Category: Pickleball (Page 1 of 315)

Wednesday, April 15, 2026 (Court Day #926)

At 6:25 p.m. tonight, my daughter Charlotte called me afterhours at work asking me if I wanted to fill-in for a pickleball game. I was certainly surprised. She and her boyfriend Aidan had arranged for some pickleball with two of their friends, but then Charlotte discovered that her 6 o’clock virtual doctor’s appointment was actually at 7 o’clock so she couldn’t play. I later figured out that they’d been trying to find a fourth player from their pool of friends but were unsuccessful so they settled for me!

I was in initially a bit incredulous about Brommer Park given that it has no lights and sunset would be in about an hour. It wouldn’t give us a lot of time to play… though even after sunset there is still enough light to see for a little while.

I explained over the phone to Charlotte where she could find my pickleball clothing and gear and so Aidan brought all that and met me at work about 10 minutes later. I changed at work then Aidan drove us to the courts.

Brommer

By 7 p.m., we were at Brommer Park. Aidan chatted with his friend Turner as we walked in and Turner‘s fiancé Alissa was smiling and hanging back about 50 feet on a phone call.

When I walked in, Zach and Kirk were playing against Kim and Conner McNicholas. Kim called over to me, “You’re getting here late!“ Yes, sunset was coming quickly.

Aidan started warming up with Alissa and Turner across the net. I grabbed a second ball so I could warm up faster across from Turner. I initially was hitting right handed, but then switched to my left. Turner’s dinks were high and easy to handle.

Games

I teamed up with Aidan for the first game and played lefty. Aidan and I won, but it fairly close.

For the second game, I said I wanted to play with Alissa. I told her that I’d play righty. There was some surprise that I had done the previous game lefty. Turner laughed with realization.

Alissa and I won. I will say I hit a couple of my early shots in the white tape! Oops. (Too much thinking: “Ha, ha, ha! Watch me now with my right hand!”)

Later on, Turner said that today was only his second time playing. He did pretty well for only his second outing.

Turner and I teamed up—I was back to lefty—and we had a big lead when Charlotte arrived. I stepped out and let Charlotte take my place. The game tightened up a bit, but they still wrapped up “our” win. 

Alissa said she was going to run home—literally! So I jumped back in, this time with Charlotte. She’s a natural lefty and I told her I’d be playing lefty too. We won 11-3 but it was getting dark and out opponents were chatting more than really paying attention.

We finished up at 8 p.m.

Pickleball Slam Highlights

Andre Agassi was out playing again in another “Pickleball Slam”. The winner got $1,000,000 for charity. This time Anna Leigh Waters, #1 women’s player, was involved… well, except for in the boys against girls doubles, when she was barely involved. The guys were relentlessly targeting Anna Leigh’s partner Genie Bouchard.

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Thursday, April 16, 2026 (No Play)

Here’s a take by Zane Navratil on the Pickleball Slam results:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXNZ-1xDM5t

Rules Dunces

So dumb. So many wrong comments!!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DR7R22REXhM

“He went into the kitchen before the ball bounced in it” 
1,230 likes!

WRONG!

“Reached over the net”

WRONG!

“Was in the kitchen”
1,191 likes!

WRONG!

People! His foot touched the net and it was past the plane of the net! Everything else is legal!!

Scotts Valley P&R Commission Meeting

I was planning to attend the SV P&R meeting tonight but instead, at 3 p.m., I left work to take my brother Matt and mother to urgent care for evaluation. Matt has pneumonia (X-ray) and my mom has an infection severely affecting her hearing (CT scan). After the diagnosis, it was off to get prescriptions. It was just shy of 8 p.m. when I dropped them back off at my folks’ house.

In the driveway, I logged in online to see if the P&R meeting was still going on. I caught about 10 seconds of one speaker then they closed public comment. I knew then that there would be no point in driving the 10 minutes further from home to get there. I checked in with club president Mark Dettle and he said there was a good turnout of about 50 players. That’s a far cry from the five of us who were at the last meeting! No major decisions were made and the commission opted to further investigate solutions to noise and traffic and parking around the Skypark courts.

