Category: Pickleball (Page 307 of 327)

Saturday, August 12, 2017

In my email inbox came a suggestion from YouTube: Disguise Your Attack.

This is another level of play. Beyond just getting the ball where you want it to go, and not just surprise but intentionally misleading your opponent as to where the ball is to be going. There isn’t all that much of this going in the games I’ve played.

Sunday, August 13, 2017 (Court Day #57)

I am so disappointed. I found out that two of my posts from last week disappeared. I have no idea where they went. It’s like painting a painting then having it stolen. WordPress, what have you done? I hope it doesn’t happen again. I’m tempted to jettison WordPress and go to something else but, I’ll stick with it for now.

Sunglasses

I went to grab my hat and sunglasses and noticed that the frames to my sunglasses were snapped. Bugger. Such a drag. They were nice since they stayed on my head well. I’m not sure how they got broken, but I am currently sharing my house with my wife and two other people for the summer—our kids. I think those sunglasses are discontinued too, so I can’t get more. My wife is my fashion designer. I’ll have to drag her back out again so she can pick out sunglasses that she won’t give me a hard time about . . . not that I’m going to pick out anything other than black simple sunglasses, but she always wants to make sure they are the right proportion for my face and all that. This is where my 1/4 German heritage comes out—I’m not too worried about such things as long as they are functional!

Derby

I arrived at Derby Park at 9:15. One game was underway. I warmed up with a man named Tom. Yes, another Tom. Not visor Tom and not Tom S. And a woman named Gail, whom I’d never met before.

About 10 a.m., a fellow named Rolando. He said he came from racquetball. Dave Allenbaugh spent some time showing him the ropes. A short time after, Eric and Rolando took on Ted and myself. Rolando did all right. A newbie, but promising.

Oleg and I played a game against Terri and Katie. I’d seen Katie once before. She arrived about the same time as Jeff—I went to doube-check the name but the posts that listed him were WordPress bug casualties—who I played with recently. As you might expect, Oleg and I won.

The last game was Grita and me against Oleg and Eric. They charged out to a commanding lead, but after I stopped making so many mistakes, Grita and I came back and won by two points.

A first today. I was hit three times by a ball. Eric hit me in the left wrist in one game and later, Eric hit me in the right thigh followed by Oleg hitting me in the right thigh about five minutes later! I guess I need even quicker reflexes!

Lunch and Touraments

Things wrapped up about 12:30 and Eric asked if I had time for a taco, so we headed to Mexican food. I told Eric about my continuing hopes to play in a tournament. He said he’d like to make a better showing against the “Brommer crowd” before he enters a tournament. I told him that a lot of those people are higher graded players, like someone had told me that Leslie is a 5.0 player. Karen Long is a 4.5 player and her husband Terry is 4.0. The shorter fellow—later I looked up the blog post and found his name is tom—said he’s  a 4.0. I said that Terry Long told Grita that he’d probably rate her as a 4.0 player. I told him that I believed that at this point, we’d be competitive in the 3.0 matches. He was still hesitant but said he’d be willing to start by visiting a tournament as a spectator. That’s a start.

Monday, August 14, 2017 (Off Day)

I just spent a bunch of time this evening rewriting a couple of entries—then copying, republishing, and deleting the chronologically later posts to keep the blog in the proper order. If you are reading these things in order from the beginning you’ll see that I had to rewrite posts from last week. To top things off, that republishing changes the date stamps on the blog entries so they are a number of days off from when they were truly first published. A little thing, but annoys me.

On my iPhone, in the WordPress app I found two old drafts—what are called “local versions”, that is, not uploaded to any server—of two already-published blog posts. Not wanting to overwrite the published versions already up on the blog with these old versions, I trashed these local files on my phone. Then deleted them from the trash for good measure. I didn’t want those things coming back.

To my horror, I went to my blog and discovered two posts were missing. It didn’t take long to put two and two together and figure out that when I deleted the obsolete locally saved versions, the WordPress app mistakenly deleted the published versions too! So idiotic of the program! That’s one serious bug! I have to be super careful now. I may not use the app now and just use the browser on my phone instead. I don’t want that happening again! Unbelievable.

But as my wife says, it’s just a pickleball blog. Right? It’s just hitting a plastic ball around with a paddle.

Which is what I did tonight in my garage. 10 minutes of practice. I spent a few minutes of it switching hands so I can hit extreme backhand dinks with my left hand instead. I didn’t do too badly with it. There’s hope for a functional shot with that someday.

