Category: Pickleball (Page 251 of 326)

Thursday, November 15, 2018 (Court Day #224)

I was desperately looking at the clock hoping that the Santa Cruz Art League board meeting wouldn’t stretch too late. Typically, they run about an hour, but this one would run a solid 90 minutes. 30 minutes into this 6 p.m. meeting, a little over five miles north at Skypark, the evening pickleball session started without me. More importantly, playing there was my doubles partner Colleen, with whom I need to get playing time. After the meeting, I raced back to work, changed, reset the after-hours alarm and raced out to Scotts Valley. I briskly walked onto the courts at 7:56. “We were just getting ready to head home!”, laughed Larry from the bench.

My first game was against Larry and his wife Sue with Lauren as my partner. We fell behind quickly, but came back and made it a game. Who won? I can’t remember. It was close, either way.

Colleen finished her game and we joined up. We played two games against Larry and Mark Dettle. We won the first in decisive fashion. The second, I made a number of errors and we fell behind 7-1. We came back tied it up 9-9. Then we went up 10-9, only to lose 12-10.

Colleen had a full evening and left after our second game.

The last game of the night was me and Olga against her husband Oleg and Jennie. (Jennie, a mom with little kids, I rarely see in Scotts Valley; she usually plays at Derby Park.) Olga and I fell behind but made it back up and won 11-9. Olga is playing pretty well.

My adjustment to make: take the game to the net and be patient. I’m lapsing into driving from too far back on the court. I’m also need to wait for a solid attack opportunities instead of forcing a shot while in a dink battle. Patience, patience, patience.

Tournament

My opponents on Saturday are going to be in for a shock if they employ the typical strategy of hitting to the female opponent. I feel like Colleen outplayed me tonight. She’s one of the few people—besides me and a few others—who I’ve seen switch her paddle to her left hand to make a shot. We’re not too far off from each other in terms of skill.

After play wrapped up, I was talking to Olga and Oleg in the parking lot. They said they’d be playing on Sunday in the mixed doubles tournament. (I’ll be playing on Saturday since that’s the day for 3.0 and 3.5 teams.)

Olga is playing as part of a 4.0 team . . . I think she’s going to get an eye-opening experience—unless they go up against teams that should be in 3.5. Oleg did say that she’ll be partnering with a 5.0 player who was downgraded to 4.0. Olga will be targeted, no question.

Oleg himself will be playing as part of a 4.5 team. Mark asked Oleg if San Juan Bautista (SJB) was going to be a big tournament. I overheard and interjected no. Oleg countered yes, and offered that it would be having four group of mixed doubles: 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5. In my eyes, SJB is not a big tournament. It’s a small tournament. I played at the Golden State Games in Concord. That was hundreds of players on about 20 courts. That is a big tournament. SJB will be maybe 60 players on just six courts. Oleg is a good player, but as I told him, I think he’ll be challenged in 4.5. At a large tournament, I don’t believe he’d be in the mix in 4.5. No offense to Oleg, it’s just opponents get very, very good in a tournament. You get to be a small fish very quickly. It’s different thing to be good in your local group of players. I’m easily in the top third of our club, that ain’t nuthin’ in the grand scheme of things. Now, in a small tournament with no age categories, you may get older players who think they are overall 4.5 players when they are only 4.5 within their limited age groups. They might be 4.0 when facing younger pool of opponents. Who knows who/what will be at SJB on Sunday. Olga and Oleg will find out!

Number of days on a court: 224
Number of total hours: 611

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Wednesday, November 14, 2018 (Court Day #223)

It was 46° when I left the house about 8 a.m. I went to work for a brief time then left for pickleball, I arrived at Derby Park at 9:10 under clear skies. It would warm up to close to 70° later in the day.

There was nothing of significant note today other than I started out the morning playing fantastic and my play deteriorated after about 2 hours. It was a lightly attended day, maxing out just under 30 people, so there wasn’t much waiting between games.

I had a brief conversation with a woman who asked about this weekend’s tournament and who I was going to play with. “Colleen.” There was a simple trailing off response of “oh…” as in “oh, she’s good, you two might do ok.”

The lesson today? Maybe more cardio. More something! I’m getting tired too easily.

Number of days on a court: 223
Number of total hours: 610

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Saturday, November 10, 2018 (Court Day #222)
Templeton “2018 November Fest” Tournament

I pulled up in front of Dave’s house at 8:52 a.m. At a stoplight on the way, I noticed a gap along the inside edge of left shoe. Not good, to say the least!

The shoe is actually much worse than it appears in this photo!

Dave had some Shoe Goo in his garage which we applied in hopes that it would dry enough for me to wear after a couple hours of travel.

With lots of fires going on in Northern California, it was smokey in Santa Cruz. I was happy to be heading two hours south. However, as we drove down, smoke was still visible in the air.

Smoke-shrouded hills west of Highway 101.

Dave pulled the car into the parking lot at the Templeton Tennis Ranch about 11:15 a.m., well before our 1 p.m. start time. It was a bit chilly. There was still a slight haze from smoke, but not too bad. The Templeton Tennis Ranch is a very nice facility. Swanky bathrooms too. No complaints.