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Saturday, April 18, 2026 (No Play)

My wife and I know the owner of the local Bookshop Santa Cruz, Casey. Casey decided to close the shop early this evening and throw herself a milestone birthday party. Of course, I had to check the sport section for pickleball books. I wasn’t disappointed, they did, in fact, have a couple in stock.

One was “Pickleball is Life” by Erin McHugh and the other was “Pickleball for All” by Rachel Simon. I need another pickleball book like I need a hole in my head, but they were fun to see.

And, yes, the party was fun and the food was yummy!

[A quick note. I’m rather behind in getting these posted. I’ve been doing a lot of travel and work has been insane. More coming soon!]

Number of days on a court: 926
Number of total hours: 3,450
Number of paid coaching hours: 209.5

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

Tuesday, April 14, 2026 (Court Day #925)

I could definitely feel my right knee after playing five hours of pickleball yesterday. In fact, as I was trying to go to sleep last night, it was aching some. I was moving the positions of my legs to find the most comfortable spot. Some positions made the aching worse and others made it slightly better. But I was tired enough that I did manage to get to sleep pretty easily.

I may have shared this before, but it’s a good one so here it is just in case. The rule of thirds:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUWIp-JEn49
A third of the time, you feel awesome about your play. A third of the time you feel you are playing ok. A third of the time you ask yourself why you bother to play! That’s normal and it means you are being challenged. It’s good.

Autograph Line!

I have to say, this video is a far cry from pre-pandemic when, at a tournament, I could just walk right up to #1 doubles team Kyle Yates and Ben Johns sitting under a canopy as they waited for their next match and ask them for their autographs. Here’s a video clip of the line to get #1 women’s Anna Leigh Water’s autograph:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXFj7dBEYPO

Skypark

I arrived at Skypark at 6:45 p.m. It was a nice day today and still comfortably in the mid-60s and sunny.

It was busy tonight, but it wasn’t too busy. At most, there were 10 people waiting to get into games.

Young Leo—often seen at Derby—and I won 11-0 versus Abhi and Shreyes. This was my third shutout win at Skypark in the last month or so. It’s nice when it happens against competent players. Sometimes, it’s just momentum. I’ve been on the losing side of shutouts a few times in the last decade of playing.

I was in two games where my partner—whomever that was!—and I lost 11-13 after being up in both 9-4!

Ashley and I put our paddles up and we ended up in a game with a couple of women. One was Blake and I don’t recall the other woman’s name, but I’ve never played with her before. After the game was done, Blake told us that she could tell that we were pulling our punches. I will say they had a handful of very good shots. Some of the mistakes we made were from taking it too easy in the game. I think at one point they were winning 4–2, but Ashley and I went on a long run of points at the end of the game winning 11–5.

When I left it was 55°.

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Wednesday, April 15, 2026 (No Play)

A new massive racquet sport facility—nearly 200,000 sq.ft.!—is opening in Arizona and will feature pickleball and padel. About 50 indoor courts are expected as well as a pro court with spectator seating.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DXFdEOcgam9
I hope they did a solid business plan. Indoor does seem like it’d be a bigger drawn in hot (and cold) Arizona, than here in sunny California.

Number of days on a court: 925
Number of total hours: 3,449
Number of paid coaching hours: 209.5

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

Monday, April 13, 2026 (Court Day #924)

Keeping with a recent change in protocol, our monthly pickleball club board meeting is continuing to swap between Derby Park and Brommer Park. Today, we were at Derby.

Yesterday, I finalized, printed, and laminated a membership sign and a court fee sign for each of the four venues where there is organized club play. At last month’s meeting, I got a little bit of feedback on my signs and I made those tweaks yesterday. Today, I brought the signs to our meeting for distribution.

A month or two back, my former tournament partner Eric Schmidt told me to let him know the next time that I was to be playing at Derby Park, and today I did, but he is traveling with his wife and is out of state. Oh, well. Maybe next time.

Weather

It has been pouring rain off and on the last few days. Today, the sun was popping in and out from behind patchy clouds. At 57°, one minute you’d be cold and another minute you’d be toasty in the direct sunlight.

Derby Park

When I arrived at Derby at 9:05 a.m. There were dark clouds in the northeast. I was hoping that it wouldn’t shower.

I can count the number of times I’ve been at Derby Park on a Monday that was not a holiday on one hand. There were a few players familiar to me today but most were not.

