Category: Pickleball (Page 262 of 326)

Thursday, August 30, 2018 (Court Day #191)

I arrived at Skypark in Scotts Valley about 6:45 p.m. While it’s still light at that time, the sun is getting noticeably lower in the sky. Too bad. We’re losing the possibility of playing at Brommer in the evenings since those courts have no lights. Soon, it’ll be only Skypark on Thursday evenings.

I played a couple of games. In the first, my team won 11-1. The second game ended 11-4, but it wasn’t even that close. I was playing well.

I noticed the Blacks by themselves on a far court dinking—drilling, I figured. I hopped the low court divider and trotted over. I asked to join them and we continued dinking for a bit. Sue walked up and asked if she could join us. We continued to dink as a group for another five minutes or so, then David suggested we go ahead and play. Beth and I—especially Beth—made a special effort hitting more to David. Still, Sue did a good job exceeding expectations in terms of play. She played respectably.

Sue was replaced by Dan for the next two games. What Dan lacks in experience and skill, he makes up in youth, speed, and quick hands. If he sticks with it, he’ll be very good. Those were fun games.

I closed out the evening with three games of Dave Cox and me against the Blacks. We won the first. They won the second. Those were back and forth, contested battles. We then played a tiebreaker game to 7 which Dave and I won. I think Dave would admit that I was the stronger player on our team tonight. I was playing very well. No more slump for me. I belonged in those games. I just hope it’ll last.

I left a few minutes after 9 p.m. A game was still going among some players, but I was done. I’ll be at Brommer in 12 hours for more pickleball!

Tournaments

Eric let me know yesterday that he’s got conflicts for all the upcoming tournaments. I emailed John P. and let him know. I’ll have to see which ones make sense to do and which don’t.

Number of days on a court: 191
Number of total hours: 527

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Wednesday, August 29, 2018 (Court Day #190)

I got to Derby Park at 8:53 a.m. John P. was blowing off the courts since  Dave Allenbaugh was out of town.

The sun broke out early and it would be another busy day with games limited to “9 win by 1”.

I got a few good games and some not as challenging. After one such less challenging game, I turned to Eric, “We should sign up in red.” He nodded then paused and asked, “Who’s here?” “Dean. Stuart.” “Let’s sign up in red.” From there it was all good games. Dean was in a box by himself. I asked him, “May Eric and I join your game?” Dean agreed. We waited a little while for a fourth. Eric asked George and we were set.

We played a couple balanced games of Eric and me against Dean and George. Before the very first serve, Eric said, “We need to engage Dean.” I wholeheartedly agreed. We might get better hitting to George, but we’d definitely do so hitting more to Dean. Dean noticed too. At one point, he turned to George and said, “They’re picking on me.” Though, I guess like two bobcats picking on a lion! Dean was obviously the strongest player, with consistent deep service returns to the corner with backspin. Sometimes deadly, but always hard to return for any advantage.

The games were great. I was very pleased with those opportunities of playing with Dean.

Eric and I did ok. We did make some bad shots, but we did ok. My play is continuing to trend back to my normal level, if not already there.

I had to leave for work at 11:30.

Number of days on a court: 190
Number of total hours: 524.5

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Sunday, August 26, 2018 (Court Day #189)

My wife woke me up. Ack! My alarm set on my phone hadn’t gone off! Oops, it was set to Monday through Saturday. And the wrong time to boot. Double bad.

As I was driving to the courts, I had a feeling that I hadn’t had before. What if I don’t have the key to the court storage boxes? I reached over to my backpack on the passenger side seat with my right hand, unzipped the main compartment and checked the top pocket. No key. Understandably, I got very concerned. By this point, I would have been very late had I turned around to go home. I figured I’d chance it. I pulled up to the courts, walked in, and people were already waiting. Wayne yelled over, “You have one minute!” I set my backpack on the storage box and hoped against hope that the key had dropped to the bottom of my backpack and not out onto the floor of my bedroom.

And?

I found the key. Yes, it had dropped into the backpack. *whew*

Derby Starts

We had another new person today. And Debbie was back for her second visit though her husband Doug had opted to do disc golf rather than pickleball.

Terry (cut off) and her husband Gary against Bruce and his wife Janet. Karen Long (red) and her husband Terry against Dave D. and Dean. Plus some people in the far court that I can’t make out.

It was another crowded day. Over 45 people showed up. Along with some first-timers. At the end of the day, I told Barrie, a woman who was visiting from Palo Alto and a friend of Mark Creed (Maree’s husband), that she was welcome back anytime. “You are impacted here. You have long wait times.” That was even with us going to “play to 9, win by 1” games.

Today, I played well again. Aside from a disaster of a game that Greg and I had against Oleg and John P.—I think we lost 9-0—I did fine today. Eric and I later beat Oleg and Mark C. 11-2, so I wasn’t playing badly.

Near the end, I played a game of singles. Terry Long was offering little bits of advice between conversation on the bench. I pulled out ahead 4-0, but John caught up, it was pretty even when a couple of players really wanted one more doubles game and we switched to that.

Overall

Keys. I need to stop doing backspin when doing deep returns. They far too often just sail out with only insignificant gain when successful. I still need to be more patient during dink battles—going for a drive too early and the ball ends up in the net. (But only once or twice today, better.)

Better.

I locked up and left sometime after 1.

Number of days on a court: 189
Number of total hours: 522

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