I was woken up by rain around 3:30 this morning. That almost certainly guaranteed a delay or cancellation for club play today at Sergeant Derby Park. around 8:30 a.m., I sent out an email delaying play until 10 a.m.
My hand was still a bit sore from play yesterday morning, but it was better than last night.
I left my house at 9:30 to partly cloudy skies. Sun is a requirement to dry the courts!
Derby
When I was pulling up, Larry and his wife Jacquie were leaving in separate cars. I asked Larry how the courts were and he said that they were doing OK. But once I got to the courts themselves, there was standing water in multiple places. The good news is the sun was out and doing a good job drying the courts where there weren’t pools.
There were three players there who were about to warm up, but I told them that if I didn’t get their help toweling off the courts at that moment, I was going to cancel play for today. They weren’t to keen about that so they immediately got to work helping me. By the time 10 o’clock rolled around, the courts were playable.
A few minutes after 10 a.m., there were only 9 of us there to play. The number of players they topped out a very low 20 today.
Lefty
I was playing all my games left-handed. It started out a bit clunky but I got better.
Matt Smith showed up along with a guy named Paul who I hadn’t met before but turned out to be Paul Swiencicki from our SCALPEL league. Paul is a pretty good player. He’ll be a challenge when it comes to playing games in the league.
I played a game with Rick Abend against Paul and a woman whose name escapes me and I played lefty.
Harder Games
I won all my games lefty . . . until . . .
I played with Rick against Matt and Paul. We were crushed. It was 10-3 before they eased up and let it become 10-7 before finishing us off 11-7.
I opted to play the next game right-handed and Rick and I didn’t fare much better, a little better, but not much.
We played a third game which was closer, but Rick and I still lost.
Paul wanted to change things up, so he and I took on Matt and Rick. The game was never in doubt, Paul and I took a very big lead and never gave it up. I believe we were ahead 8-1 before they scored a little run of points.
It was 1:10 by the time I left the courts for the day.
OMG. Work to Do.
I was hitting balls that would have otherwise flown out of the court. Matt and Paul took to just driving balls at me knowing that I’d nearly always just hit them regardless. This is a major Achilles Heel for me. I suppose I need to drill for this or somehow change my mindset and be more aware of out balls.
Pro Loses Cool
At a recent PPA tournament, on February 25, pro player DJ Young expressed his disgust of losing a game by throwing his paddle to the ground. The only thing is, the paddle bounced off the ground and into the spectator stands two rows back!
I get it, as a competitor he was upset, but we have to control our emotions and keep people safe. The PPA fined him. I believe I shared it here before, but locally a player threw a paddle last year after losing a game and it hit his opponent in the face. He didn’t intend to his opponent, but these kinds of things happen when you start throwing paddles or slamming balls after the game is over. This local incident resulted in blood and a hospital trip, but no permanent damage—luckily.
Monday, March 6, 2023 (No Play)
Tomorrow is my first league match. I’m a bit excited.
I made up a couple of memes. This one I posted in the Pickleball Forum on Facebook:
And I had made up another that I posted to The Pickleball Clinic on Facebook:
The life of a pickleball player…
Number of days on a court: 582 Number of total hours: 2,581.5 Number of paid coaching hours: 2
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
René texted me yesterday afternoon asking if I would like to join her, Rick, and Tony (the Cabrillo instructor) at Brommer Park at 8 a.m. to play. The back of my right hand is been feeling a little bit better—though not as good as it should be. I haven’t played for a while, and I was kind of anxious so I told her to “pencil me in”.
Brommer
Some rain was expected today with more off and on rain this week. When I arrived at 8 o’clock sharp at Brommer Park, I could see that Tony was on a court across from Jon Barlow and they were warming up. I looked around and René and Rick were nowhere to be seen. As if she read my mind, René texted about a minute later, saying she’d be arriving about 8:15 a.m. I went down onto the courts wearing a sweatshirt since it was 44° when I left my house. I put on my wrist strap, my forearm strap, and pulled up my knee brace. After me watching for a few minutes standing next to their court, Tony invited me to join their warm-up, which I did.
Apparently, when Tony was invited by René when she didn’t receive his reply that he was coming. So she invited Jon. So we had five players for doubles. Rick stepped out for the first game and played with another group on the adjacent court.
I don’t usually come on Saturday mornings to Brommer, but judging from the comments around, it was a busy morning. Someone exclaimed, “Everyone has the same weather app!” If there hadn’t been a basketball player shooting hoops by himself, there would’ve been 8 courts set up instead of just 7.
