Category: Pickleball (Page 324 of 327)

Wednesday, April 5, 2017 (Court Day #12)

i arrived at Derby Park at 9:10 to find one game already in full swing, my friend John was amongst them.

Today was better than Sunday, I made fewer errors. My number one error is simply hitting the ball into the net when I mean to drop it over, typically when I’m moving up to the kitchen.

During one game, I was partnered with Tom S., a pleasant fellow. Tom is a tall thin man with a trim white beard. He’s a regular. Tom stopped me between points and told me to make sure to keep a player that is back at her baseline back by hitting deep. Of course, he’s right. It’s just implementing what I already have learned into an actual game.

Tom advising me to not hit short to a player who is back. Yeah. Oops.

Eric and I played two games against Allen and Lauren. We lost both by roughly a 2:1 score ratio. We were just making too many mistakes by either setting up easy shots for them or failing to get our shots over the net or within the bountries of their court. That’s not to say they aren’t solid players, they are. Not 5.0 players, but probably one notch above Eric and myself—not as many unforced errors.

I lost a few points over the morning by lobbing too short (smashed back) or too long (out). And you wonder why the pros only lob about 1% of the time.

Serving Hard

While Eric and I were waiting for our opponents, I figured I’d try a hard serve. I hit a serve as hard as I could with topspin. To my surprise, it landed in . . . right on the line in the corner! Not one I’d trust in a game quite yet! Though it still didn’t seem as fast as I’d like, it was promising.

Paddle

I checked the tracking on my paddle and USPS says it’s expected Friday. I had been hoping today, but as far as using it on a court, it makes no difference if it came later today or then. And I’ll still need to install the overgrip anyway.

SCPC Shirts

The Santa Cruz Pickleball Club came up with a new white club T-shirt with a big graphic on the back to go along with the small breastpocket logo. Karen Long kindly arranged the sales. I bought a medium one for $25. I was expecting a standard cotton shirt, but these are fancy wicking synthetics. Now if I can just get good enough to wear it and not dishonor it!

Dave Allenbaugh modeling the new SCPC shirt

Videos

I recorded another few games today. The one I wish I would have recorded was Dan and myself against Dave (former neighbor) and a 30-something tall guy named Mark with short blond hair. Some of the regulars knew Mark though I’d never seen him. I overheard Mark say he’d been in Costa Rica. Mark is a hard hitter. So was this guy Dan. Dan is about my height but stocky, sporting dark hair and a trim beard sprinkled with gray. I’m still trying to figure out how Dan was getting so much speed on his serves. Dan and I won, but that was more Dan than me. I managed to avoid losing too many points. Dan saved me a few times by successfully returning slams that I’d inadvertently set up. But it was nice to not be the reason had we lost. That felt like the most serious game I’d been in with the ball whipping back and forth. There was at least one point where I could take credit since I was volleying at the net and was able to put away the point between Dave and Mark. The match was like jumping onto one of those spinning top-like playground structures—most have removed these days as unsafe!—and hanging on for dear life! You are glad you survived afterward!

The Long Dink

One thing that I’m getting pretty good at is cross court dinking. In the video still above, you can see Dave trying to return my cross court dink. I’ve managed a few of those recently. Hmmm. Looks like Eric and I both should have shifted to the right. If Dave had gotten that he could have popped it down the line or around the post. He did manage to hit it, but not get it back onto our side of the court. Dave and John did come back in this game and win however.

The day wrapped up at noon. Allen seems to have a tighter schedule than Dave A. Dave often hangs out while players continue to play past the official noon ending time; Allen, not so much. I headed home and then off to work to muse about my next pickleball day with rain in the forecast this week.

Number of days on a court: 12
Number of hours: 34

The Perfect Game

So, I’ve been watching these videos of matches analyzing what I’m doing wrong and what I’m doing right.

I came to the conclusion that there are sometimes shots made by an opponent that are just really, really good shots and there is nothing you can do.

There was one that I thought was one of those, but after watching it a few times, it may have been preventable. In motion up from the baseline at midcourt, I drop the ball cross court from my right to left. It’s a decent shot. Low and fairly shallow. But it’s still high enough to volley. My opponent (in this case Marie) dinks back cross court and it’s perfect, right on the edge line. I just cannot reach it to hit it back. Once she hit that, the only way I could have returned it was to have a six or seven foot arm and I don’t have one. (Not that I’d really want one, it’d be hard to find shirts!) I might have been able to prevent her volley by doing a better drop shot on the run.

About to bounce right on the line. Nice shot, Marie!

