Category: Pickleball (Page 79 of 323)

Friday, September 13, 2024 (Court Day #716)

I spent part of my morning prepping for the SCPC board meeting which took place this afternoon. On the days of our board meetings, I take most of the day off and don’t get to work until after 3:30 p.m.

By 8:58 a.m., I was halfway between my house and Brommer Park. It was a club day, so I was expecting it to be somewhat busy, which it was. It was sunny and 63°F.

As I drove, I was hoping I’d get into better games than I did last night. As a club day, after 10 a.m., we’d all be signing up by skill level. My fingers were crossed.

Brommer Park

My first hour was games with 2.5 and 3.0 players. Merely social and lazy games.

After 10 a.m., I started a box in blue (4.0+). But I had 3.5 players in my group. Two guys said that they “just played with some 3.5 players” and they told them to “move up into blue.” The funny thing is, it’s never that the losing team should move down, it’s always the winning team needs to move up. That’s why the upper skill levels get overloaded and the lower levels are pretty vacant. It wasn’t a horrible game, but the rallies were short and my partner hit more than his share of balls into the net.

I got two good games with Pauly against Dieter and Rick. We won the first one and they lost the second one. In the second—and last—one, I weakly retuned a backhand into the net. Jackie, who was sitting on the wall watching, called over to me, “You are better than that!” She was right, of course, that was a horrible service return!

Board Meeting

At 12:16 p.m., I was sitting down at the park benches for the monthly Santa Cruz Pickleball Club board meeting. A big chunk of the discussion was trying to decide how to solve the problem of getting players broken up into proper skill level so the games would be better and so better players don’t abandon club play. The meeting was adjourned to 2:07 p.m.

More Games

I walked by the courts toward the parking lot but called down to Pauly, Gary, and Sean McElaney, who were sitting along the wall, if they wanted to play. They agreed. Gary and I lost that game. I hadn’t played for two hours so my play wasn’t ideal. But then Gary wasn’t playing fantastic either.

Pauly decided to sit out the next one, so Sean and Gary played against me and a fellow that I never met named Tony. Tony is an intermediate player. Our opponents were winning early but then my partner and I turned it around and won 11–6. (I was also starting to warm back up.)

When I asked on the time, Sean said it was 2:45 p.m. I told him that I had to go. Work is calling… well, not literally, but you know what I mean!

Tennis Pros

American tennis pro Tyler Fritz was quoted recently as saying, “I think there are some people in the tennis world that are just absolute pickleball haters, and that’s fine. But for me, like, I don’t really have an issue with pickleball. I like playing sometimes. It’s fine. I don’t see any reason why both of them can’t exist.”

American Ben Shelton laughed when asked about a similar question. “No, man, I got no comment about that.”

https://www.utrsports.net/blogs/news/2024-us-open-pickleball-tennis

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Saturday, September 14, 2024 (No Play)

It was strangely cooler today… like fall is saying, “I’ll be here soon.” Then this afternoon, my sister texted our family group saying that there is a 40% chance of rain on Wednesday. Well, then. Summer is on its way out!

Bagpiper Pickleball

The USA Pickleball Ambassadors have a private Facebook group. An ambassador named Jeff Poff shared a couple photos of a parade in Kettering, Ohio, a few miles out of Dayton. His local pickleball group marched, but he also mentioned that they “had two bagpipe players marching” with them. Being a bagpiper myself, I was intrigued and tracked down their Facebook group and the additional photos he had mentioned in his post.

Now, I have no idea who the bagpiper is. When I asked if the piper played pickleball, Mr. Poff said no. Too bad. It would have be fun to find another pickleball-playing bagpiper.

Number of days on a court: 716
Number of total hours: 2,960
Number of paid coaching hours: 72.5

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

Thursday, September 12, 2024 (Court Day #715)

Kind of fun today, Derby Park players Craig and his wife Loni came in for some art materials at my work and it turned out that “an OG pickleball player” Beth Black was in another room getting some picture framing done. Craig said he and Loni have been nursing “his and hers” Achilles injuries and haven’t been playing for months. I told Beth that I’d seen her husband David out at Brommer a couple of times in the last month. She said that she’s been out due to plantar fasciitis. Bummer.

Skypark

I left work early to attend a work Zoom seminar but they are easier for me to do from home where I keep my iPad. Afterwards, rather than returning to work, I headed out early to Skypark to play.

It was sunny and a warm 75°F when I got to Scotts Valley at about 5:45 p.m. My son Nicholas was coming to town since he has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. My wife suggested to him that he come play pickleball at Skypark and he agreed.

My second game was with Kristin Long against a woman named Rose and her friend who said she’d been playing for eight years. Kris warned me that she’s having incredibly hard time with her serving. I think she must have hit half a dozen serves before she got one in. She had a yips. We were losing most of that game, but then we came back to win 12–10.

Nicholas

When Nicholas arrived I was in the middle of a game against David Lai and Beth with David’s girlfriend Minori as my partner. That was probably the strongest game of the night. David, of course, is always a worthy adversary. Beth, I’d say, is a high level 3.0 player or a low 3.5. No doubt in a tournament of women’s doubles, she’d be at least a 3.5, especially if it were age brackets.

