It didn’t feel chilly today, however, is definitely chilly as I drove to Scotts Valley. The temperature had dropped down to 55°F.
Tomorrow night, I’ll be driving to the Bay Area and picking up my son Nicholas in Santa Clara on my way to San Carlos. It’ll be the night of blacklight pickleball. Tonight, however, would just be black night, not black light!
Skypark
I was walking into the courts at exactly 6:40 p.m.
First Game
My first game was with the young fellow named Sam—who I played with before—against Mo and Jax. I went into the game with no warm-up and I definitely was not dialed in, however, my play did improve over the course of the game. We did have some pretty good rallies. There weren’t any dink battles—there were crazy firefights, with overhead slams, drives some midcourt, a lot of hard hits. It was a fun unusual game. Sam and I didn’t win, but we did make a game of it.
Jay strikes a pose!
Mauricio and I played against Jay and Dr. David. It was a closer game than I was expecting until I started playing really well and Mauricio and I broke the game open and ran away with it.
Jay, Manda, Mauricio
The next three games were Jay and myself against Manda and Mauricio. In my estimation, I would say Jay and I were both the strongest players. And while we did win all three games against Mauricio and Amanda, they kept the game pretty close. Jay and I were making similar errors. For instance, on one rally, I hit the ball wide of the court to the left and a couple rallies later, Jay hit the ball wide to the right. And in another, off a drop shot, Jay dinked the ball into the net. A few rallies later, off of a drop shot, I dinked the ball into the net.
My last game finished up with not enough time for another before the lights clicked off at 8:30 p.m. I started breaking down a nets and Jay joined in. We took down another and we called it a night.
Number of days on a court: 737 Number of total hours: 3,007.5 Number of paid coaching hours: 90.5
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I checked today and the the 2024 World Championship (PPA) has 3,507 players registered, indeed making it the biggest pickleball tournament ever. Well, “ever,” so far. Bigger is likely coming. At a certain point, it’ll become logistically impossible to add more players. But if the money keeps flowing in, the PPA will make it as big as possible.
Selkirk new paddle
Selkirk is working on a new paddle—who isn’t?—that they are calling Project 007: “The new InfiniGrit Surface paves the way for dramatically enhanced texture durability and spin performance, lasting 3x longer than raw carbonsurfaces.” Interesting. We’ll see if it lives up to the hype.
Olympian
Gabby Thomas, 2024 Olympic Gold Medalist in the 200m sprint, plays pickleball! Here are a couple of articles from about six weeks ago I just learned about:
Pickleball is continuing to get more and more popular. And Gabby is only 27-years-old. It’s not like she’s a grandma! This sport is trending younger and younger.
Gabby Thomas at the 2020 Olympic Trials. Photo by Chuck Aragon. (CC)
Brother John
Late in the afternoon, I got a Facebook notice that someone wanted to join the official Santa Cruz Pickleball Group. That someone, this time, turned out to be my brother John! I guess he’s getting a bit more serious about his play!
Night Play at Skypark
With the cold weather that we’ve been having the last week today was unusually warm day. I got Joshua, one of my staff, to close the store for me tonight so I was able to leave right at 6 p.m. As I drove to Scotts Valley, my car thermometer read 68°F. Warm for after sunset!
With the time change this past weekend, it was pitch black as I left work. Ah, well. Always under lights, it will be for the next few months.
Today is the day of the 2024 presidential election and there are no doubt people who need to take Valium or other drugs to manage their stress. With all the mail-in ballots these days, we probably won’t know the official results for a few days, regardless. Plus, no matter who wins, I still have to get up in the morning and go to work just like I did through all the past presidents. There was a little talk at the courts of the election underway, but it was mostly avoided.
The scene at my arrival.
Games
My first game was a nice little Indian woman from the Silicon Valley. She was a newbie and was erratic getting the ball back over the net, but I’ve definitely seen worse. We did end up losing the game as I expected, however, we made quite go of it. It was against Kristin Long and Chris, the female player who has only been around for a few months. After the game, Kris asked me if I would like to play again, but I told her that I’d like to play with stronger players for my next one. She was understanding and we’re friends so at I knew that she wouldn’t hold it against me.
My next game was paired with Mark Dettle against Paul Winn and linebacker Mike. Mark did his best, but we did lose.
This evening we cycled through games with myself, Paul, Matt Babb, and linebacker Mike. We played two or three games with Paul as my partner, then we mixed it up and I paired with Mike. They were generally pretty close back-and-forth games with some really good rallies.
Nasty
In a funny moment, we were joking about “loser” shots in our game and Paul rushed the serve and nailed me with a Nasty Nelson while I was looking away and then he took the point. (Yes, that is the rule!) Matt and Paul were both quite amused as they swapped positions! I think that was the first time I have ever been hit on a serve!
More Lights?
As evening wore down, some people, like Rachel, we’re hoping that the City of Scotts Valley didn’t correct the lights for daylight savings which would mean they’d go off at 9:30 instead of 8:30. But if I had actually stopped to question it right then, instead of it occurring to me later in the car, they had it backwards. If the city hadn’t reset the lights, they would’ve gone out at 7:30, not 8:30. 8:30 p.m tonight was 9:30 p.m. last week.
