Category: Pickleball (Page 326 of 327)

Sunday, March 26, 2017 (Court Day #8)

I got a text last night from my friend John: “Derby Sunday?”
Me: “Recovering still from a pulled butt muscle, but you bet! 9AM!”
John: “You wild man!”

Oh, the indignities. Right glute. But injuries are expected.

I arrived at Derby Park about 9:05 a.m. after a forced 10-day layoff to cloudy skies and cool temperatures in the 50s and a one court already in play with two additional guys getting ready. One of which was John, bright and early. (No sailing events today.) Janet, a teacher who is the wife of Bruce—the fellow I know through work—arrived shortly after and we started the day warming up against each other.

As far as a day at Derby, it was pretty routine. I rotated through various games. I played a game with John. For a guy a little closer to 60 than 50, he moves very fast! After our game, me moved on to play with Dave (my former neighbor) since the two of them would be playing as partners at the Senior Games in about six weeks and need to get time playing together. Bruce (wife of teacher Janet) and I played against John and Dave. Bruce and I initially led the game, but John and Dave came back and beat us by a comfortable margin.

I went into the day with a mental directive of picking a target for every shot. I failed. I did it more than I do normally, but some volleys were so quick, I didn’t pick a target.

Later in the day, I played with and against a player I’d never met, Alan, who sports what resembles an English accent. He is a better player than I am. Low and fast serves, low drives over the net,  solid dinking, good shot selection, driving shots off the court to the left and the right. It’s good to play with those who are better than you, it’s how you improve. It shows me how much more I need to learn. Playing with Alan, we beat the other team 11-0.

On one court, Alan, a woman named Robin, and a woman named Paule (“Paul”) and I swapped players. I had Paule as a partner once, Robin once. Paule is a solid player, though I didn’t see her crack a smile in either game. But congenial, just serious. Me? I smile all the time. I love playing pickleball! With Robin as my partner—admittedly, she was tired—we lost 11-4. That’s not to say it was her fault we lost. I was probably 60% my fault, and 40% hers.

There were at least half a dozen or more shots during the day that ended up in the net. Mostly bad dinks. That’s my weakest area not enough pop on some dinks and some drop shots. There were also a few long return of serves and a couple slams that also went long. I also let myself get out of doubles position once, failing to track properly. (Sometimes, there are just great shots by your opponent. There isn’t much you can do about those. They will happen.)

I brought our old GoPro camera today with the idea of videoing some of my games for analysis. What should have done is keep it in my pocket ready to hang on the fence. As it was, I had it in my backpack and with passing through other courts (an interruption) it would have been inconsiderate to hold up the waiting players while I stopped and retrieved the camera. Maybe next time.

The session wrapped up at about 12:20. Of the two last games, mine wrapped up first. In the last game I started applying topspin to my serves and trying to hit them a bit harder. I got them all in. Oh, I did miss on serve on the day. Overcompensating for the wind, about a foot out from the centerline. Oops. But at least it was only one.

Dave Allenbaugh, the apparent head of the SCPC, greeted me by name today. He also told me, “Andrew, you aren’t a newbie anymore.” That was in reference to my email to him two days ago signed “Andrew (the newbie)”. I guess that after almost two months, I’ve been promoted!

I asked Dave who was the person who brought pickleball to Santa Cruz. He said it was Jerry Louis (not the actor/comedian Jerry Lewis) who set up a court down at the Louden Nelson Community Center and it grew in popularity from there.

So, take aways from today. Continue to develop topspin serve. Continue work on—as John says—”pushing” the dinks over the net. Work on keeping slams in the court 100% of the time. Keeping the ball low instead of allowing easy smashes for the other team.

Wish list. A side spin serve. Spin shots, including backspin like I did back in tennis. 100% reliable shot placement.

John suggested that we get our wives together for a pickleball night. He has enough paddles (I’m still using one of his) and a net. His wife Diane played at least once. My wife Kristen used to play tennis but gave it up because of her knees didn’t like the pivots and turns. Pickleball may be a similar problem, but she said she’d be willing to try it once.

Next pickleball day will be Wednesday morning. I hope I can go.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Practicing in the Garage

I had been a while since I got into my garage and practiced pickleball. Given that I couldn’t play Sunday morning, I pulled our car out and practiced Sunday night. One thing that was markedly improved was my ability to control the ball when dinking. I was able to keep a “dink rally” going against the plywood panel long enough for me to start to get bored. Granted, it was probably only about 20-25 hits, but still, considering 5-10 was a typical rally before, this was a big improvement.

Online Discussions

I asked Mark Renneson—I figured he’d be in the know—about online discussion forums for pickleball since I had no luck finding any. He told me about a group on Facebook called imaginatively enough . . . Pickleball Forum!
Here’s the link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1340630926008388/
I spent 45 minutes of my bedtime last night watching a “Facebook Live” recording of top player Scott Moore that ended a couple hours before I tuned in to watch it. It was interesting.