Number of days on a court: 57
Number of total hours: 163

Thursday, August 10, 2017 (Court Day #56)

I arrived at Skypark in Scotts Valley at 6:45 p.m. I wasn’t able to leave work right at closing, we had a late customer needing my attention.

The courts were busy and I was the odd man out. Sitting on the bench by myself. Again. It seems that happens regularly in Scotts Valley for me! “Andrew!” It was Allan. “Come over here!” He was at the far end, a smile on his face. “Pickleball is not a spectator sport!” It was just us, but we had the opportunity to warm up with some dinking. I was grateful. After just a few minutes, a game broke up and the two of us were invited in and played. We won.

Maree and Mark were back. She said they’d been busy. I got to play in a game with Mark. You can’t get lazy with Mark, he’ll take advantage of opportunities. I don’t know how long he’s been playing, but he seems to be playing better the last couple months.

An amusing moment happened in one of the games when I hit a service return before it bounced—fault! That is an extremely rare occurrence. If I’ve ever even done that before, it was only once. I must have been daydreaming. A sign I that needed a more challenging game!

A humorous exchange happened when I was playing against Kris, the tall down-to-earth mellow former tennis player. She had a carry on one hit. The ball stayed on her paddle and was swung around in an unexpected direction. “That was more of a fling than a hit!”, she exclaimed. “I’ve had flings too!” I announced, until I realized what that sounded like! “Well, not FLINGS! You know what I mean!” (I’m a good, faithful husband!)

Olga and her husband Oleg arrived very late, it might have even been 8:45, after most people had already left. Janet and I played against them. Before we started, Janet told Oleg, “You are the best player on this court . . . no offense, Andrew!” I knew Oleg was a strong player, I played against him twice recently. I wasn’t entirely convinced he was better, but Janet usually knows what she’s talking about. Um, yeah. He’s better. He was a good balance for his wife Olga who is learning. I think Janet and I lost 11-7 or thereabouts. Oleg won at least three points driving a passing shot down the sideline outside of Janet’s forehand. Precision! Good spin, fantastic placement, quick reflexes, exceptional court perception regarding a ball heading in or out of the court.

We were about to play a rematch but Bruce wanted to head home so Janet was replaced by Mark Dettle. This time, we won. Olga returned at least 3-4 balls that were heading out—at least two of those were my errant shots. Oleg would yell, “No!” but it wouldn’t be quite in time for her to refrain from hitting it. Nonetheless, Olga is coming along. She returns balls that I’d expect a less experienced player to not return. And she can hit low, fast forehands.

After play wrapped up at 9:15, I quizzed Oleg a bit about his play. “I was an open tennis player and played racquetball too.” OPEN TENNIS PLAYER! Ahhhh! That’s why! No wonder!!

“Oleg, didn’t you say that recent game we played with Stuart was only your third time playing?”

“Yes, I believe it was.”

“That was a good game.”

“It was insane!”

I’m glad it wasn’t just me who thought that was a challenging game. I remember Janet—spectating-—commenting afterward how that game was inspiring to her.

Lesson for the Day

So, in my second or third game of the evening, my partner (to my right), stretched out with his backhand and took the shot and hit the ball into the net. I had an easy forehand shot. I didn’t say anything.

Later, I was playing with Jeanne (Eric’s friend) as my partner. She’s coming along, by the way. I was playing to her right. I stretched out with my backhand and took the shot and hit the ball in some crazy unhelpful direction. She had an easy forehand shot. I had just done the exact thing that I had been mentally scolding my earlier partner for! Colleen, enjoying the game from the bench, even advised, “Andrew, you just took your partner’s shot.” “Yes, I know,” I admitted sheepishly. I turned to Jeanne and apologized. (I didn’t get to play with Colleen, which is always fun, she’s great at getting the ball back over the net.) The key is trusting your partner to get shots in the middle that are their forehand. It relates to a comment by Joyce a month or two ago: “If you are going to poach, make it a winner.” Not that these were poaches, but still instances of being the partner’s shot.

Shoes

While I’ve been fooled before, but I’m hopeful that the epoxy will continue to hold the insoles. So far, so good. 100% solid tonight.

