Category: Pickleball (Page 71 of 323)

Tuesday, November 19, 2024 (Court Day #740)

Brrrr. 

Well, today was a winter day with regard to temperature compared to the last time that I played. As I drove to Scotts Valley, it was a very chilly 50°F. It had been cold earlier too. When I had packed up this morning, I included a sweatshirt.

My wife had provided a shopping list so after play would be stopping off at the grocery store on my way home.

The last time I played before tonight was a long 9 days. Between my trip out of state for work, my daughter visiting, and extended family obligations, it was a chunk of days.

Skypark

It was just shy of 7 p.m. when I arrived at the courts and it was even colder when I got there, 48°F!

I decided tonight to start out being cold instead of dealing with another layer that I’d need to take off. I was questioning that decision during my first game, though. It was cold!

Tim, Matt, Alex

I played three games with Alex as my partner against Tim Feikert and Matt Babb. Alex and I got clobbered in the first game, losing 11-1. In the second game, we lost 11-4. In the third and final game, we lost 11-6. At least we were making progress. There were some pretty amazing rallies in those games.

Tim was done playing for the night after that last game. (While I typically arrive around 7 p.m., many are lucky enough to arrive around 4 p.m.!)

Jordan

The second to last game was Jordan and myself against Paul and Matt. That was a super fun game. At one point it was tied 11–11. Honestly, I can’t remember if we won or not, I think we lost. Jordan was playing a little little bit better than I was.

Aaron

Aaron Hicks and I played a game against Matt and Paul. We got clobbered in that game. It was 11-4 or 11-5. While not on par yet with the rest of us, Aaron continues to get better and better.

I wrapped up that last game with Aaron is my partner at about 8:25 p.m. Then I help take down a net.

Jay, whom I’ve gotten to play with a little bit more recently and who is a good player, said that he would see everyone in February. I don’t know where he’s going, but hopefully it’s someplace warm for the winter!

And?

Given it was a week and a half since the last time I played, tonight was a little rough. I had my moments, but I was expecting better play.

Matt Babb has developed this curving serve that careens sideways off the court. There are two that, while I got my paddle on them, it was unable to return the ball over the net. I can’t feel too bad about it, Jordan had the same experience. I used to have a similar serve, maybe I should develop it again. It’s been a few years.

Tim and Matt both got me at least once or twice on speedups tonight. Paddle up. Be ready!

Boot to the Head

Matt Babb mentioned that video that went viral this week. While meeting at the net at the end of a game in Mexico, one player brutally kicked his opponent in the head. Here’s the link again. (I mentioned it in my last post too.)

https://twitter.com/jordiebarstool/status/1858282121867002034

Local Connection to Nationals

A week ago, on November 12, Dieter Rothmeier posted to the Facebook group that he and Dan Martin played at Nationals in Mesa, Arizona on Sunday, November 10. Impressive that they came in 4th. It wasn’t until later that I realized that it was UTR 5.0 and not UTPR 5.0. UTR is the new system that tops out at 10 instead of 7, meaning a 4.0 is a 5.0 under this new system. Still, 4th in a 4.0-equivalent at Nationals is a strong finish!

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Friday, November 22, 2024 (No Play)

Last night, I had a non-profit board meeting and couldn’t go play at Skypark. Alas.

AMPD, a new paddle company reached out to me and is sending me a paddle to try out. I imagine it’s pronounced “amped” and may call to mind the Amped line of paddles offered by Selkirk, though they are entirely different companies.

World Championships

The recent World Championships, not to be confused with the World Cup, ended up with over 4,200 players. They were projecting over 3,500 but blew past that to result with in the largest tournament ever. 49 states, plus the District of Columbia, were represented, along with over 30 countries.

Pickleball Tournaments

Pickleballtournaments.com announced that they’ve refined the ability to search for tournaments by offering a new interface with new filters. Finally! Their old system was a dinosaur requiring a LOT of miserable scrolling. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m hopeful that it’s better.

Pickleball Warm-up

This popped up somewhere, it seems useful, so here it is.

More Boot to the Head

A follow up to the vital post-game attack, the victim decided to not press charges.
https://nypost.com/2024/11/20/sports/pickleball-victim-breaks-silence-after-shocking-on-court-attack/

New Big Facility in NC

Gainsborough, North Carolina is opening a new pickleball facility featuring 40 courts.
https://www.yesweekly.com/sports/greensboro-set-to-host-one-of-the-largest-pickleball-facilities-in-the-us/article_106d3d0a-a761-11ef-af40-432be024a669.html

The Pickleball Islam?

Is it just me or does anyone else read “The Pickleball Slam” on Instagram as “The Picklebal Islam”?

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Saturday, November 23, 2024 (No Play)

As I left him out at work after closing, Phil asked me if I had seen pickleball kick to face video. I was stunned. Phil is not remotely a pickleball player, yet, social media had served up this video for him to watch! Wow. It really has gone viral!

Mandatory Foam Balls

In Evondale, Georgia, noise complaints lead to a city commission to mandate the use of foam balls for pickleball play.

