Category: Pickleball (Page 303 of 327)

Friday, September 8, 2017. (Court Day #68)

I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:10. There was some car accident in Soquel and it backed up the freeway and side streets some.

Gearing up for the day at Brommer. Grita (right) standing with Terry Long (left) in the first court as I walk up.

I spent the morning in assorted games. I was playing well from the get-go. Not perfectly, but solid. I spent the morning going from game to game where I was either the best playing person on the court or one of the two best players on the court. I’m not saying that I’m necessarily always better of the players I was up against or with, but today was a good day in terms of my performance. And, of course, I wasn’t mixing it up with the “red” players, the advanced players, I was playing with “blue” intermediate-adv players and in one instance, with “black” intermediate players.

I have to say, my drop shots are getting far, far better and more reliable. I’d say that I make at least 75% of my drop shots now, maybe as high as 90%. Not all are great drop shots, but almost all prevent my opponent from smashing the ball back.

I had a perfect opportunity for my first true “around the post” shot today. (Yes, I executed one once, but it didn’t count since the other team had called the ball out on my side of the court just before I hit it.) I was off to the left of the court, I hit the ball for the easy shot and . . . my paddle was too parallel to the net and so the ball traveled down the line and didn’t angle back into their side of the court. Out. Bummer. It would have been great!

As the morning wound down, I asked Terry and Karen Long if I could play with them. I told Karen I was ready for a more challenging game. I was hoping for one where I could get embarrassed . . . those are the games that you learn in. David Black filled in the fourth spot and I knew I’d be in a formidable game. Terry is a 5.0 player, Karen is a 4.5 and David is a 4.0. Me? I’m still not even rated on the USAPA.org website. (It’d help if I entered a tournament some day! Maybe I’m a 3.0? A 3.5?)

The first game, Karen and David won against Terry and me. I was obviously the weakest player on the court—and Terry the strongest—but I wasn’t blowing it all the time. We lost something like 11-6. We were using a new bright green “hard ball” as Terry called it. It was a bit slippery and I found it a bit hard to control. Serves and returns floated long and adjusting for drop shots was tricky. My court-mates even found the ball troublesome, which made me feel a little better about messing up. David has a very good fast low serve. I returned one into the net. But Terry did the same thing on David’s very next serve, so I wasn’t a complete loser. David’s serves are ones that I’m happy to get over the net, let alone back positioned perfectly in their court!

In the middle of that game, after a point, Terry accidentally barely leaned on the net but it was just enough and the metal cable popped. It was one of the two nets that had been vandalized very recently and the end of the cable was unusually short so it pulled out of the winch. We spent a few minutes trying to get net operational, but finally we left it to Dan Bliss and his winch crank and we moved to another open permanent court to finish our game. 4-6-2, we were down, Terry’s serve from the right side. (I got it fixed in my memory, so we wouldn’t forget!)

There was a shot where I stretched over to the right and poached the ball but I didn’t put the ball away. Instead Karen hit it back for a winner. Terry, in his encouraging manner, said, “If you are going to poach, give it a hard hit.” As has been mentioned before on this blog, “If you are going to poach, make it a winner.”

The second game, Terry and I won 11-9. We had all given up on the other ball and switched to a different one after the first game. This was not one of the typical yellow Onix balls that the majority of club uses, but a somewhat translucent yellow-green ball. This one was much easier to control. At one point, David said, “Andrew likes those hard shots. He just blocks them at the net!”

David wanted a “rebound”—that is, a rematch. The third and final game of the day, Terry and I lost 11-7.

After the games, Terry said that I’d played well. Terry is such a nice guy, I’m not going to let that go to my head . . . which is not hard since most of the shots we lost were a result of my failure in some respect. Terry very easily could have made me feel really bad about my misses, but that’s not how he is. Also, David and Karen could have sent every ball my way instead of Terry. But they didn’t do that and seek an advantage. Instead, Terry definitely got his fair share of shots. I think Karen and David were seeking to make the games more challenging for them too!

