Tuesday, August 4, 2026 (Court Day #951)

It was sunny and 66°F when I departed work at 6:15 p.m., leaving the task of fully closing up to my staff.

Left Foot

I’ve worn the plantar fasciitis support for my left foot overnight about half a dozen times. Part of the deterrent for me doing so is the metal bar inside the sleeve which digs into my foot no matter how I tried to bend it. Last night, I explored that more and—sure enough—there is a flap which allowed me to remove that metal bar, which I did. Though the metal bar does keep the end of my foot elevated better than without it. I may try the sleeve again tonight and see how it goes. I’m pretty sure that it did not work as well because when I woke up and walked around this morning, there was tightness and mild pain in my left foot. It’s not horrible, but this plantar fasciitis certainly not going away quickly.

Knee

My right knee continually continues to be bothersome. As is typical lately, maybe I shouldn’t be out playing given that there’s pain with every step. But too bad! I am playing anyway! I did decide to wear the elastic knee brace tonight, however. I honestly don’t know how much good it does, but it can’t hurt anything to wear it.

Skypark

I walked in at Skypark at 6:29 p.m.

Rose

I ended up playing a couple of games with Rose as my teammate. I’ve seen Rose around, but I don’t know her well and don’t play with her much at all. Before our second game, she was asking me when I started playing and she said that she thought that she had heard someone say that I’ve been playing for about a year. I chuckled and told her that I’ve been playing for nearly 10! She said, “No wonder you are so good!” I don’t know about that—after playing for nearly a decade, you think that I’d be turning pro by now! Alas!

Max

I played a game or two against Max tonight. Max played the best I’ve ever seen him. There at least half a dozen shots that I was not expecting him to be able to return, but he did. Nice! Better competition is always good.

I finished up at 8:23 p.m. It was dark and 63° by the time I left.

Tonight was one of those nights where I had no games with all strong players. There was one group of strong players that just stayed together and didn’t mix, but then there were some others, such as David, Ashley, Paul, Alec, Alex and Frabrizio later in the evening and they would’ve been good to mix in with, but it didn’t work out. It was a bummer. As it is, it’s hard for me to stay focused on the game when the rallies are short and my partner is blowing shots.

And?

Overall tonight, I wasn’t super thrilled with my play. I had a handful of wild floaters that flew long of the court. There were also a couple of drives, maybe three of them, that I hit into the net. And there were a couple of rallies where I was a bit lazy and didn’t move fast enough to cover the middle based on where the ball was.

USAP Question Weirdness

I’m empathetic to staff whose job it is to come up with things to post on social media on a regular basis. It’s that pressure and mundane work that leads to errors, like this one!

Confused? The answers go to a completely different question! Here’s the question that was almost certainly intended to go with these answers:
“When serving, which of the following are true?”
What do you think?

The answer is “C”.

Number of days on a court: 951
Number of total hours: 3,511.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 225.5

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

Sunday, August 2, 2026 (Court Day #950)

I was going to be spending a very long time outside today between playing this morning, teaching two classes this afternoon, and then having a private lesson afterwards. So I wasn’t too keen on rushing to get out to play this morning.

Injuries

My left foot is still tight with plantar fasciitis in the morning. But my biggest concern continues to be my right knee. Thankfully, there generally isn’t any pain in a resting position, though that is not always the case. There is varying degrees of pain while walking. It tends to be the worst after not using it for a while, be that sitting or lying down. My knee definitely feels better than it did a couple of weeks ago when I twisted while players ng and I was limping for a few days and was seriously thinking about knee replacement surgery. That’s still on the radar as a possibility, but my daughter, the orthopedic surgery resident, was recommended in trying a whole lot of different things before going to major surgery.

Normally, I go and play at Brommer Park, however, I needed to get to my classes early given that there’s a 60th anniversary of the City of Scotts Valley birthday party at Skypark grassy field near the courts, so I was expecting the parking to be impacted. And if anyone who has to be at the class, it’s me, the instructor! Brommer is an extra 5-10 minutes from my house, time I might need.

