I drove to Indianapolis and played pickleball at a tennis facility called IRC East. I had no trouble driving over and no problem finding the facility. It was dark and dingy inside but all of the courts were lined for pickleball. More people came in to play pickleball than tennis.
We had a group of 8 ladies and I played against a bunch of them. I felt pretty good about the rotation but I’m getting ready to do that event tomorrow so I wanted to make sure I got to play with the gal who invited me and with a lady I’m playing in another event next weekend.
For most of the day I was pretty intimidated and curious. I kind of wanted to see how people played before I played all out because I didn’t want to “give” anything away about my style of play. I didn’t do much of what I normally do because of that and then when I felt a little bit more comfortable about playing “my” game I was in my head way too much and didn’t do very well.
I was tired but I think the combination of my mind games and the intimidation factor left me without much of a chance to have success. Most of the players there were tennis players and I’m talking staying at the baseline and just ripping shots. They were not even pretending to play pickleball. One gal would rip it and then run around like a mad woman and was pretty successful scoring that way. Another girl was an absolute machine with her shots, but none of them were pickleball shots.
So I got really flustered because I don’t see that a whole lot. I’ve got to figure out how to get my game in that mix of play. I can’t beat them at that game and I didn’t today. I’m not feeling real confident right now after today because it wasn’t my greatest performance and because I’m not a tennis player.
I did ask one of the girls who is a pretty strategic player, how do you play against tennis players? She said every woman she plays is a tennis player and she’s playing at the top amateur level right now. So that didn’t help my mind either. I don’t know how tomorrow will turn out based on how I’m feeling to today, but hopefully I can get it together.