Health

Lately, I’ve been doing pretty well as far as aches and pains. My pinky is still not healed, but maybe  another week and it’ll be back to normal. I could feel my right glute at one point, but not all night. In the earlier half of the evening, after a smash, the muscle along the top of my forearm felt weird, like a slight pull. It’s still a little tender. And my right hip is a touch sore. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow, especially since we have a softball game at 9 p.m.!

Number of days on a court: 56
Number of total hours: 162

Wednesday, August 9, 2017 (Court Day #55)

I arrived at 9:15 a.m. today at Derby Park. There were about 8 people already there, one game was already just finishing, as a matter of fact.

Two firsts. One, I was playing against a team of both lefthanders. To top it off, another first, I was the only right-handed player on the court! I had Tim as my partner and we were playing against Margaret (visiting from Tuscan, AZ) and Melody.

Jerry Louis and I played a game against Kent and Margaret. Kent is a strong player and Margaret is above average. Jerry gets balls that I’d expect a player to miss. Jerry and I edged out Kent and Margaret. It was a close game.

Guys against Girls

I played a game with Wayne as my partner against Margaret and Janet. Janet is so much better than she used to be. She used to be cannon fodder. Not any more. Now she’ll return shots that will surprise me. Wayne has the worse backhand I know of. He has a very strong forehand which keeps him from being a big liability as a partner. (As if I’m some great player myself!) I remember Janet serving out of bounds once. But she was doing exactly what she should have been attempting, that is, serving to Wayne’s backhand—she just happened to miss. I think Wayne and I won, after a bit of a comeback, but if we didn’t it was by 2 points. I can’t remember for certain, but regardless, it was a upbeat and very enjoyable game to be in.

Oh, I almost forgot. Janet had a hit that was above and right at the post. She hit it and I let it go past me . . . except it angled enough in to catch the corner about 6 inches diagonally in. Great shot. “Make sure to tell my husband about that one!” She was rightfully very pleased with herself.

The Young’uns

Partway through the morning a taller man with light blond hair named Mark appeared with his two teenaged kids, Cole—who said he was 13—and his older sister, Zoe. I never heard an age, but I’d guess Zoe is about 15. I played a game against Janet and Cole with Zoe as my partner. With the exception of two shots, I played the entire game lefthanded! (I guess that’s a first too!) Zoe and Cole don’t hit very hard. We switched it up and I played with Cole against Janet with Zoe. It was relaxing. I can see where Karen is coming from when she plays with us versus all the advanced players. I did gentle shots against the teenagers and only hit harder against Janet. I was trying to take it so easy on Zoe while serving (right-handed) that I lob-served two out of bounds!

Oh, funny story. When playing against Cole, I hit a nice winner. Cole said, “Maybe you should switch back to your left hand!”
“That was my left hand! Maybe I could hold a paddle with my foot!”
Janet suggested, “Maybe you can hold the paddle in your mouth!” (Knowing Janet, I took that as a silly hypothetical and not as a “shut up”—but funny either way!)

Cole and Zoe were both very nice and open to suggestions. Good kids.

Banger-fest

The last game of the day I played with a tall linebacker-esque guy named Chuck. I’d seen him before, but he isn’t a regular attendee. We played against Dave Allenbaugh and Greg. While there was dinking going on some in this game, it was more of a banger-fest. On one point, Greg and I were smacking it back and forth hard at each other at the net until I hit it to the left past Dave’s feet. Chuck and I took the lead 6-1. Then 8-3. But then Dave and Greg went on a run and ended up winning 11-8. What a collapse! I hit two service returns long, hit some shots too high (feeding the opponents), hit one or two into the net. Chuck made mistakes too, though it felt like the balance tipped toward me as the culprit. Still, it was a challenging and fun game.

I told Greg “thank you” after we’d all left the court. He replied, “Andrew, you are playing so good.” “Thanks.” Of course, I hadn’t played against Greg for at least 4 months. I’ve come a long way since then. But I have a long way to go yet. I still make way too many mistakes and need to utilize drops more. In the game with Dave and Greg, I drove one right at Dave at the net. He slammed it back for a winner low and to my right. I should of dropped that shot—but I didn’t.

Out at high noon.

Shoes

Ugh. The insoles shifted even more today. We’re almost back to square one with the failure of the rubber cement. Next step—no pun intended!—epoxy!!!

Hours

I’m rounding down 15 minutes on my time, I don’t want to get into keeping track of quarter-hours!

Number of days on a court: 55
Number of total hours: 159.5