When I left my house about 9:40 a.m., it was a chilly 59° and completely overcast. It rained a little bit overnight, judging by the puddle remnants in the street and the various drips still on the windows of my car.

Derby Park

As I walked into the courts at 9:51 a.m, there was pain in my knee with every step. That’s another reason that I wasn’t as anxious to get to the courts as early as possible… I figured that my play would be somewhat limited regardless.

Games

My first game was with young Jesse versus Karin— the middle-aged, Asian woman—and her husband Mark. We won 11-3. The points they did get came from lack of communication between Jesse and myself.

The regular Paul and I won 11-7 against Sam and Jesse. It seemed like Paul was almost trying too hard. He drove a handful of shots into the net.

My third and final game was teamed up with Jesse against Glenn (the lefty) and Andy. Glenn and Andy are in their mid to late 60s. I’m still hanging on in my 50s and I would put Jesse in his 30s.

A bit of a surprise, Jesse and I found ourselves down 1-4. But it didn’t stay that way very long. There were a couple of shots where I was being aggressive and being a bit of a ball hog. I stopped doing that. Jesse was not a weak player. That and I also went from trying to hit winners to hitting higher percentage shots and hitting shots that were difficult to return as opposed to high speed shots.

Time to Hit the Road

I checked the time. 11:19 a.m. The waits were long. I could sign up again, but it would likely be at least 15 minutes before I could start the game and then probably another 10 to 20 minutes after to finish that game which would bring me uncomfortably close to noon. If it had been easy to get a game with stronger opponents, I’d be more tempted to push the time. My goal was to leave my house no later than 12:30 p.m. to give myself plenty of margin to get to the courts and find parking. I definitely do not want to be late for the first class. Maybe I’ll bring a book!

It was 61° and still completely overcast when I left Derby Park.

Today, I could definitely feel my knee during the later games. It hurt. 

As I was leaving, I walked up to Ashley and Frabrizio and asked them how they did at their tournament. Ashley, with not much enthusiasm, said that they got a bronze metal. I teased, “Was it out of four teams?” Ashley laughed and explained, “No… it was out of three teams!“ Apparently, the tournament didn’t have many signups. Well, that’s how the ball bounces sometimes!

---

Monday, August 3, 2026 (No Play)

This popped up on my YouTube feed. The news report about a town, Mashpee (in Massachusetts), requiring a low-noise ball.

Here is a article about how those local players hate the performance of these low-noise balls:
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/mashpee-pickleball-noise-complaints-new-ball

History

Here’s a short clip interviewing some of the sport founders and founders’ family members about the very early days of pickleball with details such as how the net height got determined:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/936720392776245

I’ve heard most of this before. What’s interesting to me is one of the sons explaining that the original kitchen line was the badminton “short serve line” which is 6’6″ back from the net. Years ago, I read somewhere that it was originally at 5′ and later got moved back to 7′. This is wrong. It was originally at 6’6″ then got moved back another half foot to 7′.

Number of days on a court: 950
Number of total hours: 3,509.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 225.5

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

Thursday, July 30, 2026 (Court Day #949)

A blast from the past, a few years ago, this clip is reminiscing about the development of the serve:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DbbYAw4kR4Z
At the time, when I saw this going on, I had a choice—learn the ‘chainsaw serve’ myself or trust that it was going to get banned in relatively short order. I chose the latter and my foresight proved to be correct. It got banned in the next rulebook!
They mention Morgan Evans doing this serve to great success, I have a paddle around with his autograph on it.

Classes

The good news is, after one of my students dropped out from injury, another person signed up and filled the class. Both of my classes starting Sunday are now again sold out.

Today

It started cooling down today, but then it got somewhat toasty. As I drove away from work at 6:21 p.m., it was sunny and a warm 75°. There were no clouds to be seen anywhere.

The mild plantar fasciitis in my left foot merely felt tight this morning not painful. While it is still lingering, it definitely feels better than its initial onset.

