the Third Shot Sports videos (by Canadian Mark Renneson) and  also the super helpful instructional videos by Joe Baker.

I also subscribed to The Pickleball Show podcast on iTunes—it’s bit heavy on the promotional aspect of it, but the content is typically good. Episodes are about 20 minutes or so and you can always speed through the redundant promo parts. As I type this (February 26, 2017) there are nearly 100 of the shows recorded and I’ve listened to about a quarter of them so far.

The Serving Disadvantage

Last time I mentioned that the serving team is at a disadvantage. Why?

First, it’s important to know that any team at the net has a huge advantage. This is the same as tennis. There are far more angles to send the ball off of the court and out of play from the net than from the baseline.

Secondly, should explain another pickleball rule. The two paddle hits after the serve must be after the ball bounces. In other words, it’s serve, return (after the bounce), hit (after the bounce). Once those three hits are complete, volleys may commence.

Because of this rule, it makes no sense for the serving team to have any players at the net before the third shot since they cannot volley the ball. It’s illegal. Therefore, the serving team stays at the baseline. However, the receiving team has no such strategic restriction. Of course, the receiving player needs to be near the baseline, but that player’s partner can already be up at the non-volley zone line. (Most people stay a few inches back from that line to be safe.) Since half the team is already up at the kitchen, this gives an advantage to the receiving team. To balance this, in terms of fairness of the game, only the serving team can score.

So, some history. Pickleball was invented by happenstance in Washington State back in 1965. A politician’s kids were bored and so the adults cobbled together a game for them using a badminton court, the badminton net (dropped to the ground like a tennis net), ping pong paddles, and a  plastic wiffle ball that was lying around. The game was addictive. (As I have personally discovered!) The story goes that one of the adult participants was tall (6’2″, if I recall correctly) and he would just stand at the net and slam any ball hit in his direction off the court to win the rally. To balance this, the no-volley zone was invented. The tall man had to stand 7 feet back from the net and his height was neutralized.

Many of the pickleball rules were a result of trial and error. If the game was unfair, a new rule was added to make it more fair. Eventually, they figured out they needed bigger paddles than just small ping pong paddles so they cut some out of plywood on a bandsaw. Now we have paddle cores made out of Nomex (basically cardboard covered with resin), aluminum, graphite, and fiberglass . . . and new paddle technologies are developing all the time.