Category: Pickleball (Page 228 of 326)

Sunday, August 4, 2019 (Court Day #291)

51st day out playing lefty. Tennis elbow.

Last night, I asked my son Nicholas if he wanted to play pickleball, he said yes. We were out the door about 8:40 and on our way to Derby Park to open and set up. Ten minutes later, we were there. Mark G. had beaten us to the courts.

Nicholas and I played one game together and it was halfway through the morning session. I had us stacking which confused the heck out of our opponents whom I think had never played against a stacking team. (Stacking during rec play at Derby is unheard of.) Nicholas needs to develop his strategy and soft game, but he’s quick and gets shots I don’t expect him to be able to get to. At six foot, he’s got a good reach too. It’s only his fourth time playing, so that’s normal to still have lots of work to do.

A woman I don’t know along with regulars, Tony (nearest), Ray and Robin on the far side.

Joel (2nd time out, 1st I’ve seen him), another woman I don’t know, Wayne (tie-dye), Buzz (white) and newbie Bill toting the white beard.

A woman named Joanne came to Derby for the first time to try pickleball. Since I didn’t recognize her and she seemed tentative, I said hello when she walked up and walked her through the waiver, how the courts works, and some basic rules. Janet jumped in and assisted with getting Joanne up to speed.

While waiting, I grabbed a Pure 2 ball and took Joanne outside the gate where we volleyed a ball back and forth. She has good hand/eye coordination. She’ll be fine. Midway through the drill, I realized that I was drilling with my right hand! Oops. No pain though, so that was good. I switched to my left hand a few hits after I noticed.

A game Binh had already signed us up for came up, so left Joanne with Janet. Binh and I played against Kim and Buzz. We should have been clobbered. Instead, he and I won 9-2—maybe it was 9-4—regardless, it was a surprise. (With a big turnout, we were playing to 9.) They had a bad game. It was like Olga and me losing 11-0 to Cal and Gregg two days ago. It was a fluky event.

Janet and I played a game with Joanne and a man named Joel who told me that this was his second day out playing pickleball. Joanne was enthusiastic. When she and Janet won a point, she’d jump up and down. I think she’ll be back!

In that one game with Nicholas, we played against Bruce and Deshen. When Deshen learned Nicholas was my son, he said, “Wait? He’s your son? How old are you?” Ha! Good genes! (Nicholas and I did win in a strong fashion.)

My son Nicholas gets a hug from Diane P. while John P. (white hat) looks on. I believe the woman with the ponytail was visiting from Palo Alto. Binh (blue) talks to Shawnte next to the drinking fountain.

There was one game with Binh and me against Charles and Terry (female), but there was one intense volley rally at the net which involved mostly me. We won the point and when back at the baseline, I turned to Binh and said, “Just a reminder, that was all left handed!” I was rather proud of myself.

The last games of the day were Binh and me against Charles and Mark G. I’d been playing over four hours. I was beat. We played three games and lost all three. I was battling fatigue as we approached my five hour mark in the last game. I’ll admit that in that last game, I was battling focus and the desire to throw the game and be done. But I knew that wasn’t fair to my partner—nor my opponents, for that matter. As it was, I dragging anyway.

The more I play with Charles, the more respect I have for his skills. He uses a lot of spin, and it can be very effective.

Up until the last game, I felt much better about my play. My dropshot came back. Thank goodness!

It was just before 2:00 p.m. when Nicholas and I headed home.

Cabrillo Tournament

With the closing date for registration two days ago, the teams for the tournament next weekend are finalized. (Unless the TD allows some late additions.)

Here’s bracket for Carrie and me. There are seven teams of which three are local. Of those, I’d give the edge to Colleen and Adrian since Colleen is the strongest woman of the local bunch. The visitors, I haven’t the foggiest. Who knows, they might sweep the medals from the locals.

The entirety of the bracket that Binh and I are in. Yes, just us! We’ll be likely be rolled in to the 50-59 bracket and end up playing a round robin.

Closing

As I write this bit, it’s at 10:30 at night. And I am still tired and a bit sore from play today. Five hours is a lot of court time.

