Category: Pickleball (Page 285 of 327)

Wednesday, February 7, 2018 (Court Day #122)

I left work early at 5 p.m. to be ready when Eric picked me up at my house at 5:30. We headed over the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Silicon Valley and the Camden Community Center. Traffic was relatively light and it didn’t take too much trouble to find the entrance to the gym after we pulled into the complex at 6:05.

The center. Though it was dark when we got there.
[Image from the City of San Jose website.]

We signed in at the front desk, I paid for the two of us—a whopping $5.50 total—and we waited about 10 minutes for the crew to get the gym ready.

We were one of the first ones there. There were three nets set up initially but soon, there were five. With five nets, there were never more than 1 or 2 people waiting to play.

First Time Indoor

Eric had a little prior indoor experience—from somewhere in Scotts Valley during winter last year—and we both played that funky racquetball court “pickleball” tournament about 4 months in Los Gatos, but this was my first time playing real honest-to-God pickleball indoors.

The gym interior without nets.
[Image from the City of San Jose website.]

The biggest difference of indoor play, noticeable immediately, was the spaghetti of colored lines all over the wood floor. We were playing to the mostly to the outside set of double yellow lines, but to the blue swath of color for the baseline at one end of the court. Throughout the entire evening, it was a real challenge for me to determine the edges of the court. I guess the benefit of this is I only missed one or two of my serves. I wasn’t pushing the edges . . . because I couldn’t see where they were! Once, Eric served about a foot inside the baseline by mistake! Fault!

It was warm in the gym. I was sticky by the end. And my SCPC cap resulted in sweaty hair. Cap? No cap? That will have to be decided by the tournament later this month.

Another thing was the baselines were close together. We’d often have to wait on serving because the court behind us was also serving and we ended up in each other’s space.

I’m used to balls rolling onto laterally adjacent courts, but with nothing between two courts’ baselines, balls would travel into those courts as well. It made for about twice as many interruptions to games.

Players

There was a big disparity in skill levels there. From rank beginners (I didn’t play with them) to marginal players (I played with them) to some decent players (I played with them) to some very strong advanced players who mostly kept to themselves off on one court. Eric and I were unquestionably in the top half of the players who were there. We represented Santa Cruz well. Especially since I was wearing my Santa Cruz Pickleball Club shirt.

I played a couple of games as the partner to a petite friendly woman with long gray hair named Barbara. Between games, I asked her, “How long have you been playing?” She smiled and said, “Even though I play like a beginner, I’ve been playing for three years.” (While she wasn’t a strong player, I was not implying that she was bad, I just was curious!) She went on to say that in that time period, she’d only played outside on two occasions. I told her this was my first time indoors after a year of playing. We were basically opposites in terms of indoor/outdoor play.

Somewhere in the evening, I tweaked my ankle a little. Yes, even with the brace on. Not super painful and it was only instant, but unpleasant. It’s an ongoing battle. It’s slow, but trending to improvement. I should have known that when it went “crunch” when I rolled it that it would take a long time to get fully recovered. I think it’s been four weeks now.

The Young Guys

Our last five games were with two youngsters, Carl and Brandon. Eric and I clobbered them 11-1 and 11-2, then we switched things up with Brandon and me taking on Eric and Carl, they won fairly handily. In the fourth game, we swapped again, this time, Eric taking Brandon. They won handily.

Doing the math, it seemed that either I was playing worse than Eric (likely) or my aura was negatively impacting whichever partner I happened to have (unlikely). Hopefully, I can regain my mojo soon. That’s two sub-par outings in a row. And, hopefully, I can get past this sinus bug that’s been dragging on 11 days so far.

At their suggestion, the last game was back to the youngsters against us. The game was 6-4 our advantage when the center’s crew announced, “One more minute!” We agreed to play one more point and it ended 7-4 at 8:30 p.m. They were fun to play with and improved even over our five games. We offered that they should come down to Santa Cruz. Carl said they’ve been “making the rounds, trying to improve.” Maybe we’ll see them again. And maybe they’ll kick out butts at someday!

Me, Carl, Brandon, and Eric. Maybe Carl is holding up one finger to indicate how many points they won in their first game. (Kidding! Sorry, Carl, I had to!)

Eric dropped me off at my house just after 9 p.m. I had dinner then off to bed!

Number of days on a court: 122
Number of total hours: 348

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Sunday, February 4, 2018 (Court Day #121)

I couldn’t fall asleep last night and finally dozed off shortly after 1:30 a.m. I woke up shortly after 7 a.m., fell back asleep, then woke up with my alarm. I cleared my throat and blew my nose repeatedly. I grabbed the blower battery, stuck about half a dozen nose tissues into my backpack, and left the house. This cold is just dragging on and on.

I arrived at Derby Park at about a quarter to 9. Surprisingly, Mark and Maree were there. They were dinking over the tennis net since no pickleball nets were up yet since I had the key to the storage lockers. Maree had brought her own blower and kindly blown off the courts already.