Oops
Matt got me on a return of serve where, while I wasn’t inside the court, I was too close to the baseline his return of serve landed on the baseline and I was unsuccessful handling the ball. Gotta leave yourself space! Something to keep in mind going forward.
Paddle
And I have to say, I’m really loving this Aireo paddle.
Wednesday, November 6, 2024 (No Play)
Local pickleball in the local news… based on the file name, I think this came out in February this year, but I don’t remember seeing it. There is an article on pickleball in our county on page 12.
Number of days on a court: 736 Number of total hours: 3,005.5 Number of paid coaching hours: 90.5
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Today was the time change giving us an extra hour in the morning. I sent out an email to my new students earlier in the week promising more details about our first class, but I realized this morning that I had neglected to do that, so I sent out that message this morning. Better late-ish than never!
On my way to Brommer, I got a notice that an additional student signed up for my Advanced Beginner class. I had arranged for my son Nicholas to come to the class to balance pairs. My brother John was also interested. Now, with my brother John and my son Nicholas, I have a full class of two complete courts. My Beginner class has been full for over a week. At least having balance pairs in the class is far better than having an odd man that I have to pair up with personally. It’s much better for me to be able to roam around and observe students.
I stopped by work on my way to Brommer to pick up my water bottle that I left yesterday. Sigh.
Brommer Park
I pulled into a Brommer parking spot at 8:29 a.m. There were exactly four full courts going at Brommer. I was alone waiting on the wall when Sean Lynch showed up. I asked if he wanted to warm up, he agreed and we grabbed an empty court.
Marquis joined me and we played three games against Sean and his brother Brenden who I’d never seen played before. Sean said that he and his other brother Danny are teaching Brenden how to play. Brenden played pretty well. I would say he’s already at 3.5 level level.
Marquis and I won the first, barely lost the second, and didn’t play so hot in the third. Good and challenging games. More players showed up and our group disbursed into other games.
More Games
I got into a game with Patty.
William arrived and he and I were going to play against Patty and Monica (Kiko’s mom). Patty didn’t want that, and she suggested her and William. I was fine with that—it’d give me the most challenging game combination. William is better than me and Patty is better than Monica. Two strongest and the two weakest would face off. Monica and I started off with a few point lead but it went downhill from there and we lost as expected.
Today was a good day with mostly strong games. They included an assortment of good players, like Evan, Tony, William, René, Patty, and others.
And?
Judging from today, the biggest things I need to work on, are getting my drops from a ball that is deep and very low. I still have the mysterious thing where I hit drop shots into the net or even short of the net on occasion. It’s odd. What I also need to work on, and this can be kind of difficult without drilling it, is handling speedups at the net, such as shake and bake attacks. The ball comes hard and fast and I pop it up and then it gets attacked and slammed for winner. That happened number of times, especially against Sean and Brenden.
Monday, November 5 (No Play).
Pickleball unhappiness in the news in Pennsylvania. It’s a story that includes noise concerns plus locals are complaining that you have to be a $100/year member to play—aside from three courts designated for non-members. One claim was that local non-members came to play but were turned away from an empty court because they were not members.
Time Machine?
This article is from last year, and maybe I shared it before, but here it is…
Last week, the second-ever Pickleball World Cup was held in Lima, Peru with participation from 500 players from 40 countries. Puerto Rico won the Pickleball World Cup. Peru, the host, took silver.
I don’t know for sure, but while the USA participated, I strongly suspect that Ben Johns, Anna Leigh Waters, and other top Americans were not there. The USA finished 4th.
It says “China Taipei” took bronze, but it’s a bit confusing to me since Taipei is in Taiwan, not China. Though China claims that Taiwan is part of China and not an independent country.
USAP Paddle Testing
USA Pickleball shared on social media some milestones with regard to their paddle testing…
2015 • USAP’s equipment testing began with Element Space & Defense, formerly NTS, an independent accredited third-party world-class laboratory spearheading testing efforts.
2018 • USAP’s equipment certification grew to include a test for coefficient of friction (COF) which measures a paddle’s friction characteristic, a significant contributor to spin, following the growth of the sport and in response to new coatings placed on paddles.
2019 • A ball compression test was developed followed by a cantilever beam screening function, which evaluates paddle rigidity when open throat paddles were introduced in market.
2023 • USAP undertook research to implement 3D optical scanning, to better define the terrain of the paddle face. This technology pushed the boundaries of field-testing innovation with the flood of gritty molded resin paddles known as “raw carbon” which entered the market in 2022. • An ultrasonic test was implemented to detect delamination problems in paddles, during field testing-Delamination is a condition where the layers of a paddle’s material, such as the core and the surface, start to separate. This can weaken the paddle and affect its performance. Ultrasonic testing is a method that uses high-frequency sound waves to inspect materials.
Number of days on a court: 735 Number of total hours: 3,003.5 Number of paid coaching hours: 90.5
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
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