After my game was finished, Nicholas and I played every game together. We played a number of games with Ethan’s friend Caitlin in our group.

It was a completely lazy evening. Aside from that game with David and Beth, there really weren’t any games where I really had to try particularly hard. On the contrary, some of the games I was intentionally keeping the rally going by hitting the ball gently.

When Nicholas and Mike were playing against Caitlin and myself, I was trying to serve as easily as I could to their forehands, but even with that, they were having trouble getting the ball back over the net. (Maybe the off-speed was throwing them.) There was kind of an inexplicable game. Neither of them were playing well in that game for some reason.

Last Game

The last game was Nicholas and myself against Fabrizio and left-handed Mike. We won that one 11–5. Nicholas got better as this evening went on and he warmed up a little bit more. One thing he has to stop doing is inviting opponents to the net. I think he may have won a rally once dropping the ball short, but generally when players were back and Nicholas had a little short drop over the net, he would either put the ball into the net or the ball went over and bounced high enough for our opponents to run in, successfully hit the ball back over and join us at the net. Yes, something to work on. (As a matter of fact, later on, he asked me for tips on what to improve. I specifically mentioned that.)

Lights Out

That last game brought us up to 8:29 p.m. and the lights clicked off a few minutes later.

I hopped in my car and he hopped in his car and we headed home to my house. The evening was a wrap!

Number of days on a court: 715
Number of total hours: 2,956.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 72.5

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

Tuesday, September 10, 2024 (Court Day #714)

Last night, this popped up as an ad on social media. Just in time for football season. Faux NFL pickleball T-shirts. Clever. I’m almost tempted.

And, Jay, my bagpiping mentor sent me this today:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/850994960544462
Yes, another humorous video short poking fun at pickleball! (And, no, that is not the guy who really invented pickleball!)

Skypark

Arrived at the Skypark Courts at about 6:50 p.m., fortunately a car was pulling out of a parking spot just as I was passing through the lot. It was a busy night and I would’ve had to park down the street and around the corner.

There was a new sign on the pickleball gate entrance that private lessons are only allowed with permission from the City of Scotts Valley. It looked like someone missed the sign tonight since a court in the corner was reserved until 7:30 p.m. and a lesson was going on there. The crowd of players made do with the seven remaining courts.

Tonight, every game I played had at least one weak player. All games were still entertaining and fun, but not necessarily the most challenging. Rallies were generally short, though there were occasionally longer ones.

Crowd Pleaser

My “shot of the night” was a miss in the first game. My partner and I were lobbed deep down the middle. I sprinted back at a dead run, stretched out and just managed to drive the ball back over the net. There was no way to drop it—a drive was all I could barely manage. The ball flew low over the net and toward the right back corner but sailed out by about a foot. I didn’t think much of it until I heard, “Ohhhhhhh” from the smattering of players waiting for games since the effort barely didn’t pan out. Dave Ryan made an approving comment.

Alfred

I had young Alfred was an opponent in that first game. He played very well, but I wouldn’t get into another game with him, unfortunately. He’s gotten a lot better since the last time I’d played him many months ago.

Dumb

Tonight, there were shots I had no business trying to attack. Low crosscourt shots to my forehand. I think I hit 3-4 of those into the net. I was not being patient and shouldn’t have been aggressive on those. I tend to take more risks against weaker opponents. I need to be more consistent and not let myself develop bad habits.

And?

Overall, I was indifferent to my play tonight. I made dumb decisions with some low balls. But I had some good play too.

Chloe and her boyfriend Abe were hitting a tennis ball back-and-forth on the empty tennis court. Ask Chloe if I could hit a ball. I was awful. You would’ve thought that I had never picked up a tennis racket before. Yeah, it’s been at least 20 years, but still, I was hitting the ball into the net, if I even managed to make contact! It was hysterical!

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Wednesday, September 11, 2024 (No Play)

September 11. A day we remember those lost in the attacks on the Twin Towers and elsewhere. It’s hard to believe it’s been 23 years already. I remember getting a frantic call from my sister-in-law that morning. I turned on the television and watched live broadcasts of the tragedy taking place in New York. It’s something that you’ll never forget.

Famous People Who Play Pickleball 

This is an old list of celebrities who have taken up pickleball—for example, Matthew Perry died last year. I’m sure there are even more famous folks these days, but this is interesting even if I know only about half these names!
https://www.paddletek.com/blogs/news/celebrities-in-pickleball

Pickleball Noise in the News

A city government in Avondale Estates, Georgia seems on the verge of requiring foam pickleballs at one of their venues to appease neighbors:
https://decaturish.com/2024/08/avondale-estates-plans-to-require-foam-balls-non-resident-fee-at-pickleball-courts/
This may be a trend for the future, but time will tell.

Number of days on a court: 714
Number of total hours: 2,954
Number of paid coaching hours: 72.5

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