My right knee is still problematic, but I’m not limping like I was a little over a week ago.

Skypark

The very first game of the night was Paul and myself against two middle-aged women. One obviously came from a tennis background, she had really good drives. The other player wasn’t quite as strong. Paul was making a lot of errors and our opponents took the lead. I believe it was 5-2 in their favor. But then Paul and I went on a roll, winning 11-5.

There is a tall young blond guy there whose name was Cane—or Caine. He said that he’s been out playing with his wife and he is trying to convince her to continue to play. Cane has good hand coordination. He’s just inconsistent and has a fair amount of work to do on strategy and the soft game.

Mike, Ashley, Fabrizio

Frabrizio and Ashley wanted to play together since they have a tournament coming up. Mike C. was there and I grabbed him since we are supposed to play together in October in a tournament.

Mike and I gelled pretty well. There was a couple of shots in the middle where he crept in with his backhand and interfered with my forehand, but that was not happening very often. In the first game, we won 11-2. I was surprised since I was expecting Frabrizio and Ashley to to give us a good run for our money. In the second game, we won again, this time 11-4.

Ashley said we had time for one more. I asked him what time it was and he said 8:23 p.m. That would give us about 10 more minutes of the lights.

We switched sides and for this game they were serving first. After a few sideouts, we found ourselves down 1-6. That was there when the lights went out. There was still some natural light and Ashley asked if we wanted to continue and I know I certainly wanted to and so did Mike. We played for another five minutes or so and it was getting darker. Ashley suggested we shift down to the court next to the gate, which has the one permanent overhead light. The light illuminated mostly their side, giving them had a slight advantage. On our side, the light illuminated to about where our kitchen line was so we had more contrast/shadow on our side.

We started making some progress. We had some momentum closing the gap to 5-9. At this point, Ashley asked if we wanted to stop. I was ready at that point. It was getting hard to see.

Mike and I played pretty well. I tend to communicate a lot with the ball in the middle, half the time calling “yours!”, given that Mike has a long reach and it would be his forehand.

We came to the agreement that I would be the first server and Mike would start on the “hammer” side.

We had some really good firefights and some really good rallies in those last games. Super fun!

It was 8:44 p.m. when I checked the time.

It’s outings like this that keep me going. You drive home thinking, “I can play this game!”

Error Cascade

On occasion, when I don’t have enough students to run to complete doubles games for a class, I’ll do a rotation of players. A student makes an error then they are forced to step out, and someone else will rotate in.

Sometimes, the students are surprised by who I kick out of the game. It’s not always the last player (or the next to last player) who touches—or can’t touch—the ball who is at fault.

This was readily apparent tonight. I would hit a shot too high then five shots later, we would lose the rally. It would be a cascade that was set off by a mistake.

---

Friday, July 31, 2026 (No Play)

Just about an hour away from me, rooftop pickleball courts were installed on the top of a 6-story public parking garage in Berkeley:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbejlhfB-Dn

Glasses Fail

Another company decided to compete with KitchenBlockers, the company that first game out with lensless frames for eye protection in pickleball. The company is Dink Eyewear. They sell regular sports glasses too, but after doing some research, I’m less than impressed with their lensless ones, called Shield.

One guy posted on Facebook that the frames snapped and a jagged shard was left as a result. Scary.

One of the reviews on their website says this: “My glasses broke the first time I got hit in the face. I have emailed you three different times and have never gotten a reply and over the course of over a week.”

Another:
“These did not protect my eye at all. I tried them on, tested them out by placing a ball up to my eye and the Shield did not prevent the ball from touching my eye; this was just me testing it, I can’t even imagine the damage that would be done if I wore them in an actual game and took a direct hit to the eye.”

I’d much rather have my eyes protected than look a bit more fashionable! There was also several reviews talking about the glasses warping from heat. Pass.

Number of days on a court: 949
Number of total hours: 3,508
Number of paid coaching hours: 221.5

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