Category: Pickleball (Page 92 of 324)

Tuesday, July 2, 2024 (Court Day #681)

After driving from work, I parked at 6:45 p.m. It was sunny and hot in Scotts Valley.

Walking along the path to the courts from the remote parking lot, my right knee had mild pain with every step. Though once I was on the courts and playing, I didn’t even notice it, fortunately.

First Game

I immediately got into a game. Binh called me over before I even had time to hang up my backpack. They were two courts down and were missing a fourth. I don’t know exactly what happened but from what I understand fourth was a newbie and wasn’t comfortable taking on strong players.

Binh and John Funky are playing together in a tournament down in Newport this weekend, so it was Rachel and me. I got in about a dozen warmup shots, then we rolled right into the game. They scored a few points, we broke their serve, they broke ours, they added a few points . . . this repeated until Rachel and I were shut out 0-11. Ouch. It was miserable.

My next game was partnered with a middle aged man, about 5’11”, stocky but not fat, named Gabe. I had never seen him before. I played better in this game against Binh and John. We scored a few points, they broke our serve, we broke theirs, we added a few points . . . this repeated until Gabe and I won 11-1. Binh commented, “You feel better about this one, eh, Andrew?”
“Yeah!” Redemption!

After that game, while waiting, Binh told me that his fiancé Laurie enjoyed my pickleball class and even asked Binh to go to drill with her. Binh said that he was too tired after work to drill though. But that Laurie wants to drill is a fantastic thing to hear . . . especially given the fact that Binh had texted me before that class started, “Take you out to dinner if you can get her to like pickleball.” I think he may owe me dinner!

Tennis but no Tennis

While waiting for my third game, I noticed that both tennis courts had pickleball on them! There was a man and a woman hitting a pickleball over one tennis net plus there was a group of seven people who appeared to be family or friends on the other tennis court hitting pickleballs around. That was a first. I’ve seen folks use one court for knocking a pickleball around, but not both tennis courts!

I wrote my name up on the whiteboard and ended up in a game with Gabe again along with Mo and a tall woman named Christina. When we got to our court, Kristina asked who the best player was. Gage immediately pointed to me and unequivocally said, “him!” Christina said, “Okay, I’m not that good, I’ll play with you.” And I was perfectly happy with that. I think we lost that game 3–11. There’s only so much magic I can pull off!

The lights clicked off in the middle of a game at 8:30 p.m.

Mo and I had played a few games together and were walking off the courts after the lights have gone off. Marco convinced us to play a game with Ofer and him.

Marco and Ofer clobbered us in that first game.

Marco wanted to play one more. Of course, Mo and I said yes. Can you say, “Addiction”? It continued to get darker and darker. We came back and won that second game 11-9.

I played again with my Players Rogue 2 paddle tonight. As I drove home, my right elbow where the bones meet was stinging a little bit. I really didn’t like that, that’s worrisome.

I was not particularly happy with my play tonight.

Home

When I got home, I intended to ice my knee, which has started to bother me. But after a dinner, it wasn’t until I was snuggled in bed and my wife was asleep, that I remembered I was going to put the ice pack on my knee. Oh, well.

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Wednesday, July 3, 2024 (No Play)

Driving to work this morning, my right knee was aching a little bit. Par for the course.

Holiday tomorrow!

Number of days on a court: 681
Number of total hours: 2,876
Number of paid coaching hours: 49.5

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

Sunday, June 30, 2024 (Court Day #680)

At 8:40 a.m., I was on my way to Derby Park to open up the courts. My house, which is at a higher elevation, was sunny, however, as I drove down to Derby Park, I drove into a fog bank. But my car thermometer read 59°F. Generally, if it’s anything close to about 60°F, it ends up being a pretty warm day.

Erin, the daughter of some close friends, graduated from UCLA recently and her parents were throwing a party to celebrate today from noon until 4 p.m. With me teaching two classes in Scotts Valley this afternoon starting at 1:30 p.m., if I left Derby Park at noon there will be no way I can make an appearance at the party so I arranged for Rick Abend to take over as site coordinator mid-session to close up for me so I could leave early.

Games

There’s a young woman named Janaye, who is from Seattle but staying in Capitola the next two months, who was here playing. I teamed up with her against Allan Klass and another fellow who I don’t know. Janaye is very athletic and makes great contact with the ball. She obviously has a tennis background since she drives nearly every shot and stays back at the baseline unless the ball is short and forces her to come forward to get it. She’ll figure out pickleball with time.

The clouds burned off and the sun came up out sun came out midmorning, bringing the temperature up to 68°F. Pretty pleasant, really, for pickleball weather, although I prefer a little bit cooler . . . and with clouds, ideally.

