Category: Pickleball (Page 30 of 323)

Thursday, October 23, 2025 (Court Day #864)

It is getting dark so early these days. After work, I stopped by my parents. My brother Mike is in town from Washington State for a couple of weeks and he’s helping my sister organize and de-clutter my parents’ house. My parents—mostly my dad—have collected a lot of things over the 50 years that they have lived there. It may have been a mistake to introduce my dad to eBay, but that is a story for another time! Regardless, I left my parents’ house with the back of my car full of garbage bags and recycling.

Sports Cam

I had ordered a thumb-size sports camera, but the description was confusing and I accidentally got the 1080P model instead of the 4K model. (The title specifically said “4K” but one of the options was apparently a 1080P model.)

Today, I sent one of my staff to the post office with it to be returned.

Recently, we received two or three packages via USPS to our business, each containing multiple bottles of male health supplements addressed for a guy we’ve never heard of. I think it may be one of those scams where they send products to random people so that they can write their own positive reviews on Amazon… in any case, the bottles are on their way back to Amazon. Those went to the post office with my staff today too. They have gone whence they came!

Skypark

I arrived at Skypark at 7 p.m. and David L. pulled into the parking lot right after me. Attendance was light and there were courts open when I arrived. Daniel Borlean was there and he asked if I wanted to warm up, which of course, I did. Mauricio arrived a moment later and jumped onto our court next to me and warmed up against Scott.

After about five minutes of warming up, we got into a game against Daniel and Scott. Mauricio and I lost the first game by a significant margin. Then the second, and the third. By the fourth game, we were fully warmed up and playing a bit better and won that one. Quite a turnabout. Going from getting completely clobbered to winning. After that, Daniel decided to leave.

Mauricio and I played a game against David and Scott. It was a close game but we lost.

In that game against Scott and David, Scott got me on a number of lobs which were miserable under the lights. Almost no matter where you were against a lob, you were looking up into the lights.

Rose and Megan

The last game was me pairing up with a woman named Rose against Mauricio and Megan. Megan has good spins and angles, but also likes to drive and speed up shots to me, which is a mistake. Those are my strengths. Fast hands and handling fast drives. My partner Rose obviously has a tennis background since she has a habit of staying at the baseline. Nonetheless, to my surprise, we won that game. After one fast exchange at the net that I won off my two initial transition zone resets, Rose was impressed: “S—t!” That’s the best kind of praise. Like after hitting a winners against Matt Smith a few years ago, and he’d rattle off a series of 4-letter words in my direction! Heh. 

And?

Mistakes I was making tonight included hitting returns too long, hitting a lob or two too deep, and those were the only two that I tried. I also I hit a couple of my serves too long. I hit the white tape a couple of times. I hit some drop shots either too low into the net or some too high which were slammed off the court. But my drops did improve over the course of the evening.

The next time that I’m at the optometrist, I swear, I’m going to look into prescription protective goggles and see if that will help me under the lights. Judging depth is difficult for me at night.

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Friday, October 24, 2025 (No Play)

Back on September 11, I shared a New York Times article about pickleball courts taking over tennis courts. Here is some more on growth of pickleball courts in the USA—as you can see, not all were originally tennis courts:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOhioiqDO7P

UPA Paddle Fines

The umbrella company of the PPA Tour, the UPA, is cracking down on paddles—in particular, gritty paddles—as their new standards are rolled out to limit power and spin on paddles. They are getting serious, even threatening $50,000 fines for companies providing illegal paddles to sponsored players:
https://www.thedinkpickleball.com/pro-paddles-are-still-failing-onsite-testing-repeat-offenders-could-face-50k-fines

A First! Singles Only!

Lifetime sponsored the first-ever singles only pro pickleball tournament. It was held October 15-19 in Georgia:
https://ltopen.lifetime.life

They had a $250,00 prize purse with a $50,00 grand prize for each of the mens and womens top finisher from a 128-person qualifier. Those top finishers were Chris Haworth and Lea Jansen.

Ah. I just found a video by Zane Navratil about the event.

And an article too:
https://www.thedinkpickleball.com/haworth-and-jansen-take-home-50k-each-in-the-first-ever-life-time-open/

Number of days on a court: 864
Number of total hours: 3,306.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 178

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

Sunday, October 19, 2025 (Court Day #863)

It was sunny and 64°F when I pulled into Brommer Park at 10:02 a.m. and only about half the courts were in use.

Jared of The Kitchen

Dan, Kim, and I needed a fourth for a game, but curly-haired Rob Sandle said he was waiting for his friend named Jared who was visiting from Austin, Texas. I learned that Jared runs a pickleball media company called The Kitchen, which I’ve seen on social media. We managed to convince Rob to play a game with us until Jared arrived.

First Game

So, Dan Dewey and Kim played a game against Rob and me. They were targeting Rob. On our very first serve to start the game, I watched about 10 shots of the rally before I had my first opportunity to hit the ball, which I turned into a winner.

Rob and I lost that first game.

Jared had still not appeared, so we started a rematch.

Mid-game, Jared arrived but said we should continue our game and not stop for him, especially since he was late. He sat on the wall and patiently waited.

Rob and I won that second game. 

Games with Jared

Jared and Rob teamed up and beat Kim and me twice. The second time was 7-11. Jared is a solid 4.0+ player.

Between games, Jared said they have an MLP team named The Chefs. He said their team performed well in the Challenger series against teams with a million dollars of salaries and his team had less than $5,000 of salaries. He was proud of how his team did given that disparity in financing. Well, that is impressive, indeed!