Games
I played a couple of games with Jon and we won both. I played a game with Rick we won that one then I played another game with Jon. They were all fairly close game that were well-contested. The last game was Tony and myself against Rick and René which was also a very close game, though Tony and I lost that one.
Issues
So there’s number of issues I needed to address today in the first game. I missed some of my serves long. I did some speed-ups into the net—trying to go low between my opponents—and some into my opponent’s wheelhouse. I was trying some lobs and the first two were disastrous—much too shallow. I tried to two more later in the morning which were successful in winning at the rally. There was one later that Rick was able to reach up and hit back at me and I wasn’t quite prepared and I couldn’t get the ball back over the net. The lesson for that is “always be ready”.
Injuries
In a game with Jon, he got a bit overaggressive and took a backhand shot in the middle and ended up hitting my paddle hand index finger with his padde. That hurt. A rarity for me, I involuntarily yelped, “Ouch!” [Later note, it still hurts to the touch two days later!]
In my last game of the morning, some heavy drops started to fall, but it was a light rain and not enough to cover the court with water. And by the end of that last game, the back of my right hand was hurting. And especially since it was my time to sit out, I figured it was time for me to go.
It was a fun morning with lots of good games. Matter fact, there were only good games!
I headed home at 10:40 to shower and get ready for work.
Number of days on a court: 581 Number of total hours: 2,578.5 Number of paid coaching hours: 2
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
Yesterday, while we were wrapping up play at Derby Park, Binh suggested that we have a private game the next day with Charles and a fourth player. I suggested Jason and Binh agreed. When I reached out to Jason, Jason said he could play at 10 a.m. and that’s the time we set.
This morning, Binh texted the group that he was going to be 15 minutes late because he had to run an errand. I was a bit behind in completing some of my blog posts, and I had an extra partial post in there somehow with the wrong so things got a little confusing. I was sorting that out, as well as making sure my GoPro knock-off camera was charged and had storage space. Then I couldn’t find where I moved my shoes during that process. On my way to Derby Park, Charles told me that I would not need my net, but I was already on my way, and had in the car. But I didn’t have to carry it in, which is a nice thing! As it was, Binh was sitting on the bench getting ready when I walked in. There is one other unrelated game with strangers going on with the second city net.
Games
Charles and Jason won the first game…
https://youtu.be/u0vSlE28rDA
… and the second game…
… but Binh and I won the next one …
… and the next.
Apparently, it took us a while to warm up!
Midway through the games with our foursome, Nolan and Avery appeared and were doing drilling at the far end of the courts by themselves. I have to admire their discipline to improve.
Binh and I lost the fifth game against Jason and Charles 15-7. At that point, I was getting hungry.
Against Nolan and Avery
Jason had to leave. The rest of us asked if Avery and Nolan if they wanted to play a game. We got an enthusiastic “yes” from Avery. Charles and I teamed up for the first game during which we got clobbered 11-0. We played a second game and fared far better but still lost by a few points.
Then Binh and I played against Avery and Nolan. We won that game 11-9.
We went on to play one additional last game, and that was a lopsided win for Nolan and Avery. Afterward, Binh says that Nolan was taking it easy on us in those games. Perhaps he was but it wasn’t particularly obvious to me. I’m a bit incredulous, but maybe so. Is 1:40 p.m. by the time we left. It was a great 3 1/2 hours of play.
A man from a group of players came over after we finished and told us that our game was “fun to watch”. I’d say that’s a compliment!
Injuries & Weak Spots
The back of my right hand hurt on a few backhand shots, this has been a chronic thing lately.
My low backhand still needs work. Ever since rotator cuff shoulder surgery, it hasn’t been the same. I need to stretch and strengthen it and drill it.
Nolan
I later asked Nolan if he was “taking it easy on us”. He said he may have been working on a particular shot so not always making the most optimal shot selection, but other than that, he wasn’t taking it easy. Binh says Nolan is just being nice.
Coaching
I was out and about and picked up a bag of Hershey’s Kisses for prizes for my two young pickleball pupils. We have our second lesson coming up on Saturday.
Tuesday, February 21, 2023 (No Play)
The NFL/pickleball connection continues with retired players Eli Manning and Rob Gronkowski goofing around on a court:
I had all my gear and was in Scotts Valley for a PT class. When it wrapped up at 6 p.m., I had a decision to make. But since it was blowing like crazy and cold to boot, I opted to just head home. As I approached my house about 6:20 p.m., there were fire trucks and police cars all over the place. I had to park four blocks from my house and hoof it. The power was out in our neighborhood. Three large trees had fallen and taken out the power lines along with damaging the corner of the house on the property. One tree, lying on the ground, the diameter came up to my waist.
