Category: Pickleball (Page 309 of 327)

Friday, July 28, 2017 (Court Day #51)

I arrived at Brommer Park a few minutes after 9. The courts were already busy.

John P.’s wife Diane was there! I opted to play with her against her husband and Mike. We lost but we didn’t get completely crushed. Diane has tennis experience and that showed, plus she’s played a few times before, I believe. She’s still figuring out when to be up and when to be back, but has good hand/eye coordination.

I sat down next to Rich and asked how his shoulder was doing. I could tell from his delay in responding that it wasn’t improving. I answered for him, “Same-o, same-o.” I believe I overheard last time that he was going to have to have surgery. “From the back, I thought you were Kevin earlier,” he said. “You made some nice shots.” Kevin and are about the same height and have similar brown hair color. He’s probably got about 10 years on me and I have about 20 pounds of flab on him! What’s funny is while playing one game, a ball rolled into our court and even Dave Allenbaugh yelled, “Hey, Kevin, ball . . . oh, Andrew!” Anyway, to have my play mixed up with Kevin’s by Rich is very high praise. Kevin is a better player than I am.

I gave Terry Long the datastick that I’d prepared for his wife Karen. While she suggested that they’d both watch it together, Terry smiled and volunteered that it’d be a good idea if he didn’t—being married and all!

Dave A. and I played against Gary and Bev. We got to 10-3 but just couldn’t put them away. They got back to 10-7 and finally finished off the game, but it went back and forth.

At about 10:45, a woman signed up as an “Intermediate” (the lowest available) and it was her second time out. No one was signing up with her, so I did. (Hey, I was a newbie not too long ago.) Another woman, also only played twice added her name. Jerry Louis was willing to be the fourth and we were onto a court. Jerry and I definitely took it very easy on the two of them—he on one side of the net and me on the other. One woman (with a tennis background) was definitely strong than the other but both were obviously very green. But they had a good time.

The last game was a young guy (30?) named Clay from Los Gatos. Clay’s about 6′ or 6’1″. We took on Barb and Judy. For this particular game, we won handily, 11-2. We both played really well. Clay is a quiet and humble guy. Had I known he was as strong a player as he was, I wouldn’t have suggested, “Guys against girls!”

At about 11:15, I was off. Duty calls.

Number of days on a court: 51
Number of total hours: 146.5

Thursday, July 27, 2017 (Court Day #50)

Last night, I had emailed Karen Long a photo of her ATP shot and thanked her for playing with me/us. She said it’s relaxing to play a game where you don’t have to meet certain expectations and not count unforced errors—I’m sure not literally count, but you know. There’s less pressure playing against weaker players. Another email followed shorting asking if I would share the videos that I took of those two games. Of course. There’s now a datastick in my backpack for her!

Scotts Valley

I arrived at Skypark at about 10 minutes to 7. Things were hopping. I took a seat on the bench and waited about five minutes for a game to open up. Neighbor Dave was there as was Allan, Eric, Ted, Mark (Maree’s husband), and a few Scotts Valley regulars such as Mark Dettle, Larry, Kristin (tall, pleasant) and a few others. 25 people, give or take. Cheryl (site organizer) wasn’t there which was too bad, she’s another one of those fun people to play with.

Dave and I played a game against Eric and Ted. I’m glad that one was not on video. My first few games are generally not that great—hopefully, someday, I’ll be able to walk onto a court and play solidly.

I played a few games with and against a woman with short hair named Debbie (whose daughter just graduated from UCLA she said)—I was wearing a UCLA T-shirt. UCLA is where my son Nicholas is studying Applied Mathematics.

It seems that it takes me a while to warm up to the point of playing decently. About an hour or four games. I had some miserable shots. Out of the two hours of constant games, I think I missed two serves—one a few inches right of the sideline (going for the backhand) and one that was a few inches long. I had a few returns sail too deep—overdoing the Jerry method of returns.

I had some good shots, but overall, it was not an evening where I was happy with my play.

A consistent issue is popping up winners for the other side. Gotta. Keep. It. Low!

Things wrapped up just about 9 p.m. I stopped by work on the way home since the alarm had gone off. An officer was onsite but nothing seemed amiss, so I thanked the officer and we both headed on our ways. Home for dinner!

Number of days on a court: 50
Number of total hours: 144.5

Wednesday, July 25, 2017 (Court Day #49)

“One thing that all racquet sports have in common, however, is the fact that they all require a constant high level of mental awareness and strategic thinking during play. The best players are the ones who know ahead of time where they want to place their shots, and who have targets for every situation.”

The above is from a November 2016 article from GammaSports.com. How true this is. I’ve talked about this numerous times. Pick a target. Every shot. I believe some of my problems with drop shots come from me not picking a target. Yes, over the net. But if I pick a target on the opposite side of the net, then my brain calculates where how the ball needs to be hit to get it there. No target other than “over the net” sometimes ends up in the net!

Derby

I arrived at Derby Park about 10 minutes after 9 a.m. It was ever so slightly drizzly, but it would burn off as the morning progressed. Games were already going and a dozen people where there. A man named Rob and his son R.J. (Rob Jr.—about 11-years-old, I’d guess) came to the courts with their own net. They stayed about 30-45 minutes then packed up and left. I’d never seen them before. I think the man said they’d been to Willowbrook. They seemed pleasant enough, they just did their own thing at the end of the courts and didn’t interact except then their ball (or ours) would cross spaces.

Gauge Your Play

At about noon, after only one net was left up and in use, I was about to leave when Karen Long—who was sitting by the gate—stopped me. “I hear you are getting better.” I said, something probably along the lines of “a little bit.” “Would you like to play a game?” Now, Karen and her husband Terry are both tournament players. Karen is rated as a 4.5 doubles player and a 4.0 singles player. Pass up a chance to play with a very strong player who is also nice and encouraging? No way. Uh, oh. Drat. “There are no unused nets up.” “Well, let’s up one up!” Which we did. Eric was convinced—fairly easily—to stay and play a game. Karen got Stuart up and out of his chair to join as well. Stuart and I took on Karen and Eric. After that it was Karen and John P. against Stuart and me.

Stuart hit a cross-court dink at a sharp angle to the right off the court and I relaxed. Unreturnable. Yeah, except Karen is a 4.5 rated player. She deftly hit it around the post and back behind me onto my side of the net. Winner for Karen! I think that was the first successful ATP shot I’d seen live.

Karen with her amazing backhand around the post shot!

Playing with Stuart was helpful. I do have a  habit of dropping balls over the net while my opponents are back—often they are still returnable, which invites them up to the kitchen which is what you never want. Stuart was good about reminding me about that.

Play wrapped up soon after 12:30 and I was home by a quarter to 1 p.m.

Shoe Adventure Continues!

So much for my idea of strong double-sided fabric tape. I was afraid this might happen. Between heat, pressure, and moisture, the insoles slipped anyway! I just have to shake my head. I’m going to have to move to some kind of glue to keep them in place.

Video Review

Boy. Looking back at the video of the games playing alongside Stuart, I have lots work to do keeping the ball down and avoiding offering easy slams. That, and as Stuart was suggesting, keep the opponents at the baseline . . . I always think I can drop one over for a winner, but it doesn’t work with quick players!

Number of days on a court: 49
Number of total hours: 142.5