“What we’ve done is require the use of soft balls and require that all non-residents are charged a $5 fee per person when they make their reservation,” City Manager Patrick Bryant said. “We also went ahead and put language in the resolution to encourage folks to use noise reduction paddles. That’s not a requirement.”

…and…

“The use of foam balls will also be self-policed. The city commission passed a resolution, not an ordinance, so the police department cannot issue citations or fines for players who don’t use foam balls.”

Here’s an article about it:
https://decaturish.com/2024/11/avondale-estates-city-commission-approves-pickleball-regulations-at-willis-park

If it were my area, I’m not too keen on the concept of playing with foam pickleballs. I’m not so worried about the bounce so much as I would be about spin and ball compression.

Facebook Funny

A few weeks ago, on Halloween, I posted to The Pickleball Clinic group on Facebook. I figured it’d get some chuckles, but it had over 1,000 reactions and 180 comments!

Here’s the link to my FB post:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thepickleballclinic/permalink/1592101524848683/

Number of days on a court: 740
Number of total hours: 3,013
Number of paid coaching hours: 96.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Sunday, November 10, 2024 (Court Day #739)

As I drove off from my house at 8:55 a.m., it was 59°F and sunny with traces of clouds. Fall has arrived. We had the heaters running at work this week for the first time since spring.

I was exhausted yesterday and was asleep shortly before 10:30 p.m., which is early for me. I woke up around 6:30 a.m. and my wife got up but then I managed to fall back asleep until about 7:45 a.m. I needed to catch up on rest!

Brommer

I pulled into a parking spot at Brommer Park at 9:09 a.m.

I asked the two guys on the wall if they wanted to warm up but they were leaving, So I sat alone. At 9:15 a.m., I was still waiting.

Soon, though, I got into a few games partnered with Kim. I wasn’t thrilled with my play, especially the first 2-3 games.

More Games

I got into some stronger games with René against Jay and Paul Winn. (Paul on a Sunday morning at Brommer is very uncommon.) These were closely matched contests. We barely lost the first and won the second. 

The third game I was feeling fatigued for some reason. Out of the blue, René made a comment about feeling really “mellow” about that game. I was falling apart and René was not sharp. We lost 11-4.

A Family Affair

A family was out on a court today with a bunch of little kids. Generally, I don’t care if a group of kids “sit” on a court. Today wasn’t an exception. But I did hear one player complain when the family group wasn’t rotating off like everyone else.

Unexpected Fans

During the last game, Jay was across from me and René was to my right. The court next to us had a group of players that I’d never seen before, and just peripherally, they appeared to be casual recreational players. We had a very long rally. It was probably the best rally of the day and, if not, definitely one of the best ones. Resets off slams, hand battles at the net, dink battles, it was a great long rally. Unfortunately, the ball was coming down fast my forehand, and I was unable to return the ball and it ended up in the net. Once our wild rally was done, we noticed a stray ball had rolled behind our court and they’d been waiting to retrieve it. One of the nearby players, who had been watching, interjected, “So that’s what it’s supposed to look like!” Another chimed in, “We don’t mind waiting for our ball when we get to watch the point like that.” 

That last game wrapped up at 11:40 a.m. I was supposed to be meeting a student 20 minutes early to review class material since it was her first day today—she was replacing a student who dropped out. (It turned out that she appeared about class time and didn’t come early after all. I could have squeezed in another game at Brommer. Oh, well.)

And?

My play today started subpar, got much better, then the last game was crappy. I just made too many mistakes.

As was evident today, I still need to be even more aggressive covering the middle.

I don’t know why I was dragging. I was yawning in the car on my way home after playing this morning. That, indeed, is a rarity! I can’t remember ever doing that before.

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Friday, November 15, 2024 (No Play)

I spent the first half of this week in on a trip to New Orleans for a trade show. I flew back late Wednesday night. My daughter Charlotte flew in 20 minutes before me from Tucson but she didn’t want to wait for me to get my car from offsite parking so her boyfriend Aidan picked her up instead. My wife Kristen was well asleep by the time I got home. 

Instead of playing at Skypark last night, I had dinner at home with Kristen, Charlotte, and Aidan. Pizza and salad. Between Halloween candy over the last few weeks, the trip, pizza, I weighed in at the highest I’ve ever been. Ugh. I really need to cut calories and increase exercise.

Big Time Pickleball

Genie Bouchard hit an ATP in a tournament and it made ESPN’s SportsCenter Top 10. ATPs happen all the time, but as a high-profile convert from tennis, Genie is a celebrity. Sooo… pickleball on SportsCenter. Not bad for merely an “activity” for “old people”. Take that, haters!!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCCfXCrSePc

Video of The World Cup

I hadn’t seen an footage of play at the recent World Cup, but here is a few rallies:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBpaDzBAGS7
(I believe it’s from the gold medal match, but I’m not completely sure.)