Number of days on a court: 291
Number of total hours: 804.5

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Friday, August 2, 2019 (Court Day #290)

50th day out playing lefty. Tennis elbow.

I arrived at Brommer about 9:15.

The view of Brommer Street Park early in the session.

As a player, you have good days and you have bad days. Today, it was the latter.

My second game of the day was with Allan against two local newbies from Boony Doon, Steve and Gloria. They said they’d played “family pickleball” but this was their second foray into club play. Their first time playing was at Derby Park . . . no doubt, two days ago when I accidentally went to Brommer instead of Derby. They are maybe 2.5 level players. We won 11-2. A ways to go, though Gloria made 2-3 great crosscourt sideline winners. Later, in the waiting area, as part of a discussion with them, I shared, “. . . and Allan and I look it easy on you . . . maybe I shouldn’t tell you that.”

There was a man and woman visiting, not a couple, though they knew each other. Her name was Katie and she was down from Sacramento. The man didn’t give his name nor where he was from. I’d put Katie in her mid-30s, but it’s hard to tell. When I suggested Derby Park for play on Sunday, she said she’d be leaving on Sunday but that she gets down every few months. I didn’t get to play with either of them.

Mid-morning, I noticed that it was hurting to put weight on the ball of my left foot. I played through it and during my next break, I removed my shoe and found that where I’d worn through the shoe insole and made a hole, the edge of the hole had flipped over in one spot and doubled up. Ow. I fixed that and all was ok after that.

Olga and I played a game against Cal and Gregg (“3g”). We got slaughtered, 11-0. We shouldn’t have gotten slaughtered. I made an inordinate number of mistakes and when I didn’t make them, Olga made them. Olga and I are typically both better players than Gregg. And while Cal is a strong player, he’s not Terry Long or Dean. We just made too many unforced errors. We gave that game away. It happens sometimes.

The last game of the day was Cal and me against Oleg and Olga. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seemed that Cal was hitting the ball more to Olga. I remember one game a month or two ago where I was the weaker player and Cal targeted me over and over—at least according to my partner. It’s a tournament mentality to attack the weaker opponent. It’s also good for the weaker player—if they pay attention to what’s happening and learn from it.

Cal and I lead most of the game but we lost 12-10. I made a few too many mistakes at the end.

I made two shots right-handed today. I can’t remember the first, but the second was when Oleg lobbed deep to the baseline down the middle. I raced back, switched the paddle to my right hand then turned and hit a drive that cleared the top of the net by a mere 2-3 inches. (This was a conscious decision.) To Olga’s credit, she managed to get it back over the net to Cal’s side. It was a short return and Cal couldn’t get to it and we lost the point. I was lucky to get the ball back to the net, but had I had more time, maybe I could have lobbed it deep back or done a traditional drop shot. But Olga just made a great return.

I got most of my serves in today, that was good. But overall, it was a frustrating and depressing day. Far too many drop shots into the net. Or shots that were too attackable. Perhaps one or two where I hadn’t tracked quite enough and left a hole down the middle. Maybe I should keep better track.

I left about 12:20. Home then work.

Number of days on a court: 290
Number of total hours: 799.5

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

Thursday, August 1, 2019 (Court Day #289)

49th day out playing lefty. Tennis elbow.

This morning, I emailed Carrie to see if she’d want to be my pickleball partner for the Cabrillo Tournament. And I got a surprise. The registration deadline is tomorrow! Time is of the essence! A little less than four hours later, I got the positive response from Carrie, “I’m honored you asked me! What time? I think I can do it.” I gave her what information that I had and set her about registering.

There was a bit of a problem getting the system to let her pick me as a partner, even with her husband’s help. I logged in myself and there were two entries for Carrie. One that I had done as the placeholder and another that Carrie had done for herself. I edited my entry and when I clicked on “this person” button it took me to a blank page. I switched from the Chrome browser to Firefox. Same problem. I eventually got it to work in Safari, but there were still parts of the page that were overlapping and were partially unreadable. They have some kinks to work out on this new tournaments website! Anyway, once I did that, I let Carrie know and she was able to complete the process.