USAPBA Rules Test

One of the posts in the FB group mentioned the USAPA online rules test. It’s free to take and I’ll have to take it. One fellow—who I can only assume is a well-versed one—said after a number of attempts, his best score was still missing 12% and he’s the “go to” guy for rules when plays. Of course, I’m thinking, “How many rules can there be? You are hitting a plastic ball over a net with a paddle.” I’ll just have to take it and see what they are talking about.
http://www.usapa.org/rules-tests/

Real Player Ratings

Taking advantage of this discussion group, I asked a question about the published criteria versus the reality found at tournaments.The general consensus was that tournaments are far harder than what self-ratings based on the criteria might suggest. A 5.0 player by-the-book might be either a 4.5 or even a 4.0 player at a tournament. Some posted a link to pickleballtournaments.com where you can look up the player’s tournament history. I was able to learn that local player Terry Long partnered at venue with another local player, Jerry Louis. Terry also played doubles against Scott Moore at one point—Terry lost, but that would have been a major upset had he won!

I have to admit that I’m feeling a little intimidated by all of this, but I think it’s my perfectionist nature. I want to do well at whatever I do. Remember, it’s all for fun!

Rain

If figures that the year that I get into pickleball is a very wet winter after years of drought! We’re at an 80% chance of rain tomorrow morning at 6 a.m., dropping to 50% by court time. But the courts get flooded. Flip a coin, I guess.

[Update. Minutes after posting this, the sky just opened up at a quarter to 11. Deluge. It’ll be a wet night. Playing may have to wait until Sunday!]

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Today, I had some social obligations that prevented me from playing pickleball at Derby Park this morning. To top it off, rain is predicted this week. There’s a 40% to 60% change of rain on Wednesday morning. I may not get to play for another full week.

An Odd One: A Return With No Hit

Last week, while playing at Derby Park, there was an instance of a woman opponent hitting a ball with such backspin that it landed in our kitchen only to bounce back over the net onto her side of the court. This puzzled a number of us—including myself—but my partner in that game knew exactly what the rule was. Coincidentally, this exact rule was brought up in an episode of The Pickleball Show podcast that I listened to that very night! So what is the rule? A ball must be hit by a paddle before returning back over the net to be a legal return. Therefore if a ball bounces back over the net of its own accord, it’s a point for the team that last made contact with the ball. So in our case, the woman who hit that ball with the crazy amount of spin won the point, even though the ball ended up on her side of the court after she was the last one to hit it.

Doubles Tracking

One thing that occurred to me is that I’m doing a much better job tracking the ball during matches. I’ve been moving back and forth along the kitchen line toward the side of the court with the ball. I’m sure I’m not perfect in this, but I know I’m far improved.

What the Pros Do

Speaking of The Pickleball Show, I was listening to Episode 40: How To Prepare For The 2016 USAPA Nationals VIII last night where the host, Chris Allen, interviews Mark Renneson—yes, the Canadian player/coach I emailed last week.

Mark shared that the top players at last year’s Nationals hit very hard on the serves and the return of serves. Lots of speed, spin, depth on those hits. Some people say the first two hits are routine and relatively unimportant—that is, just getting them out of the way so the real action can begin—but Mark said that at the Nationals, the players are seeking to create an advantage beginning right with the serve.

Mark also said that in singles a 3rd shot drop is rare—maybe 5%-10% of the time—since players are driving passing shots with the more open space available in singles. In doubles however, a drop was maybe 50% of the 3rd shots. The other half of the 3rd shots were hard hits down the middle or right at the opponent in order to force a weak return volley that can then be put away for a point. He went on to talk more about this “2-step passing shot”, this 2-hit combination that he saw at that Nationals. He talks about it in this video:

What interesting is that covers exactly what I was talking about yesterday in my post. You can only reliably slam “up” only when you are hitting directly at your opponent. Recently, when I was playing Tom and Ileana, Tom said, “You can’t hit hard up” after I missed such a shot. Later when I hit hard from the net right up into his chest, I said, “See? You can hit hard up!” (I just don’t have the skill yet to do it reliably all the time as Tom was mostly likely pointing out!)

Videoing Myself

One thing that I’ve been meaning to do is bring our old GoPro video camera to the courts and video some of my games so that I can critique myself. It’s one thing to make adjustments on problems that you become aware of during a game. But there are ones that you are going to miss and that your partner may not catch or share a correction with you.

Singles

I do have to say that part of me is intrigued by the idea of playing singles pickleball. I’ve never done it. There’s no communication that has to happen with a partner. It’s not as social and it requires more running, but it would be fun to try. There is definitely different strategies involved so there’d be a learning curve. Maybe I’ll get the opportunity to try it out.