Wednesday, February 22, 2023 (No Play)
My right wrist is really bugging me. It’s good that I didn’t play last night. Typing is uncomfortable. I was going to ice my knee and wrist last night but with the power out, we wanted to keep the refrigerator closed and as cold as possible.
SCALPEL
I got a text from René saying I was on her team—she’s a “captain”. The SCALPEL league final teams went out via email today. Conner shared “After inputting our captain’s lists of player preferences into the draft program I wrote (which executes a snake draft over each of the nearly ½ million different possible selection orders, and identifies the optimal result amongst them), we finally have our team lineups”:
I’m happy with our group. I believe we have a strong team. Evan is Nolan Smyth’s tournament partner in the 4.0 category. Matt is really coming along. René and I are of similar skill level, both 3.5+.
Weather
The radio said they are predicting snow at sea level in some places in Northern California. Snow is rare and doesn’t last here in Santa Cruz, but it goes to show just how cold it is! Rain is predicted off and on the next week.
Wednesday, February 22, 2023 (No Play)
The power came back on last night right before I got home after work, but still no internet other than what I can get on my limited phone plan through work.
My wrist is still bugging me. I’m going to give it some time to heal up.
Friday, February 24, 2023 (No Play)
I received a text from Comcast yesterday midday saying our Internet service was restored. It’s amazing how reliant you get day-to-day on the Internet. It’ll be nice to have WiFi again!
It has been very cold the last couple of days. My brother shared a photo of snow dusted over his front yard in Scotts Valley. Someone said today that it snowed on the beach here in Santa Cruz. You can only actually see snow on the beach every 10-30 years.
Kids Coaching
Maria and I originally planned to meet tomorrow morning for lesson #2 for her kids, but we hammered out 7 p.m. tonight as the time instead. We met at Skypark again. I was expecting not many people since it was so cold and, sure enough, there were a couple of tennis players and just one doubles pickleball game going with one person waiting to get in. We had our pick of three empty permanent courts. Maria asked if I needed her but I told her to go play and have fun. She’d be around if I needed her.
I worked mostly on ball control, but I also taught them (“this will be a bit advanced”) about shifting on the kitchen line left or right depending on where the ball is—and keeping proper distance between them. I had glue a ball in the end of a dowel and used it for instruction. At the end, Kevin wanted to do overheads since he saw one on the court nearby, so I indulged him and we worked on that for about 5-6 minutes. That’s more of a down-the-road skill!
Saturday, February 25, 2023 (No Play)
I’ll admit that I’m getting excited about this new SCALPEL league. There are nearly all strong players in this group. When I’m in the middle 50% of players, that’s really good. Tristan, Nolan, Shawnté are all better than me, Kiko is rumored to be really good, probably Evan now (Nolan’s grad school buddy) . . . those are all players who are better than me. Casey has come along really fast and is getting to be local elite. (Former professional athletes—watcha gonna do?) Then you have players who are in my general vicinity of skill—René, her friend Rick, Nate, Tim F., Oscar, Colleen, and others. Then there are a pack that a little less skilled than the median. Then there are the unknowns whom I have not played with or don’t remember.
We’ve been assigned as Team #1.
I found a video tonight about this particular shot that Kyle Yates seems to have originated . . . or at least, popularized. Maybe 4-6 months ago, I remember seeing a short clip on social media of Kyle doing this and took some screenshots, but I don’t think I ever included them in my blog. This is better.
Sunday, February 26, 2023 (No Play)
It rained today, so I had to cancel club play at Derby Park.
I found a great video on defending ATPs.
Pickleball Machine
Ooooo. I want one of these. Too bad that at $2,000, it’s about 10 times my budget!
Thursday, March 2, 2023. (No play.)
With the new SCALPEL league starting up, the four players involved in our first game—Matt B. and me, Anne and Peter—arranged to play tonight after work at Skypark. With four different schedules, it’s not always easiest thing to hammer out a time. However, we managed that. Unfortunately, Peter emailed the rest of us this morning saying that he had a conflict with the school function this evening and had to cancel out. Anne suggested the possibility of one of her remaining two teammates to fill-in for Peter, but then was unsuccessful making that happen. We have to reschedule for play next week. Anne suggested there might be a break in the rain and we could play maybe Tuesday night next week.
Number of days on a court: 580 Number of total hours: 2,577 Number of paid coaching hours: 2
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
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