Category: Pickleball (Page 284 of 327)

Wednesday, February 14, 2018 (Court Day #125)

On Monday, I emailed the Livermore office for the tournament asking if they have a schedule yet for the event, but received no reply.

On Tuesday afternoon, I got a call from my dad. They found a new pair of the athletic shoes that I wear in a closet in my size that fits no one in their house. (My youngest brother lives with my folks and helps them out.) Sure, I’ll take them. My dad dropped them off at work. Not only are they my size, my model/make, they are the slightly older version where the insole is already glued in! Thank you, God! Man, that’ll save some headaches! Especially since the shoe isn’t currently available at Costco in-store or online! Yay!

Yesterday, also on Tuesday afternoon, I emailed Eric to see if he wanted to head over to San Jose again to play indoor. Unfortunately, he caught the flu going around. At least it’s this week and not next week leading up to our first tournament! Get better, partner!

Tragedy Strikes

My wife’s dad Ron underwent a routine heart surgery yesterday (Tuesday). While the valve replacements went fine using a DaVinci robot, complications have him in a coma due to a stroke. There were a flurry of phone calls since Ron was not coming out of anesthesia. They rushed him to a CAT scan which appeared normal—or so we initially heard, but later we heard of a dark spot (blood clot) in his brain. The devastating news is that the doctors don’t expect him to recover. My wife and I left the house about 5 a.m. for her last-minute 6:40 a.m. flight to San Diego to be with her mom and her sister. Ron is a wonderful and gregarious giant of a man, 6’2″ and barrel-chested, like a big teddy bear. 25 years ago, he graciously accepted me into their family as his daughter’s “new boyfriend” and has, very much, been a second father to me. (Next year is my wife’s and my 25th wedding anniversary.) We can only hope and pray for the best, but the prognosis is not good. It weighs on me.

Derby Park

I opted to go to pickleball to get my mind off of things, it only partly worked. Ron was never far from my thoughts. I arrived a few minutes after 9. Dave Allenbaugh and John P. were there finishing setup. When I told John—whom my wife and I have known for about 6-7 years—about Ron, he gave me a hug and told me, “Pass that along to Kristen.” (John was the one that got me into pickleball in the first place.)

We had a guest. An advanced player in his 40s named Sam hailing from Alabama. I was lucky enough to get a game in with Sam as my partner against Dean and Dave Cox. Sam and I won. Dave was not having his best day. One funny moment was Dave was serving from the odd court to me. I typically hit back to the server to give the longest amount of time for me to get to the kitchen line. One point though, I was thinking, “I don’t get to play with Dean very often and I want to take advantage of the opportunity.” So I hit the ball straight ahead to Dean’s backhand. I think Dean was shocked. He hit it back into the net! Dean got me though. We were dinking diagonally and he hit it wide, it switched the paddle to my left hand to get it but I mis-hit it. “It spun away from you,” came Dean’s explanation. Tricky!

I played a variety of games. Much later, I realized that in one game against Grita where we both had weaker partners, she was almost exclusively hitting to my partner! I generally don’t play like that. I just hit where strategy dictated by the assumption that the opponents are both equal. They aren’t, of course, but I want to get better. Avoiding the better opponent is not how to push yourself to improve.

“You are playing really well, my friend.’ said John P. after watching one of my games then playing with me.

Kevin’s wife Bev and I played against Grita and Mike. Bev and I lost our lead and the game by a couple points. Afterward, from his chair, Mike said, “You are playing well.” One things about that game though, Mike hit an excellent crosscourt shot to my left. I lunged for it and my left hip was not happy about the move. Nothing major, but it was a bit sore afterward.

I looked at the time on my iPhone. 11:42. There was a text message from my wife to call her. I often stick it out until the last players—sometimes until 1 p.m. on Sundays—but I left with three courts still going.

Livermore

I heard back from the Livermore person and he said they’d be sending something out Monday. But I have no idea right now if it’s going to work out with what’s going on with my wife’s dad. Family first. I emailed warning Eric and he was very understanding and supportive if Livermore doesn’t happen for us.

Number of days on a court: 125
Number of total hours: 357

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

Saturday, February 10, 2018 (Court Day #124)

I arrived Brommer Park a few minutes after 9. The weather was stunning.

Last night, Beth Black texted and invited a number of players for a private gathering Saturday morning. We ended up with about 16 people there. Though I believe the very advanced players may not have been connected to Beth’s callout.

Games

Eric and I played David and Beth Black three times. We lost the first game. But then we played a second game and won that one. Later, we played a third game and won that one as well. 2 out of 3 against the Blacks. Nothing to shake a stick at!

We played the two tennis instructors, Chris and his wife Jen, twice and won both. Though Chris didn’t ever serve one of his really fast serves that I have trouble with. He was probably being nice. On the other hand, it’s rare that I get the opportunity to go up against those serves. I’d rather lose and have the challenge than win against easier serves.

Drilling

Mid-morning, after some players had left due to other obligations, we didn’t have enough players to fill both (non-advanced) courts and Eric and I were the odd players out, so we did Terry’s drill, then some baseline ground strokes that turned into a singles game. We were pretty even and that game got abandoned when the others’ game concluded.

In a game with Chris as my partner against Eric and Jen, I almost had a disaster. The point was called off—probably a random ball rolling onto the court—and me, awkwardly going for the ball to keep it from getting away as the point stopped, I almost rolled my good left ankle! Concerned, Chris said, “I saw that!” and for me to be careful. That could have been very bad! One bum ankle is plenty.

Play wrapped up about noon, with Eric and I taking that second game against Chris and his wife, the last game of the day for our group.