But I keep working backward on that point. Back to the serve. My serve from the right service court. I served it shallow, which brought her up to the kitchen. A short serve is not necessarily bad, it’s good to mix up your serves. But generally, you want to hit it deep to keep your opponent at the baseline. This time, I didn’t catch her napping and she returned it down the middle into my court right by my left forcing a backhand by me. (It was a safe shot, about 4-5 feet short of my baseline.) Now, this is where I made a mistake. I should have done one of two shots: a drop shallow into the kitchen or a lob over her head. (Lobs are rare by the pros, by the way, since they have great drop shots.) Instead my drop shot wasn’t shallow enough. She volleyed it back short to my forehand. I had to take it on the move, I didn’t have time to set up then hit. That’s where the above paragraph takes over. My decent shot. And I moved into the right place at that point, on the kitchen line, guarding the middle. But being that she could take it in the air, she had the angle and put the point away.

Maybe there is a perfect game out there where you do everything right but still lose points. And it seems that should be winner shots that are simply unpreventable even if you do everything right. There was another lost point in one of my videoed matches where I figured it was just one of those perfect shots that I had to just notch up to my opponent’s skill or luck. But now I wonder if that one is also traceable back to an error or lack of precision/skill on my part.

All I can do is continue to analyze and get the hours in. Maybe I’ve mentioned this already, but in sailing, they talk about “time on the water”, that is, to get better, you just need to be out sailing—maybe it’s races, maybe it’s drills, but it’s time on the water.

For me, it’s still just a lot of time on the court that needs to be put in.

(Funny thing is, after watching it over and over, it looks like her shot on the line was actually out. Not by much, but out. And I told her I thought it was in. Ah, well!)

Number of day on a court: 11 (still)
Number of hours: 31 (still)

Sunday, April 2, 2017 (Court Day #11)

Panorama of Derby Park

My wife had an unrelated but apropos phrase that happened to apply to my games today: “You have to fail to learn.”

It’d be easy to blame it on my borrowed paddle that has dings in the face and a grip that is too small—except that I’ve been using it for two months and have played better while use it.

It’d be easy to blame my sore right shoulder, sore from hurling the softball yesterday for about half an hour with my college-aged son—except I didn’t even notice the soreness until the last 30-45 minutes and even then it was passing.

This simply has to fall on what’s between the ears.

Arrival

I got to the courts about 9:15 under cloudy skies that would later give way to sunburn. I was a bit late since I was copying game video files over for John. If I had another data stick around, I would have made some copies for Eric too, but as it was, he gave me one when I got to Derby. Anyway, being that I left at 12:20, I still got a solid 3 hours in. Even with the largest crowd I’ve ever seen there—Dave, the SCPC head, loudly announced, “We’re playing games to 9, not 11. We have a lot of people waiting.”—waits weren’t too bad between games.

I played a game with John where I hit a serve low and short and the receiver ran up and returned it into the net. John—cracks me up—said, “Oh, that was sneaky, Andrew. Nice mixing them up. Did you do that on purpose?” “Yep!” There were a few failed returns like that today off of my serves. That’s a plus, right?

My serve dropping just past the kitchen line. (Just right of that white line.) Yes, it was intentional!

But it was just one of those days with more bad than good. I had my moments, but there were too many bad ones that stick in my mind. I’m a perfectionist. I can’t help it.

Hey, Nice…

Later in the morning, it was nice that Bruce and I were able to squeak a game past Ray and his wife Robin, both solid players. I was pretty pleased with myself and Bruce.

…But Back to Reality

But the next game, a tall nice fellow named Jeff along with young Tom L. took Bruce and me apart. Tom is roughly as skilled as I am. Then the following game pitted Jeff and Ileana against Tom and me, figuring it’d be more fair since Ileana was the weakest player of the four. But Jeff is a force of nature. He and Ileana still clobbered us with a final score something like 11-3. Jeff has an excellent command of intense spins and reliable ball placement. He shared that he had a lot of experience with a variety of racket sports . . . as they used say back in the day, “No doy!” (Which translates, “no duh” or “no surprise there”!) Jeff is at least a 4.0 player and maybe a 4.5 player. Heck, maybe even a 5.0.

Frustration and Hours

I have to admit that I’m a bit depressed and frustrated with what felt like a relapse today. But I have to remember that I have a grand total of 10 days and almost exactly 28 hours of playing so far over two months coming into today. What is it that they say? 10,000 hours to truly master something? I have a lot of hours to go.

*sigh*

Shopping

My wife Kristen and I dropped off our son Nicholas at the San Jose Airport to head back to UCLA for the spring quarter. Kristen wanted to stop by Sports Basement to pick up a knee brace. John has her and his wife Diane and myself on the docket for an evening game using  his own portable net and Kristen doesn’t want to run the risk of the pivoting and strain on her knees to affect her running. She found a brace while I checked out their pickleball selection. The clerk apologized in advance as she walked me over. They only had starter paddles and sets. You know, those heavy wood paddles. But I did pick up a new pair of running shoes for the court and—at the prompting of my wife—a pair of socks to at least sometimes replace my standard white “ugly socks”. Maybe I’ll be fashionable!

Number of day on a court: 11
Number of hours: 31