There are up days and down days. Today was very much a down day. Mike and I played three games against Mark and Maree and lost all three. Mark was playing particularly well. Mike and I were both playing particularly badly. It was night and day to my performance on Friday.

To add insult to injury, I got hit by the ball in the back of my right hand. Four hits in two outings. Another bruise.

Between not getting enough sleep and this dragging cold, I was having to will myself to play each point. After most of the games, I wanted to just lie down and rest! But I wanted to play. It was a battle of the will against the body. I am just beat. B.E.A.T. Nonetheless, I stuck around until the last game and locked up the bins at about 12:40 p.m.

No Eric today, he couldn’t join the rest of us.

It’s breathtakingly beautiful day.

SuperBowl Sunday.

I hope this cold goes away soon. Ugh. I want my energy back.

Postscript

8:54 p.m. I’d like to stop blowing my nose any time now. And stop coughing too. Gag. Beam me up, Scotty.

Number of days on a court: 121
Number of total hours: 346

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

Friday, February 2, 2018 (Court Day #120)

I was half debating not playing today. I woke up coughing from drainage into my lungs from this lingering cold. But, I took a Mucinex pill and a couple of ibuprofen and got moving, stuffing a bag of cough drops into my backpack and I sucked on one for the drive over.

I pulled into the Brommer Park parking lot at 9:05. It was going to be an unusually warm day again, in the 70s.

Six players warming up as Dan Bliss blows off the courts. It’d get much busier!

One

In the first game, Dave and Dean against Richard and me, Dean rifled a forehand groundstroke crosscourt. I couldn’t get my paddle into a backhand position fast enough and the ball hit the bone at the base of my index finger. Ouch! Dean was great. He took us apart. It’s always a nice reminder that I have a ways to go yet before I’ll be an advanced player. Humility. Dean said, “There’s a saying in sports. More games are lost than are won.” That came after I missed my serve. Yeah. I think my goal in the upcoming tournament should be to not miss any of my serves by being tricky. Get it in.

After a dink rally, Dean kindly told me, “You should have taken that one out of the air. Don’t back up.” He was right. I need to get really low and lean in and take those before the bounce when I can. I noticed myself backing up on a dink in a later game too. Something to be aware of!

Two

In a game not much later, Rich rifled a forehand groundstroke crosscourt. Again, I couldn’t get my paddle into a backhand position fast enough and the ball hit the exact same spot of my index finger. Double Ouch!

I have to figure out how to defend against this shot! I asked Dean about it in the waiting area. He said that Bryan (from my Palo Alto experience) is successful putting his thumb up the back of  the paddle and holding the paddle vertically out in front of him and essentially blocking those quick shots. But I think that’s more about rallys at the net and not groundstrokes, but maybe not.

On the courts, Kent popped over and asked, “Where’s your partner?”
“Dunno. Maybe sleeping,” I kidded.
Actually, Eric had texted last night saying he might not be able to come and if he did, it would be a short time, he was no doubt busy with either work or wife.

I was in a game with Mike as my partner against Grita and—maybe it was Ted (Asian Ted), I can’t remember for sure. We won 11-7 or 11-8, and that was not on Mike’s play today. It was unquestionably on my play. Walking back to the waiting area, Mike said, “You played well. That one where you were off the court, but got back—you were quick.” Mike is very competitive and, as a result, can be critical of his partners when they make errors. But all of his comments in this game were directed at his own mistakes. It’s a far cry from a year ago when Mike would carry me in a game. Today it was reverse. Yes, I’m proud of myself! Making progress.

I noticed myself lagging a bit after a couple hours. I wasn’t as focused and not as driven today. There was a lack of energy as the morning wound on. I think the cold was taking its toll—or the Mucinex, since one of the possible side effects is drowsiness. I was still playing pretty well, but part of me wanted to call it a day and rest. But I love playing.

Three

Near the last game of the day, in play against Jane and Wendy or Alan, during a net rally, on a fast forehand, the ball hit the exact same spot of my index finger for the third time in the morning. Triple Ouch! What are the odds of that? If you saw me waving my hand around after that shot, you’ll know why!

Wendy and I played a game against Jane and Allan. Wendy and Jane both have strong tennis backgrounds, though Jane is the better pickleball player. Jane very kindly inquired about my ankle . . .three weeks ago, it was going after her crosscourt shot that rolled it. I told her the ankle only hurts doing certain things, but standing around, it is perfectly fine. That was a fun game. Jane and Allan both do a good job getting the ball back over the net. About 3/4 through the game, Wendy said, “Jane is a good player, but you are taking her apart.” I don’t know about that—it’s also a function of how well two opponents play together—but I did have a good outing. Though overall, I’m still making avoidable mistakes—dropshots that go too high, dinks that don’t clear the net, serves where I get too tricky and miss the service court altogether, an occasional winner that instead sails too out or into the net. I still need to get more consistent. But the good shots are increasing in frequency.

I checked my phone after the last game. 12:05 p.m.

Yep. Bruised index finger. Red and slightly swollen. Worth it though!

Number of days on a court: 120
Number of total hours: 342.5

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