Once a ball got dinked crosscourt to my hard left by Karen. I did exactly what I pointed out in the video in my last blog post as one of my flaws. That is, popping the ball up instead of crosscourt when I’m out of position. David slammed the ball and even Terry couldn’t handle that one. My fault. One of many items to improve.

Speaking of improving, I made a conscious effort to keep my paddle up at the net and in a backhand position in front of my chest in those last games. That’s a step forward.

By 12:20, we were done. There was still one game going, but I was out. Work to do at . . . well, work!

Number of days on a court: 68
Number of total hours: 193.5

Click here to start at the beginning of this blog: PickleballJourney 

Wednesday, September 6, 2017. (Court Day #67)

Thankfully, it was a cooler morning. Overcast and drizzly enough to have to flip on the windshield wipers on the way. I arrived to Brommer at 9:10. It was a light crowd and continued to be light attendance. It stayed misty pretty much all morning. Not enough to make the courts slippery but enough to make your clothes moist. The sun stayed hidden all morning.

So what did I think of today? It was a tale of two Andrews. Unlike typical days, I was better earlier on. I played two great games with Eric. That were loplised wins. We were “on fire” as Alan (English accent, one “L”) told Mike when the two of them took us on. Eric and I pulled out ahead but ended up losing 11-9.

My worst game of the day was when I partnered with John P. against Stuart and Allan. It wasn’t failed drop shots that got me. It was mostly my net game or otherwise popping the ball up. Sometimes, it was impatience. In the midst of a dink battle, I’d would go for a drive but it wasn’t a down hit, it was an across hit that could be hit back—I should have waited for the opportunity for a clear winner instead of forcing it.

The later morning was frustrating. I hit a few shots too deep. There were a few shots were I took too much off the ball and it didn’t even make it back to the net. I popped up way too many balls that lead to points for our opponents.

The morning felt long. When I asked Tom S. what time it was, he said, “11.” “11-what?” I was expecting something like “11:45.” For my answer, I got a kindly “11:02, if you need to know down to the minute!”

Things wrapped up at 12:00 sharp. There are up days and down days, today was a down day.

Since I can’t play tomorrow night (obligation) and therefore wash today “out of my mouth”, I decided to watch some videos. Joe Baker’s are always good ones to revisit. In this video, the problem mentioned at 6:55 is mine:

There is a lot of great advice in the above video.

Number of days on a court: 67
Number of total hours: 190.5

Monday, September 4, 2017. Labor Day. (Court Day #66)

I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:10 a.m. I was expecting things to be already hopping, but I was only the fifth person to show up.

My first game was Dean and me against Grita and Mark (Maree’s husband). We won. I made a few mistakes but they were far from chronic. I held my own—not as good as Dean, of course, but not a major liability. And I did have one serve that flew too deep, though we were using the the Dean-preferred harder, bouncier, slightly-greenish ball which responded differently. I’m not 100% sure I can blame the ball for that bad serve, but I’ll take whatever excuse I can get!

About two thirds through that first game, someone told Dean that the park worker wished to speak to him afterwards. Two net cables had been vandalized—cut. This is the second time someone has come out and cut the net cables on our new courts. Someone is not a fan of pickleball, apparently. Sad.

Later, there was an announcement that the club has a batch of club caps for $25 each. I’ll have to get one for myself!

Oleg and I got to play a game against Barb and Bev. (I learned today that Bev is Kevin’s wife. There are a lot of husband/wife couples in pickleball!) Oleg and I pulled out to 4-0 before our opponents started to make a game of it. But there wasn’t much doubt that Oleg and I had the better combination for this one. I made some mistakes, but overall, a pretty good performance.

