I got my nice Sunday drive over to Dayton for some pickleball. There were some new-to-me faces and 2 lefty men so I saw a lot of different shots. We played an hour of doubles and an hour of mixed. I played with the same guy in mixed the whole time, but I didn’t have any problems with that because I had never played with him. He was good and really fun to play with.
He read the ball, especially when I was setting up balls for him. He didn’t need me to tell him I was setting him up, he knew I was and he went for it. More importantly, he let me set him up. A few times he took balls from me but they were good balls to take, ones he could get around on and do a nice drive. A few times I’m pretty sure he was trying to set me up which was a wild change of pace in mixed. I don’t think we lost any games, so that made it extra fun.
During women’s play I tried to work a little bit more on the middle stuff, but that was less successful than when I did it on Saturday. I think it’s probably because a lot of what worked yesterday was kind of “baiting” people and that’s harder to do against people who have pinpoint accuracy and pace.
The other thing I should have done was tell my partner where to return the ball. I told my partner I was going to hog the middle but I didn’t say where to hit it in order to help me. Yesterday everyone I played with hit to a certain spot and I think that may have made a difference with the success of that tactic.
I think I tried my 2-hand backhand a few times but I don’t think I ever got one over. The serves were much harder and I didn’t have time to get my legs where they needed to be. So I really was kind of just chopping at it.
When I played mixed there were also a few times that I tried the 2-hand backhand and that was truly just in defense of rocket serves. Those were more blocks than they were backhands and they were unsuccessful because the dude serving it can absolutely murder the ball. I wasn’t disappointed I couldn’t return his serve, I was just happy I was still standing after it hit my paddle.
There was one guy I kept trying to figure out how I knew him. It was one of those situations of looking at someone, thinking they looked familiar and then dismissing it because it wouldn’t be realistic for us to have met anywhere else. But I couldn’t stop. After every game I’d look over and think, How do I know him? Finally, seconds before I played against him I pointed at him and blurted out a woman’s name. He looked at me funny and then smiled, saying something similar to what I had been thinking – that he too thought he knew me but couldn’t remember how.
It turns out I met him in Columbus a year or two ago and he goes to school in Dayton. He would come to visit his girlfriend in Columbus and they would play pickleball with us on Saturday morning. It’s nice to see that he has a moved his way up into one of the stronger groups because he’s definitely a good player.
We played with a Dura ball and I didn’t have any issues with it, other than one side being completely flat. It’s crazy how last Sunday I was totally in my head over that ball and today there wasn’t a hint of a problem.
It was a it was a good day. I am pretty happy with what I what I saw and how I performed.