The end of play for us. Chris with his things slung over his shoulder. The more advanced players were still going.

Serving Spoof Video

I took a few minutes and asked Eric to video a serve for me. On the Pickleball Forum on Facebook, there has been a rash of people lately posting slow-motion videos asking if their serve is legal. One was so supremely obviously legal that I recorded and posted this spoof of an overhead serve asking if it’s legal:
“There has been a ton of “check my serve” posts/videos here. Someone said my serve is illegal. My palm is up. I get a lot of aces and I’d hate to give it up. What do you think?”

Link to the Facebook spoof video.

Some of the responses are hysterical, especially the ones that took my question seriously!

How Did It Go Today?

Eric and I did well, even though we weren’t at the top of our game. I had errant shots and Eric would quickly admit he was lobbed too much and too many sailed out. Both of us hit balls that otherwise would have landed out and also dropped balls into the net—especially me. There was a lot to clean up. Still, we won games. It’s good to be able to win some even when not playing your best.

Ankle

Later in the evening, I was walking down steps while talking and stepped on my hurt ankle wrong. Ouch! It was worse instant pain than anything I’ve done durning pickleball to it since I injured it about a month ago. Fortunately, the pain subsided in a few minutes and returned to normal. It still hurts when doing certain movements. I don’t know how long this is going to take to heal fully, but at this rate, it’s going to be months.

Number of days on a court: 124
Number of total hours: 354.5

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

Friday, February 9, 2018 (Court Day #123)

After a slow moving morning, I arrived at Brommer Park about 9:15 a.m. Eric was there, but the way the rotations went, we didn’t play with each other all morning—even though our tournament is two weeks from tomorrow.

My first game was Leslie and Dean against me and a 60-ish man I’ve never seen before named Allen/Alan/Allan. John Connor seemed to know him fairly well, happily greeting him by name. (To avoid confusion with Alan and Allan, and I know know better, I’ll go with “Allen”.) Allen is a good player. He made few mistakes and was all over the court making good shots. I told him, “I’m glad you are on my team!” I went into that game with no warm up and it showed. Allen was polite and didn’t say much. He could have easily been critical of my play, especially on a court with Dean as an opponent. I was likely the weakest player on the court. On a good day, I might play at Leslie’s level and Dean and Allen were unquestionably on an entirely different level than me.

One of my efforts in improving is to being more aggressive about taking dinks out of the air when I can manage it. And I’m still having trouble with my drops. Some people get the “yips” with serving. I’ve never had that. I get the yips with my drop shots . . . either too high or two low. But it’s not like I don’t get any of them, but the percentage is sometimes noticeably lower. For instance, I hit too many of them into the net Wednesday night. I hit many too badly early in the day but it improved as the morning moved on.

The Good Game

Karen and Leslie were signed up in red. I asked them if they minded if I joined them. “I won’t be offended if you don’t want to play with me, if you are waiting for a harder game.” But they both agreed, so I added my name in blue under theirs. Kevin became our fourth. Kevin said he wasn’t playing his best today. As if I don’t know what that’s like! Ha! Kevin and I crawled out ahead of the ladies. It was something like 8-2 or 7-3 or thereabouts. They came back closer but we held them to getting any closer than a couple points down. It was back and forth, but we won. Walking off the courts, Kevin said, “You carried us in that game.” Wow. Nice to hear, especially in the strong company. It was a fun challenging game.

Oh, I wrote this and only remembered later. Karen tried an ATP shot off to my right. It had the same result as last time she tried it, I tracked with the ball, was there to return it for a winner off Karen’s right side.

I had a serve in the game, right to left, where I watched it fly down the wrong side of the center line only to have it curve in late and catch the corner of the service box. A week or two ago, the last time I watched such a serve, the receiver just stood there for an ace. Today, Leslie impressed me since not only did she hit it, she made a good return of it.

Off the courts, Allen was talking to someone, counting up all the players there. 42. Bryan was down against from San Jose—though I’d originally met him in Palo Alto. It was a good turnout.

New Guy Rob

Rob, a young firefighter who lives in Soquel, but works in . . . I think it’s Fremont . . . was there for the first time. He said he and his co-workers would set up a net in their parking lot and play pickleball at work. (His schedule is 48 hours on, then 96 hours off.) Jen (wife of tennis pro Chris) mentioned that he said that they often wouldn’t respect the non-volley zone and just hit hard. Basically brute-force pickleball.

I convinced Jen and Mark and Rob to play a game me. Rob was the weakest player and I picked him to play with. Even then, we managed to win 14-12. There was a lot of back and forth. It was common that a team’s service would go with no points. Rob is a cool guy. Before we started, he said to give him any advice to help improve his game. I did a little, but it’s easy to overwhelm someone with advice on too many things, so mostly I just let him play. I suspect he knew what he did wrong. Primarily, he’s got to develop a soft game. Much like Jen still needs to. During the game I called at least a couple kitchen faults on my own partner Rob. He was a great sport about it: “Keep calling those, I need to learn.”

I had a new experience, I actually was feeling embarrassed getting repeated compliments on winning shots from Mark and Jen. “Great shot, Andrew!” It wasn’t all that many in a row, but it was enough to make me feel self conscious.

We wrapped up play about 12:45 p.m. Overall, I am pleased with my play today. I started slow, but I got stronger and stronger as the day went on. I still am blowing my nose more than I should and still have some sinus drainage, but my energy is mostly back. I’m not wanting to lie down after games, which is a good thing!

Number of days on a court: 123
Number of total hours: 351.5

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