Category: Pickleball (Page 256 of 326)

Friday, October 5, 2018 (Court Day #209)

I decided to take the morning off from work. Staffing was ok. I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:05.

Mike, Carl, John P. (white hat) and a man warm up on the near court. Chris on the far right.

I got in the first game in with Dean as my partner. While warming up, he asked, “Are you related to the Lenz that was mentioned in the paper?” He was referring to a periodic column with event results about local kids gone off to college and are athletes. “Yes, that’s my daughter Charlotte sailing for Tufts.” “Did you go to Tufts too?” “No, I was a UCSC Slug.” Dean mentioned that his son sailed for a very short time at a college back east. My wife had texted me yesterday afternoon asking if I’d submitted the information about Charlotte to the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Nope. And I still don’t know who tipped them off about her top 3 finish at a regatta back east.

I didn’t play all that great in that first game. Too many shots too high. I returned a serve into the net. Embarrassing while playing with a very good player as your partner. Ugh. I apologized to Dean, but he was cordial and said he made mistakes too.

Much later, John P. and I played a game against lefty Steve and Ted/Theo. It was a good back and forth game. What’s amazing is how close the game was even given that I faulted on at least four to five of my serves! I was just giving points away. I made a mention of this to John after we lost 12-10. Then Ted came by just as I sat down to wait for the next game: “It’s those unforced errors.” Yep. Some days, I get the feeling that I can’t miss on my serves. I can spin, hit deep, short and I’m just “in tune” with the ball. It goes where I want. Today was almost the opposite. I hope I can to clean those up for Sunday’s tournament.

John and I were playing a last game against Kent and Ted. Ahead 6-4, Kent opted out to nurse a sore ankle and Carl took his place. We got one point in when we heard a loud thud. A special needs young man had fallen face first on the sidewalk. It was scary. His caretaker was kneeling down seeing to him. We called over to Beth Black, a nurse, who immediately went over to help. It was 12:08. The young man, Matt, was bleeding significantly from his chin. Rick and I retrieved the first-aid kit from the group’s van at the man’s request. We stayed to see if any further assistance was needed, but Beth had things under control. She was recommending an ambulance, but the caretaker said someone was coming from their facility and that they had protocols they had to follow. Regardless, all play had stopped. I left to shower and head to work.

Tournament

My next outing will be the tournament. Maybe I’m overly confident, but I’ll be disappointed with anything less than  silver medal. We’ll be facing Kelly and his nephew Jake who gave Eric and me a run for our money at the Pleasanton tournament in July. The other players are unknowns. Maybe John and I will come home with nothing. If I play like today, it’ll be a toss up. If I play well, we should medal.

The tournament director sent out an email this morning:
“The Tournament format of play for Mens Doubles and Mixed Doubles changed to 1 game to 15 points win by 2.”

Earlier in the week, she’d sent out a message saying it was winner of 2 out of 3 games to 11. For a round robin, that seemed like a lot to me and it seems that they also figured out that they likely wouldn’t have time for that format!

Saturday, October 6, 2018 (No Play)

The play schedule was emailed out today. Our bye is at the very end. Given the choice, I would have picked either Round 3 or Round 4 for a bit of a rest, but we got Round 5. I know Round 4 will be tough. That’s Kelly and Jake from the Pleasanton tournament.

John and I are planning to leave Santa Cruz around 10 a.m. Civilized hours for a change! No sleeping on a hotel floor and getting up at 6 a.m.

Injury Status

Well, right elbow hurts a bit at times. I think it’s from overhead smashes, I need to be more careful. My upper right arm aches near the shoulder, probably just from a lot of play this week. My right ankle still occasionally hurts from rolling it months ago—though about the only time I notice it is every night when I’m in bed getting ready to go to sleep or when I do something on the court that tweaks it. My back has been more or less a constant companion of aches and pains. Crouching for return of service makes it very apparent. Even moving to sitting up straight from more of a slouch aches. But depending on how I’m holding myself, it doesn’t hurt. Mild somewhat regular but passing things include a knee, a hip, right glute muscle. It’s a sport that requires quick turns, lunging, jumping and swinging, starts and stops. I’m over 50, not a 20-something these days. It’s probably just par for the course.

Number of days on a court: 209
Number of total hours: 576

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Thursday, October 4, 2018 (Court Day #208)

I had a hard time getting away from work, but I managed to get to Skypark by 7 p.m.

The scene as I arrived. Sue (Larry’s wife, in black), Dan, a man I don’t know, Lauren (ball in hand), Eddie, Leah and husband Craig.

John and I got a game together and promptly won 11-1. Then we played against Lauren and Eddie and won 11-2.

Our next game was against Larry and Oleg. We played normally until we were up 9-2. At that point, I turned to John and said, “Let’s hit everything to Oleg.” I figured, we had an advanced player on the other side of the net, we might as well sharpen our skills against him. So we did. We lost 11-2. Obviously, it not something we’d do in a tournament, but in rec play with a tournament in three days, it made a ton of sense.

Number of days on a court: 208
Number of total hours: 573

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

Wednesday, October 3, 2018 (Court Day #207)

With the tournament on Sunday and with me having a dentist appointment at 11 a.m., John P. and I arranged to meet at Derby at 8:30 a.m. My wife texted at 7:40 saying that her weather app had predicted drizzle starting in 50 minutes. Yeah. Perfect timing. Sure enough, as I approached the courts in my car, drops appeared like clockwork on my windshield.

I checked my phone. Dave Allenbaugh sent out a rain delay until 10 a.m.

John brought his own net which we started setting up. Halfway through that process, Dave Allenbaugh appeared. We stowed John’s net and set up one club net. The three of us dinked to warm up. Maybe we’d play 2 on 1. But then Mike showed up. Visor Mike. We played a game. John and I decided to use the Pure 2 ball which is going to be used in the tournament on Sunday. Rain drops were falling but you could still make out the individual drops on the ground. I missed a few shots long or wide. Kind of sloppy play on my part. I hope that’s not where my play is headed! John and I won the first game—not a surprise—and we all started a second game. Binh showed up and sat on the bench.

It started raining in a serious way. Mike said he was done. The court was getting very slippery and it was far from ideal conditions for a game! About 9:15, we were done.

We took down the net and went our separate ways.

Wet courts!

Later

I got a text a little after 4 p.m. from John:
“Get this- Di insists we go over to Brommer when it cleared up at 10. Got five games in with Alan, Karl, Oleg, Stuart, Di, Sarah, Dan, Gary and Art. All four courts were full. Tomorrow night!”
(“Di” being Diane, John’s wife.)

Drat. Oh, well. I had a dentist appointment anyway. Still it would have been nice if the rain had rolled in later instead. Darn rain!

Number of days on a court: 207
Number of total hours: 571.5

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