Scotts Valley

The local radio newstalk station, KSCO, was hosting a mixer for Think Local First, a business organization that—as you would probably guess—promotes people shopping locally instead of sending money out of the area where it doesn’t circulate and benefit the local economy. The mixer was from 5-7 p.m. and included food, wine, and beer . . . and local well water provided by one of the local water districts. At work, I cut a picture framing mat with windows spelling out the name of the late afternoon radio show, I put it in a frame, wrapped it all up, and bought it to the event where I got there about 5:40. When the opportunity presented itself, I sat down at the table with the radio host where he was interviewing guests as they happened to appear. I put on the headset and had him unwrap the present. He was surprised and delighted. We spent a few minutes talking about my family’s business before it was time for a national news/commercial break.

I ate and hung out for a while, then left about 6:45. I quickly changed at home then dashed off to Scotts Valley. I arrived about 7:20. The courts were busy, though they didn’t set up the last two courts—the 7th and 8th courts, so they only had six, but that was enough.

My evening was spent as the strongest player on the court in each game. Not the ideal. Sometimes, it’s like going through the motions. You aren’t as focused. Still, you can work on your game and try not to make mistakes.

Newbie Bill and I won a game against Gregg and Carol. This is completely nutty. Bill is super nice, but he’s probably a 2.0 level player. He readily admits that he’s got limited mobility and has a hard time bending over. And that’s ok. He’s out playing. I give him a lot of credit. And he had a few points where he was able to get a a series of balls back over the net when I thought the point would be over. And he made some point-ending lobs. Kudos. I don’t know how many games he gets to win, but I was happy for him.

Rochelle and Colleen hamming it up for the camera.

Wayne and I played two games against Gregg and his tournament partner, Carol. (Funny, Gregg officially lists himself as “3g” for the Cabrillo tournament—that’s how he signs up on the court reservation boards!) Wayne and I won the first game, 11-0. The second, they played a bit better, we stepped it down and we won 11-9.

I was hoping, hoping, hoping to get into a stronger game, maybe with Binh or Stuart or Colleen or Mark G. or George or Tristan or Bruce or Larry or Kristin but it didn’t work out. As long as no one calls in sick at work tomorrow morning, I may be able to play at Brommer.

I think I only missed one, maybe two serves tonight. That’s promising.

Janet asked about how my arm was coming along. As I told her maybe a few more months, I swung my backpack over my left shoulder with my right arm. “See? That just hurt my arm a bit. It’s not bad, but it’s slightly painful. I can feel it.”

Shoes

The second pair of Kirkland court shoes that I bought off of eBay arrived today. The package was on the kitchen table when I made the quick stop to change before heading to Scotts Valley. These shoes look in good shape too. There’s a touch of thin dust/dirt on the sole of one shoe, but other than that, they look new, as they should. I checked eBay for a third pair, but the next pair for sale is twice the cost of the two that I already bought. I’ll wait and check in the future sometime. And who knows, maybe Costco will make them available again on their website or in their store.

Tournament

I checked online and it looks all legit for Carrie and me for August 10:

I’m not sure why my age has some red age bracket info after it, but nonetheless, we’re on there as one of the teams. What’s funny, is depending on who things play out, there’s a chance that I might end up playing against Colleen with whom I won a silver medal at the San Juan Tournament in November. That’d be weird. Colleen is a great practice foil and partner, she’s really good about getting balls back over the net. She’ll be a real challenge if we end up playing against her.

There are seven teams in our 3.5 50-59 bracket, so I believe that defaults to a double-elimination instead of round robin.

Yes, it’ll be Carrie’s first tournament. Yes, I’ll be playing with left hand instead of my natural right hand. Do I expect to win. No way. Medal? Maybe . . . I think there’s an outside chance. Three of the other six teams are from outside the area and I don’t know them. They might be great. Dunno. We’ll see.

Later on in the afternoon, Carrie had sent another email message:
“I’m honored you asked and I will do my best!”

Carrie, that’s all we can ever ask of any of us. If we play our best and we finish 7th out of seven teams, I’ll be happy.

Number of days on a court: 289
Number of total hours: 796.5

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