The right side view of the player waiting area. Notice the gas fire going for warmth!

The left side view of the player waiting area.

There would be 7 teams in our bracket. Mike Hoxie, the tournament director, said one team signed up at the last minute.

So, seven rounds with six games to 15, win by 1. I checked and we’d have a bye in the third round between our second and third games.

My shoe repair wasn’t dry and was worse than I thought. Next time: bring two pairs of shoes! Dave had an extra pair and it was a pretty good fit, so Dave’s shoes got some “Andrew time”! (Thanks, Dave!)

Mike Hoxie (TD, in red) and others taping down a few extra courts. Unfortunately, the lines were a bit funky, so I’m happy we didn’t have to play on them!

About 15-20 minutes before the 1 p.m. start time, Dave and I warmed up on a temporary taped court.

Game #1

Our first game was against Paul and Dan, both older players. Dave and I went up 10-5. Then I made way too many unforced errors and let them back in the game and we lost 15-14. Of all the games played today, this was the most painful. We absolutely should have won that game.

Game #2

Our next game was against Vince and Chris from the Bay Area. Vince is shorter with wicked groundstrokes. Chris is tall and young, but less skilled. Dave and I did our best to keep the ball away from Vince. We won 15-4, much to the disappointment of their following watching from the bleachers above the courts. They’d cheer whenever Dave and I lost a point. I did my best to ignore them!

Later on, when talking to Chris, he said they’d entered a tournament recently in 3.0 and trounced their opponents, so this time around, they signed up for 3.5. I do think they belong in 3.5.

Bye

The bye seemed long. My back started tightening up, but unfortunately, I didn’t have any ibuprofen with me. I had it in the other backpack that I used to use for my pickleball stuff. Dave and I warmed up a bit on an empty court.

Game #3

Next up were David and Lance who said they were locals to the area. They scored quickly and we found ourselves down 7-0. (Ouch!) I went on a run as the second server and we came back to 7-5. In the midst of that, I pulled off a low ATP around the right post. Unfortunately, those were the last points that we’d score and we lost 15-5. Even with the lopsided score, this was a game that was winnable.  We just needed to reduce the unforced errors. There were three shots down the middle where neither of us went for the ball. Two would have been my forehand as Dave pointed out each time. The third was Dave’s forehand that we both let pass us down the middle. These were simply lack of playing time together. Dave was getting vexed in that game. Our opponents even commented, “It seems he’s getting frustrated.” Part of it was we picked a player/target to hit to but I’d still hit to the player that was back or out of position. Dave was expecting me to always hit to the target even if he was in a position of advantage. We needed more communication and more playing time together. We barely played together before the tournament—maybe half a dozen games total ever.

Game #4

Jeff and Joel of Bakersfield were our next opponents. They were really, really good. They hit hard. They had excellent placement and made very few mistakes. They forced errors. They cleaned our clocks. I remember Jeff setting up to serve and me thinking, “This is like playing against Terry Long.” (A local 5.0 patriarch of local Santa Cruz pickleball.) I believe they are much more like 4.0 players than 3.5 players. From what I understand, they won every match. We lost that one by a lopsided 15-3.

Game #5

Ricardo (San Jose) and Bruce (Bakersfield). Another very strong team. We lost 11-4 but this game was much closer game than the score showed compared to our game against Jeff and Joel. The service went back and forth far more times. Since even on a great day for both of us, I doubt we could have won against these two guys. They were just really good.

Game #6

The last game of the day was against Paul and Ed. Dave and I went up quickly 7-0. Dave turned to me, “I wanted to win the last game, but not like this. Not this easily.” We eased up on the gas pedal and passed on some kill shots and followed Dave’s suggestion, “Let’s just get into a dinking game.” The problem was that we eased up too much, got sloppy, and they tied up the game at 13-13! But from there, we finished them off 15-13.

Wrap Up

I chatted with Vince who asked how we did. When I told him we’d finished up 2-4, he was surprised. “We finished 2-4! You are better than that!” One of our bracket complained that one of our opponent’s said he was a 4.0, but had been made a 3.5 by the USAPA. (Kind of like the USAPA thinking I’m a 3.0. But I’m not going to play in 3.0 and clobber people.)

Dave admitted afterward, “I know I’m not easy to play with.” In a couple of games, Dave was irritated with me as he felt I wasn’t looking ready at the net when he was receiving. I made an effort after that to crouch down with my paddle up. It’s harder for me to follow the ball facing the net like that—and there’s always plenty of time for me to get into position after the return—but it made Dave feel more comfortable.

The gold medalists on the day Jeff and Joel over Ricardo and Bruce, who took silver. They were unquestionably the two strongest teams.

Dave and I probably would have done a little better had we played together as partners in advance of the tournament. Plus Dave said his 10-day layoff prior to the tournament didn’t help—he’d been traveling in Chile.

We headed back for Santa Cruz about 5 p.m. While Dave filled up, I popped over to In’N’Out Burger for dinner “to go”.

It wasn’t the winning experience I’d hoped for, but any tournament experience is good. I have to earn my way up. It’ll come with time.

Number of days on a court: 222
Number of total hours: 607

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