Skill Creep

After about a 6-month absence, Adrian was there today and he pointed out the nearly everyone was signing up in red, the “advanced” level. I told Adrian and Barb G. that I was tempted to remove the red Advanced pen and just leave the black and green pens for 3.0 and lower. Red is supposed to be 3.5 rating or higher but almost all of the players signing up in red are 3.0 or lower.

There were no games in my two hours of play that had all four players of 3.5 or higher. And the thing about frequently playing with weaker players is you tend to get sloppy and lazy. I don’t mind now and then—it’s “paying it forward”—but doing it a lot makes you get comfortable with strategies which will not work against stronger players.

Party

I left just after 11 a.m. to head home, prepare for teaching, then drive out to the party in Aptos to the party. It turns out the husband Richard told people a 1 p.m. start and the wife Laurie was telling people a 12 p.m. start! At about 12:10 p.m., I was the first one there. I help set up and Richard barbequed a sausage for me. At 12:55 p.m., I launched into Highway 1 North traffic to get to Scotts Valley.

Teaching

Today was the last day of the 4-week classes. The first class (Beginners) was uneventful and the second was too . . . until about 20 minutes before the Advanced Beginner class was done, Katie unfortunately tweaked her right leg during an instructional game and was hobbling. She sat out the rest of the class, so I jumped in and played a few rallies with Lindsay against the two tall guys, Todd and Glenn. During one rally Glenn had a great lob to our baseline, I ran back and hit the ball back over the net. Once the rally was done, Lindsey complimented my speed. “You spend a lot of time just standing around coaching, but you can move!”

My Advanced Beginner class went until 4:37 p.m. . . . I let them run long to finish up games.

After that, I did a final class wrap-up said my goodbyes and I spoke individually to a couple of people who came up to me after. Lindsay, who is a PA for a living, said that she’d be happy to talk to my daughter Charlotte anytime, if it could help her with her medical school studies . . . but Lindsay figures that Charlotte is “already way past” her.

It’s always bittersweet when classes end. You get to know people and some you may rarely see or even never see again.

Bonus Games!

As I was packed up and getting ready to go, there are three young guys asking if I wanted to join their game. I texted to see if my wife was still at the party, which she was, though she was leaving soon. There was no point rushing out to Aptos to get to a party that’s breaking up. I agreed to play.

There is Jonathan—who plays now and then at Skypark on Tuesday and Thursday nights—and he had a couple of friends there, Cody and David. I put the three of them at about 30-years-old. Cody is tall, has brown hair and sports a matching full beard. David is a taller, slender African-American man. He can really rip his serves. Cody is quick, getting to a ball that’s hit very short even when he’s starting at the baseline.

One of my Advanced Beginner students, Glenn, was sitting on the bench nearby watching. You always want to do well when your student is watching! He chimed in before I started, “They are really good players.” He’d been watching them.

Cody and I teamed up against David and Jonathan and lost a very close game. I played well, but made a few mistakes . . . it was my first game, after all. After they hit a winner, I caught Glenn’s eye and said, “That was on me. That was a positioning error, I should have been half a step to the right to cover the middle.”

We played a rubber match and this time Cody and I blew them out 11-5. I made very, very few errors.

At 5:15 p.m., my water bottle was empty and it was in the 80s and very hot in the sun on a court surface. I was dripping sweat and I was feeling very warm. I decided it was time to go.

Those are a couple of good fun games. It’s a sign of respect when your opponents hit the ball more to your partner than you!

Added Lesson

I stopped Glenn in the parking lot and pointed out what my opponents could have done to get a better result. One of which was, power does no good if the ball ends up in the net! “Placement over power.” A saying that I share a lot on the courts.

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Monday, July 1, 2024 (No Play)

From Reddit … humbled by senior citizen … yeah …

So funny! These stories pop up not too infrequently!

Number of days on a court: 680
Number of total hours: 2,874
Number of paid coaching hours: 49.5

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

Wednesday, June 26, 2024 (No Play)

So, pickleball-convert former tennis pro Genie Bouchard did well today as she beat Irina Tereschenko 11-3, 11-8 in singles. Of course, singles translates far more easily from tennis than pickleball doubles.

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Thursday, June 27, 2024 (No Play)

Well, the bask of victory for Genie Bouchard was short-lived. #1 Anna Leigh Waters disposed of Genie 11-1, 11-4 today.

Costly

A newspaper headline today read, “SC area named most expensive rental market in the nation”. Our county is #1 in the country for unaffordability. San Francisco—about an hour and a half north—is #2. San Jose (part of the Silicon Valley)—about a 40 minutes north—is #3.

Here’s a link to the article…

Santa Cruz area named most expensive rental market in nation. Again.