We mixed things up and this time, Rob and I played together against Kim and Jared. We lost badly 2-11.

Ouch

There is one speed up that Kim made, where the ball bounced off the edge of Rob‘s paddle, ricocheted off of my wrist, and hit me in the mouth then my nose. Even with those extra bounces, my nose and mouth were stinging for about five minutes afterwards!

After Jared got warmed up, he played quite well. Yeah, he outperformed me today, not that I was playing all that great.

I overheard Jared talking to Rob, commenting how I had fast hands. That’s always nice to hear.

More Games

Kim and I played against Oscar and Mary Kay. We lost the first game 5–11, then had a rematch and also lost second game was 2–11.

I don’t know if it was lack of sleep, or what. I was not focused. I had some I had some highlight shots, but overall, I was not playing well. (‘Whine, whine’, right? ‘Just play better! No excuses!’)

The last game wrapped up at 12 o’clock sharp, it was time for me to go get ready to teach.

And?

Today was bad. I was not consistent. I really need to start recording my games to analyze what is happening from an objective perspective. It’s very hard to analyze your own play in the heat of the moment.

I left the courts feeling dejected, and hoping that this wasn’t the start of another slump in performance.

The Kitchen

I looked up one of Jared’s assorted YouTube videos, here’s a screenshot of Jared:

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Monday, October 20, 2025 (No Play)

There’s a new facility in Ft. Lauderdale in Florida featuring what they are claiming is the world’s first pickleball stadium:
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2025/10/19/worlds-first-pickleball-stadium-opens-with-new-facility-in-fort-lauderdale

Now, the word “stadium” might be a bit of a stretch. It looks like it might fit 300-400 people. Maybe more of a “mini-stadium”, but nonetheless, it’s a building spotlighting just one court. It is also surrounded by over 40 other courts, most outside, but some covered.

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Monday, October 21, 2025 (No Play)

Eye injuries caused by pickleball is in the new again with a study that was released five days ago in a journal, JAMA Ophthalmology The study says that pickleball eye damage is getting more common as pickleball continues to grow and get more popular. (Not that that is a huge surprise!) Here’s an article about the study:
https://www.livescience.com/health/black-eyes-orbital-fractures-and-retinal-detachment-pickleball-related-eye-injuries-are-on-the-rise-in-the-us

I continue to be an advocate for eye protection. I’ve been hit once in the eye on a court. That was years ago now. Since then, I’ve been hit in the face, glasses, cap, etc. and every time it happens, I’m glad that I’m wearing sunglasses, Kitchen Blockers, or some kind of eye protection.

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Monday, October 22, 2025 (No Play)

Heavy metal rocker pickleball. I’d never heard of Avenged Sevenfold, but the lead singer got addicted to pickleball about a year ago. A couple of article have appear this week about him and here’s one:
https://pickleball.com/culture/avenged-sevenfold-lead-singer-m-shadows-i-like-to-fancy-myself-quite-the-pickleball-player

Pickleball for Apple Vision Pro

A company call Resolution Games has released a pickleball game for Apple Vision Pro. Here’s an article:
https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=345525&ck_subscriber_id=2490057637

And here’s a promotional video for it on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/uga4Y9hyqiQ?si=EvjkXC4rjE9iGYYs

Number of days on a court: 863
Number of total hours: 3,305
Number of paid coaching hours: 178

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

Thursday, October 16, 2025 (Court Day #862)

Tuesday, there was an afternoon rain. I texted Matt Babb about 5 o’clock and he said he was going to head over in a little bit and check the Skypark courts. He did text a bit later saying the courts were empty. So there was no play two days ago.

Today

Like most days, today was a workday for me. It was 5 or 10 minutes before 7 p.m. when I arrived at Skypark. It was a lighter crowd tonight and I was able to find a spot in the parking lot—a luxury!

Games

Matt Babb and I played several games against Alex and young Jordan. They had already played and I was warming up. Matt and I lost the first two games then won the third.

My defense off of slams is getting better and better. There was one rally that I really wish I could’ve had recorded. There were three low angle slam shots got back over the net and two of them were definitely highlight reel shots. Even Matt commented on them after the rally was done. Alex couldn’t get through my defense so he switched and slammed it at Matt instead and that successfully ended the rally.

I would’ve kept going with the same partners, but Jordan wanted to mix it up and he played with me against Matt and Alex. I think we were both getting tired. We got our clocks cleaned in the first game. It was closer in the second game, but we lost that one as well.

The last game was me playing with Shane—whom I’d seen maybe once or twice before—against Matt Babb and Mauricio. When the lights clicked off, they were leading 5–4.

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Friday, October 17, 2025 (No Play)

Pickleball injuries has made the news now then over the last few years, and another article appeared in the New York Times, this time focused on eye injuries:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/health/pickleball-eye-injuries.html

“Dr. Tsui urged players to wear protective eye gear, because hollow, perforated pickleballs meet little air resistance and travel quickly.”

“Newer paddles can send balls speeding up to 60 miles per hour, the study said. Biomechanical analyses have shown that a pickleball traveling 30 miles per hour or more can deform the cornea, retina and vitreous of the eye, exerting enough pressure to dislocate the lens, the study said.”

NPL vs NPL?

So, there are two organizations calling themselves the National Pickleball League. Surprise! One is suing the other:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/gets-national-pickleball-league-federal-103034989.html

This kind of stuff is bound to happen in a rapidly growing sport.

Number of days on a court: 862
Number of total hours: 3,303
Number of paid coaching hours: 175

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