Category: Pickleball (Page 267 of 326)

Thursday, July 26, 2018 (Court Day #175)

I posted a photo of my cracked padddle on Facebook’s Pickleball Forum. Several people commented on Paddletek’s great customer service and their lifetime warranty. I wrote to Paddletek explaining and sharing the photo. We’ll see what I hear back. I’ll admit it was fun to have top-player Kyle Yates comment on my post: “Hahaha my paddle looks worse than that .. should play just fine but if it really bothers you I’m sure they’d replace it.” Kyle is part of Team Paddletek and is sponsored by the company, so it’s not entirely unexpected that he might comment. Kyle will be in Concord on Sunday to compete.

Game Night

I had to finish up some things at work so I got to Skypark a little later, about 7:10. There weren’t too many strong players there. Rob and Bruce were there and Colleen. No Eric, no Brennan. Oleg would show up later though. Janet mentioned Jerry Louis. Jerry moved to Nevada or Arizona months ago and I haven’t seen him since. Too bad, he was good at keeping us on our toes.

Rob (left) and Bruce waiting for a game. 

Rob and I played Oleg and Bruce and won.

Then we played Oleg and Mark Dettle and won.

We played a game against Janet and Bruce intentionally giving up winners to get into a soft dinking game for practice. We told Janet and Bruce what we were doing. It was a closer game than it would have been normally, but we still won. It was an opportunity to experiment with spin shots and loopy serves and whatever else we wanted. Rob commented, “I don’t think you’ve missed even one of your backspin returns.” I don’t think that I did—and a whole lot of them ended up in the net over the course of several games. We’ll see if I get an opportunity to use them in the matches on Sunday.

The last game was Adrian and Colleen versus us. We were just coming off a very relaxed lazy game where we gave up our intentional winner shots. We didn’t dial it back up, underestimated our opponents and lost the game to Colleen and Adrian! Colleen could be named “backboard” . . . she’s good about returning shots. Adrian doesn’t have a complete game—he’s getting over some knee injuries—but can make some crack shots when given the opportunity. Our game was the last of the night. Oleg and Olga were watching, but aside from site coordinator Mark Dettle, everyone else was gone.

Afterward, Mark was packing up the courts and asked, “Was that the only game that you lost?”
“Yep!”

We were done about 9:15. It’s really nice having lights to play under. Even if it does make it hard to always spatially judge the ball location.

Tournament in three days!

Number of days on a court: 175
Number of total hours: 483.5

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

Wednesday, July 25, 2018 (Court Day #174)

I’m an optimist. A drop-down drag-out optimist. Today, one department at work would well-staffed with a fully-trained employee to answer tough questions. The other department would have two fully-trained staff members plus with one clerk with only four weeks experience but is knowledgeable and competent. As a backup, we have our bookkeeper to open the store and I checked remotely and our business alarm was off, so she was there early. No one texted or called in sick. We were covered, I could go play.

I arrived at Derby a few minutes after 9 and it was already warm—and even a touch muggy. John P. appeared not long after and I gave him my charged blower battery for Sunday since I’ll be at the tournament.

I got in some fun games. No really hard ones. Mostly ones where you either intentionally hit to the stronger player to make a game of it or backed off a lot and served or hit easier shots.

Lo and behold, the young couple from last night at Brommer appeared. Dan and Sara, they said. Both seemed very nice. It was their first time at Derby. Dan has further to go than Sara, but the basic skills are there. They both need tactical advice about when to advance to the net, keeping the ball low—typical beginner stuff. A lot of potential. They might be really good in 12 months.

I had signed up with Eric and Rob and a fourth for a hard game. I grabbed my iPhone to take a photo. (Notice there is no photo with this entry.)

#$@^%&!

There were a bunch of missed phone calls and texts. And several voice messages from an over an hour earlier. (It was now shortly after 10:30.) It turns out that one key holder at work texted me just 15 minutes before opening that she couldn’t come in and was going to the hospital. An assistant manager didn’t swap her day off and took her regular day off even though the other key holder who I thought was working was, in fact, taking an additional day of vacation beyond what was originally written on her time off request—leaving only one key holder to be responsible to open . . . the one that went to the hospital! But there was a backup: the bookkeeper was onsite. But it didn’t occur to her until about 10 minutes after opening time that no one had collected the register drawers from her office!

I didn’t know all the details when I grabbed my iPhone. All I knew is that even if the business was already open, it’d leave one department with a single person with four weeks training! (Granted, there was a second partially trained cashier to help from the other department.) I immediately left the courts—after telling Eric and Rob—and listened to the voicemails in the car. The store was now open at least. The morning usually has fewer customers and I was sweaty—it had already been 72°F by the time I left my house for the courts—so I drove home, showered very quickly, then dashed out the door for work.

I was overly optimistic today. I wanted to play and bypassed some safeguards. There was a perfect storm and I ended up with a parking lot full of employees standing around for 20 minutes getting paid to do nothing. The challenges of running a family business. Your life is never your own. You go on vacation—rarely—with your cell phone on 24/7 and check your emails regardless of the day or hour.

Pickleball can be like work sometimes. If you leave the door of disaster possibility slightly ajar, too often, you’ll get burnt. You need to plan ahead, be wily, don’t depend on others to make good things happen for you. You have to keep control and keep bad things from being a possibility at all.

Rob asked if I could play at Brommer on Friday morning. I said I’d have to check. I don’t want a repeat of this morning!

Paddle Crack

I noticed on Tuesdsy night that a crack had developed in one face of my paddle. When I press around it, it seems solid. But it does make me nervous. Will it get worse?

Number of days on a court: 174
Number of total hours: 481.5

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

Tuesday, July 24, 2018 (Court Day #173)

Rob and I arranged a game tonight at Brommer Park. Eric and Oleg were available. I got there shortly after 6:30 to find the others there and dinking. Rob and I played game after game against the two of them. Early on we won one or two, but as the evening progressed, we lost repeatedly. Some games by more than others. A consolation was losing the last game only 13-11, in a very contested game. Most games were hard earned.

Rob and I need to work on further developing our chemistry. Also not making dumb shots—slamming/driving into the net, hitting would-be winners too deep, not popping the ball up. Our play wasn’t bad, but there’s work to do to improve.

One fun thing was a young couple on the other court. Sporting tattoos with their skateboards parked off to the side, they represent the trend in pickleball—younger!

We wrapped up play as it got dark, just after 8:30.

Eric, Oleg, Rob and my SCPC cap rest after our sparring.

Tournament

The email with the schedule for the tournament this weeeekend arrived in my inbox today. Rob and I will be playing bright and very early on Sunday at 8:00 a.m. I was hoping it’d be later, but maybe I should count my blessings since the weather prediction is in the 80s in Concord on Sunday.

It’ll be a big tournament. What’s really fun is I/we will be playing in the same tournament as Kyle Yates, Ben Johns, Morgan Evans, and Tyson McGuffin. Christine McGrath will be playing too. Maybe it’ll work out so we can see a pro match.

Number of days on a court: 173
Number of total hours: 480

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