Being that it was not a club day at Derby—organized club play was at Brommer—once the courts were full, people were using the paddle rack.

I got into a game with a guy named Brian. We won 11-2 versus our opponents.

Brian and a man named Hugh teamed up and won 11-7 against me and and a man named Greg. 

Hugh and I won 11-6 against a couple of opponents.

I’d seen none of those guys before. When you play at a location and time that you don’t normally play, you will see new faces.

Rain

In the midmorning, it started to rain and all but one court stopped playing. But it didn’t last long and the sun popped out again to dry things out and play resumed less than 10 minutes later.

Tall, mustached Mike and Sam are doing a tournament together—70+ bracket? Greg and I took them on. We won the first game, lost the second. They were picking on Greg. For tournament prep, Mike and Sam should have been hitting more to me! You don’t hit to the weaker player! It’s good for your ego, but bad for improving.

Allen Goldberg arrived about half an hour before our meeting. He said that he came from Brommer Park. Maybe I will consider that the next time we have a board meeting at Derby Park.

Board Meeting

Our board meeting was fairly short, wrapping up after only an hour at 1:15 p.m.

More Play

After the meeting, Jackie asked if anyone wanted to play and, of course, how could I say no? President Mark Dettle wanted to play and new Treasurer Allen Goldberg stayed to make up our group of four. 

Allen and I started together and won a couple of games.

Then we switched things up and this time I was playing with Mark. We were a bit more balanced, but Mark and I still lost both games by a few points.

I have to laugh at one of Mark‘s comments. After Jackie had slammed a ball off to my left out of reach for a winner, Mark said, “Oh, she caught you coming over.” Truth be told, I was covering the middle since the ball was out in front of Mark off to my right. The real problem was that Mark popped the ball up nice and juicy for Jackie to attack. My court positioning was just fine. Anytime you pop up a shot like that, you are asking for trouble.

It was surprisingly windy, and gusts would sometimes change the trajectory of the ball.

After an hour play, Jackie said she needed to go, but I also needed to leave and Mark needed to go as well. It was a consensus.

Bonus Session at Skypark!

I wasn’t expecting to have another pickleball outing today, but Mike Cattivera texted me saying that he was looking for some games around 4:30 or 5 p.m. I told him that I had to work but I could I could be there by 6 or 6:30 p.m. In the end, he found other people to play but one would need to leave shortly after 6 p.m. and Mike said I could join them then.

Skypark

While the sun was starting to get low in the sky, it was still sunny and 63°F. The rain we had experienced this morning was long gone and the sky was mostly blue. It was still pretty windy, however.

I pulled into Skypark at 6:18 p.m. and the lot was full except for one spot for me.

Mike and I won 11-1 against Mauricio and Ben. 

We had a rematch and won again 11-4.

Mauricio and I lost 3-11 (sun in our eyes), then 2-11. The losses were not 100% all on Mauricio, I made some errors too.

Ben and I found ourselves down 6-8, but came back and won 11-9.

Learning Experience

One very short, but memorable rally was when Ben was serving to me when I was on the right side of the court. I returned his serve to his backhand, which was, as a lefty, near his sideline. But the problem was two-fold. One was that my return wasn’t deep enough to keep them fully back but also wasn’t shallow enough to make the situation an uncomfortable stretch. And because I wasn’t coming to the net fast enough, that left him with an opportunity to hit a shallow crosscourt winner, which he did. Rally over. The thing to keep in mind is even with both forehands in the middle, sometimes not giving your opponent crosscourt angles has an advantage. (Hitting to the middle would have straightened out that angle somewhat.) The other lesson is depending on your return, you don’t want to dilly dally getting up to the net, and instead sprint up there as quick as you can, only stopping to split step when your opponent is about to hit the ball.

At 7:31 p.m., they were done and packing up. I was ready to go another hour, but that didn’t happen.

It was after sunset and it required lights on the court, but there was still some dim natural light. It was a pleasant 57° as I headed home.

Tennis Elbow?

My right elbow is bothering me a little bit. Nothing severe, but enough for me to consider maybe using my tennis elbow strap on my right forearm.

Number of days on a court: 924
Number of total hours: 3,447.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 209.5

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