Category: Pickleball (Page 24 of 323)

Sunday, December 14, 2025 (Court Day #882)

I was debating not playing today and giving my knee time to rest, but my wife mentioned that rain is looming in the forecast.

It was completely overcast and 54° when I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:43 a.m. The parking lot was half empty.

The last game was an encapsulation of my day. I had a couple of returns too deep, some dropshots into the net, there was an unusual one for a volley while stretched out and stepped into the kitchen to keep from falling. They thought we had won the rally, but I had announced my error. Heck, I’m an honest guy. I don’t cheat.

I called it a day at 12:10 p.m.

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Monday, December 15, 2025 (No Play)

Heisman Trophy wining football players played some pickleball. Tim Brown (NFL Hall of Fame career with the Oakland Raiders) and Doug Flutie (long career in pro football as a QB despite being about 5’8″… though some references erroneously list him as 5’10”), plus Ty Detmer, Danny Wuerffel, and Eric Crouch whose names don’t mean anything to me. It look like this was a charity fundraiser of some kind:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSOBiV-jkv2

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Tuesday, December 16, 2025 (No Play)

Diadem came out with a set of Monopoly paddles that one side of the paddles compose a Monopoly game board:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DSSnZcFEbDm
Why? Who knows, maybe some people will love the novelty of it.

Bad Boy coming to Pickleball?

Nick Kyrgios, the bad boy of tennis, will be coming to pro pickleball in 2026 according to existing pro Jack Sock:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DSWORVCEegY

Number of days on a court: 882
Number of total hours: 3,346
Number of paid coaching hours: 185.5

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

Thursday, December 11, 2025 (Court Day #881)

Yesterday, Pauly texted me asking me if I had dropped my lensless glasses (Kitchen Blockers) at Skypark. When I went home for lunch, I checked, and sure enough those were mine. Now it would be just a matter of us connecting up for me to get them back. They must’ve dropped out of my backpack pocket.

As I drove to the courts, part of me was really tempted to go home, I was pretty exhausted.

When I left work, I figured it’d be really easy to get to the courts by 7 p.m. Little did I know did they blocked off the freeway exit into downtown Scotts Valley, meaning that a boatload of cars we’re taking the next exit then trying to weave their way back.

Skypark

With the light crowd tonight, it was easy to get on court, but hard to get into games with all good players.

Maybe that was a good state of affairs considering it wasn’t playing that great. I have at least three outballs tonight. In my first game, I hit two serves into the net.

The last two games was me partnered with Karen G. against Daniel B. and Mark the Mexican cook.

In the first game, Karen and I won by a 2 to 1 margin. Daniel was about to go, but we talked him into one more game. I played with Karen again, but this time I played left-handed. Midway through the game, Daniel commented, “Andrew can play left-handed!” with an emphasis on play—as in, actually play, not just kid around. The score was 8–6 in our favor when the lights clicked off at 8:30 p.m.

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Saturday, December 12, 2025 (No Play)

So, Tesla designed a $350 pickleball paddle in conjuction Selkirk:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DSLKQj8Ehni/

Here’s also an article about it at Popular Science:
https://www.popsci.com/technology/tesla-pickleball-racket/
(What’s funny is their URL refers to a “pickleball racket” . . . a common error!)

This limited edition paddle sold out in hours.

Number of days on a court: 881
Number of total hours: 3,343.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 185.5

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

Tuesday, December 9, 2025 (Court Day #880)

It was a dark and chilly 54°F evening but I left work about 6:30 p.m. to head to Scotts Valley. Today would be my third day in a row playing. Not the best thing for a sore knee, but I could use the exercise. I think I must’ve eaten 4 million calories of chocolate at work—you have to love the holidays and all the gifts of sweets!

I arrived at Skypark at 6:44 p.m.

Paddle Rack

The wood paddle rack had been moved to outside the courts. There was some really snarky anonymous note left by someone scolding the pickleball players for have rack inside the gate on the tennis court side . . . which is right where the pickleball players typically hang out since there are rarely tennis players actually playing. It’s far less convenient to have the paddles outside the gate, but we want to be good neighbors.

And?

As has been the case recently, I was really unhappy with my performance tonight. For example, I was hitting service returns too long and simply handing my opponents a point. 

Sydney Sweeney?

According to social media, in a somewhat indeterminate video, actress Sydney Sweeney was spotted at a pickleball club in New York City playing. I’ll believe it when I see it verified for more than one source, but it wouldn’t surprise me. More and more celebrities are being spotted playing pickleball:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSC4TIbDuPE

Number of days on a court: 880
Number of total hours: 3,342
Number of paid coaching hours: 185.5

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