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Saturday, November 16, 2024 (No Play)

Stolen Storage Box

It seems that our club is not the only one to get a storage bin stolen. A few years ago, the metal bin with all of our gear at Derby Park was ripped off in the middle of the night. A similar thing happened this week in Washington State, unfortunately:
https://www.columbian.com/news/2024/nov/16/were-just-a-target-pickleball-players-call-for-more-security-at-washougal-court-after-theft

Canada Courts Hubbub

In British Columbia, courts were permanently shut down earlier this year. Here are a couple of articles about it. I heard that it’s now going to the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/pickleball-players-boo-north-saanich-council-decision-on-courts-9347597

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/saanich-pickleball-association-says-reasons-for-court-closure-unfounded-1.6991637

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Sunday, November 17, 2024 (No Play)

With continuing family stuff going on with celebrating my mom’s 80 birthday, I didn’t go play pickleball this morning.

Pickleball Demonstration

That said, I did teach my pickleball classes this afternoon and I will share a story. It’s always embarrassing to be demonstrating a drill or a technique to my class and fumble it. Fortunately, most of the time, it goes well. And today, it went perfect. I was explaining offensive lobs and explained how I was diagonal from my one-time tournament partner with me on the right. I explained that he hit a drop shot and was running in. I told them that I’d lobbed into the far corner and won the rally. I had two students line up as “opponents” and had one crosscourt dink me. I lobbed off the dink and the ball lofted over their heads and dropped perfectly one foot inside the far corner. They were impressed. Could I get that shot most of the time? Probably. Every time that perfect? Nah.

Fight

Ouch. In Mexico, after a match, there was a very brief interaction resulting a player getting kicked in the face and knocked to the ground semi-unconscious:
https://x.com/jordiebarstool/status/1858282121867002034
Seriously. That’s assault.

Pickleball and the NFL?

This evening, I was watching a delayed recording today’s earlier Raiders-Dolphins football game. During the game, the announcers shared some video of themselves out playing pickleball! I took a couple of pictures of the screen with my phone…

Sonic Restaurant Chain with Pickleball Courts?

A Sonic location in Canton, Texas has three pickleball courts that can be reserved using their own phone app.

https://www.dallasites101.com/blog/post/sonic-pickleball-courts-canton-texas

https://www.ketk.com/news/local-news/new-sonic-in-east-texas-becomes-first-in-franchise-with-pickleball-courts

Here’s business-themed podcast video about the Sonic pickleball development. Most of the pickleball related discussion is in the beginning quarter with a brief mention toward the end of the show:

Number of days on a court: 739
Number of total hours: 3,011.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 96.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Friday, November 8, 2024 (Court Day #738)

Tonight was the night that my sister-in-law Liz had invited my son Nicholas and me to join her and her husband Steve at a blacklight pickleball event in the Bay Area.

I left work early at 4:15 p.m. then stopped in Scotts Valley to get badly-needed gasoline. I arrived in Santa Clara to pick up Nicholas a few minutes after 5:30 p.m. From there, we headed together to San Carlos and had dinner with Liz and Steve right after we arrived at 6:15 p.m. (They were ready for us!) Traffic has been heavy in spots as expected for rush-hour. I changed into my pickleball attire. After chili and cornbread, we hopped into their car and drove over to the San Carlos Youth Center and arrived 5 or 10 minutes before the 7 p.m.start time.

The gym had about half a dozen LED blacklights on the floor around the perimeter of the gym and the organizers had battery operated Christmas lights hung over the nets. They were a little bit too frugal with regard to marking out the court lines—from one end of the court to the other, you couldn’t really tell where the baseline was other than from where your opponent was standing.

Originally, based on the instructions that Liz had shared in advance, they had planned for games to go to 8, win by 2. However, at the last minute, they decided to simply limit the games to seven minutes instead using the two large timers mounted high at each end of the gym. And that’s how it went. Seven minutes on, seven minutes off, seven minutes on, etc. over the course of the two hours that we were there.

Each ball had a tiny battery-operated LED light which was mounted into one of the holes. I was expecting the ball to wobble and bound oddly as a result, but the effect was insignificant.

To keep the games the most balanced, I played with Liz against Steve and Nicholas. At one point, Liz suggested that we mix up with other people which I think would have been fun, though Steve wanted to stick together, so we did.

I pointed out to the young staff that the San Carlos Youth Center there has the same initials as the Santa Cruz Yacht Club—SCYC. They were amused. They told me they keep their boats in the attic. They also had some cupcakes out, I helped myself to one!

Nicholas has developed a pretty good reliable deep fast serve. That’s nice to see. He also had a speedup from the kitchen that hit me in the chest. Boy, how to make a dad proud! I did not expect that! Ha ha!

From what I could gather, I didn’t see any players over a 3.0 skill level. That said, I wasn’t watching all the games and playing in the dark does change the equation fair amount. I don’t know if I would have looked like a 4.0 to an observer!

Once done, we headed back to Liz’s for some brownies and milk, then I dropped Nicholas back at his apartment. I was home by 10:45 p.m. 6 1/2 hours start to finish.

It was a fun experience, mostly due to the novelty and the fact that it was with family.

(Given the extra time waiting, I’m going to count the court time as 1 1/2 hours instead of the 2 hours we were there.)

Number of days on a court: 738
Number of total hours: 3,009
Number of paid coaching hours: 90.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.