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Saturday, June 29, 2024 (Court Day #679)

I decided to take the day off from work. I’d arranged to take it off to work on our broken clothes dryer, but I got it repaired last night. (I’m not afraid to take things apart and put them back together . . . $10,000 photostat camera, toaster oven, clothes dryer—I’m on it!) Plus, I’m due for a little time off. I do work 6 days a week, after all!

I left my house at about 8:45 a.m. and headed to Brommer Park. It was overcast and 55°F.

I almost never play the Brommer Park on Saturday morning, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I texted René Baker and asked her if she was going. She said that she was. Then I asked my main question . . . if she thought I’d be able to get into a game. (Groups often stick together like glue.) She responded with, “always.”

Overpass

For the last six months or so, the CalTrans has been working on a pedestrian overpass near Chanticleer Avenue. It looks like they’re getting pretty close to being finished. I’d be surprised if it takes more than a month to finish it off. It’ll be nice not to have to deal with lane closures and orange cones narrowing the frontage road. Now, how much use it’ll get is a whole ‘nuther question! It’s not exactly a hotbed of pedestrian activity there.

Tennis Elbow

I haven’t played since Sunday, nearly a week, and I can only mildly feel any tennis elbow symptoms. On Sunday, I played with my Players Rogue 2 paddle instead of the Gearbox Pro. I did that again today. I’m trying to take it easy today on my arm.

Brommer Park

I pulled up to Brommer Park at 9 a.m.  sharp and there was plenty of parking—only maybe a quarter of lot was taken. As I pulled in, I could see Sean, the other pickleball instructor for Rec, walking in. He’s always a good challenge, though it turned out, I didn’t get to play with him.

Lacy, Monica, Eric

My first game was with an older man Eric against Lacy and Monica. I’d never met any of them. Monica, I knew by reputation. She’s the Monica who arranges local for-profit pickleball events, such as tournaments and clinics. She was involved in getting Ben Johns and other pros to Monterey last year. I was told that Lacy and Monica wanted to play together since they have a tournament together soon. Fine by me. Eric and I had two games against the girls. I started slow—I skipped any warmup—but Eric and I won both games. The second one by a significant margin.

For the third game, they opted for mixed. I picked Lacy, the weakest player. It was close, but we lost 11-8. 

Better Games

I played a game with Evan (pronounced “Eh-von”, it’s Spanish) against Dieter and Conner. It was a close game and we were ahead. Evan complimented me on my transition zone resets. At the end of the game, I hit three balls that would have otherwise sailed out. We lost. I’m kicking myself.

More Games

Dieter and I played a game against René and Rick. Dieter and I won, which is what I was expecting, although the game was closer than I had originally anticipated. It’s interesting adjusting to stacking with a left-handed player. Mid-game communication is extremely important and Dieter is good at that, calling out shots that he wants to take and also shots that he’s expecting me to take. I did quite a bit of playing left-handed back (and stacking) when I had really bad tennis elbow, but it’s very different being the righty person on the left, instead of the lefty on right. It’s good experience. I will say after watching Dieter play with another partner and he had to keep telling her where to go at the start of each serve, I made his life quite a bit easier since I knew where to go and where to be while stacking. We were half stacking, that is, only stacking while we were serving and not while we were receiving.

René

I played a few games with René on the court, however, she twisted her knee trying to get to a shot that I hit and she stopped playing that game midway through so she could try to recover.

I got into another game or two.

After she rested, René and I played a game against a woman named Janelle and a tall, older fellow named Cary. Before the game started Janelle said, “You two are both better than we are.” Wanting to play with me, René told them that her knee and back were bothering her and I also told them that I would play the game left-handed. Her injury and my playing left-handed still didn’t make enough of a difference and we quickly went up 5–0. We eventually won the game 11–5. René said, “This was the most chill game I’ve played all day.” It’s good practice for me to play left-handed now and then. I got all my serves in lefty and I even believe there were at least a couple of returns they didn’t get back over the net off my serves. I did play every single shot in that game lefty.

Later, René and I played a game against Chloe, who is Tim Handley‘s protégé, and a guy named Aaron who is tall but I’ve never met before. Aaron is a good player, but he likes to drive everything. We won.

Longing

I could see Sean and his brother Danny playing in games with Marquis, Oscar, and Ethan. I didn’t get to play with any of them, unfortunately. The disappointment today was not getting into some of the game at least some games with the best players there.

… And Out!

After sitting around for about 15 minutes with no game readily in sight, I decided to leave for the day at 1:15 p.m.

I was playing pretty well today. I would say maybe half of the games that I played today where everyone was similar skill to me—and some perhaps even better than me.

Number of days on a court: 679
Number of total hours: 2,871.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 46.5

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