It was warm. It was only about 70° but it felt far hotter. It was very muggy. A smattering of heavy raindrops fell mid-morning, but it didn’t open up—it just made polka dots on the courts. I was almost more comfortable in Pleasanton yesterday at 103°! It was also a touch humid there, but nothing like this. This felt a lot like Hawaii. Or as Terry (not Long) claimed, “Like New Zealand.”

I got to play a game with Oleg against Terry Long and Jeanne later. Terry is always great to play on a court with. He makes for a challenge and is such a nice guy! There was one return he did where he had so much spin on it that it dropped dead—it hit halfway back in my court and didn’t go further. Point.

As what turned out to be my last game ended, it started to pour in earnest about 11:40. There was no formal announcement. As people started to slip and others started to get drenched, the courts cleared and the temporary nets started coming down.

Beth Black suggested we could get back together after the rain broke. Maybe having lunch between. She gave me her mobile number, as did Oleg, with hopes of more pickleball later. People milled around for a few more minute then went various directions.

Stuart said, “We’re going to have lunch at Mayflower Chinese in the Brown Ranch, if you want to come.” I opted to go and “we” turned out to be Stuart and Chuck—which was fine, though I was expecting more people. There was a little pickleball talk, but mostly Stuart and Chuck talked about random things . . . both went to college together back in the 1960s.

I texted Beth after lunch the  Stuart and I each drove back to Brommer. Unfortunately, there was no one on the courts—aside from a tattooed beefy man in a tank top stretching next to a soccer ball for what seemed to be a long time. Stuart shared that they recently caught a guy kicking a soccer ball into the nets—not healthy for the nets—so he kept an eye on this guy, but the man left. Maybe he knew he was being watched.

Beth got back to me and said they found the courts still wet and had moved on with their day. I texted Oleg to see if they were interested, but by the time his reply came half an hour later, Stuart and I were long gone from the courts and on to other things. Oh, well. No more pickleball today. The rain was a big disappointment considering it was Labor Day and most people had few obligations to leave the courts once there. Alas. At least we got in two and a half hours before the showers hit. It sure felt like a lot shorter time. It was weird. I first thought it was 90 minutes of playing, but doing the math, it was an hour longer than that.

Take-Aways

I played well today. Not perfect, but solid. My worst game was John P. and Jeanne against his wife Diane and me. It was a bit sloppy. I guess I wasn’t as focused.

There were a few dinks today where I didn’t get enough lift on the ball and it ended up in the net. Oleg said was dropping my paddle and not hitting the ball out in front of me. After a lost point in the Dean game where the ball hit me, he instructed, “That’s a sign that you need to have your paddle up high and prepared.” I have to figure this out. Jerry and Stuart have commented on this—having the paddle up and ready, poised in a backhand position. I tend to keep my paddle pointed straight out balanced between forehand and backhand. Stuart has said, “80% of your shots at the kitchen line will be backhands.” But it doesn’t feel comfortable for me, nor natural. But I’ll likely have to force myself to do it.

At the risk of sounding conceited, there were some great shots that I’m surprised that I made. “How the hell did I do that?” Like Luke in Star Wars with that floating laser ball and his face covered so he can’t see. Yet he performs anyway. Strange pickleball Jedi things are happening with my paddle that I don’t understand. Like a powered smash near my legs where I crouch down off the the right and drop the ball back over the net into their kitchen where they can only dink it. It’s all reaction. I don’t have time to think up something like that. It just happens. But then I still do lame stuff. Like returning a not-too-difficult serve into the net. Or popping up a winner to my opponents at the net by hitting it too high. Or lobbing a ball that sails left or right out of the court. But the ratio was better today.

There are good days and bad days. This was a good day.

In the afternoon, Dave Allenbaugh sent out message about the new caps, but also included a video of the Brommer courts:

Interesting to see from a bird’s eye view. It must have been a quieter time, there’s one court not in use. In my experience, there are bunch of people waiting to play.

Number of days on a court: 66
Number of total hours: 187.5