On Day 1 of the Combine I woke up early with the plan to eat my breakfast (banana and pop-tarts) and chug a bunch of coffee. Even though the hotel guy at check-in said coffee was available 24-7, it wasn’t. When I asked, where’s the coffee, the kid at the desk said oh, he must be running late. He’ll either be here in 5 minutes or 30 minutes.
First class.
Didn’t matter, I needed to get some caffeine pumping through me. I drank all the coffee in my room and started stretching. All the stuff I knew I’d be too chicken to do in public (butt kicks, for example), I did in my room. I used my Theragun, did some work to get my heart rate up and drove to the courts.
I went inside and of course, all the courts were taken. I wanted to be there about 45 minutes before I started because I didn’t know where, or who, I would warm up with. Now I knew I wasn’t going to warm up inside. I saw a gal doing laps when I walked in so I contemplated doing that and just doing my 3 minute warm-up before my first game. As I started to walk outside, she came in looking to hit some balls.
Somehow, some way, I ended up on a court with her in 40 something temperature with my shorts and a lightweight long sleeve t-shirt.
We did some dinks, drops, a few baseline shots. I think I did a couple of serves. We talked and chatted, I told her I didn’t have charisma. My hands were frozen but I felt like I got more hits than I normally did to warm up and that’s what I wanted – to make sure I did more than I usually do. I didn’t need to be ready to play 3 games into this, I needed to be ready now.
We went in, listened to another speech about charisma, introducing ourselves to strangers and to have fun. They played the National Anthem, no one knew where to look for the flag, and we got started. I had a bye.
I watched my opponents play and decided there were 2 people who thought they were better than everyone else, 1 person who didn’t know she was as good as she was and 1 person who could cause havoc with her unorthodox style. I was going in defense first no matter what, giving me a chance to eliminate any preconceived notions I gained while watching.
My first partner was from Singapore. We fell behind quick but I wasn’t worried. We were losing 5-1 but we came back, slow and steady, winning 11-5. My next game was against my first partner and we won, 11-0. I had a bye and then took my first loss, 11-3. In that game I teed up an ATP for my opponent and she landed it.
Another bye, then another loss, 11-5. In that game I was trying to cover the middle more when I was on the left side. I slipped back too deep on one cover and my opponent drilled a shot right at me. I had time to get it but my court position was so poor that when I went to block it I was late, catching it on the side of my paddle. It deflected right into my partner’s face, leaving a giant red pickleball sized mark on her chin. I felt awful.
I had another bye and then got to play with a gal from Atlanta. I watched her play and had talked to her a little bit. She was super nice, telling me about her tournament experience and from what I had seen, I liked her game. She was the first person I played with that I went in thinking, this is gonna be fun. I knew she would come over and take the returns and I knew if she drove or dropped it, I was going to attack. I had played 4 games and not once tried to poach or attack off a drop. This is when it would happen. We won the toss and elected to serve, winning 4 straight points. She gave me encouragement, saying something like, let’s get a couple more. So we did and then switched sides.
Before I started to serve she said, just keep going. I had paused and tried to figure out how I was server number 2 but she said keep going so I went for it, figuring if I called 6-0-2 and was wrong someone would correct me. They returned it, she came over and took the drop, I went in and slammed that sucker down the middle, waiting to hear someone say out. They didn’t. We got to 8 and the same thing happened again, this time I had to run a little further to catch up with the ball but I hit that back line again, winning us point 9 off a drop assist. We won 2 more points and it was over.
As we were walking up to tap paddles she said to me, you know what that just was, right? My blank stare was evident I did not. “We just got a golden pickle.”
Now, we are at a combine to showcase our skills but no one was watching us. No one knew we got a golden pickle. We did, we were happy. Neither of us had that happen before and what an amazing time for it to happen. We joked around with the lady recording scores, asking her if she could put a gold star by the score so people would know it was golden but ultimately we knew we would have to savor that special win with whoever we told and ourselves. It was just 11-0 on paper. A win.
My next game was with another player I thought was one of the stronger ones in our group. We won, 11-4. I finished off the day playing against her and my first partner. My last partner was the one who got the ATP on me earlier in the day and I had watched her enough that I was convinced she was just as strong on the left as she was on the right. She was very deceiving, good defensively and had shots that a lot of other ladies there didn’t have. But she didn’t seem to trust her game and she very clearly had the yips from time to time. She was the only person who had even faked an Erne and from that fake, I was pretty sure she could do it. I had to figure out how to get her to play comfortable because I was certain she could make some magic happen. I landed one of my inside-out dinks that caused someone in the stands to make the ESPN theme chant, DaDaDa, DaDaDa, but we were losing when we switched at 6. We kept battling and fought back for an 11-8 win.
I was pretty happy with my overall 5-2 record. I went to grab some lunch and stayed to watch the next group play. We all left to go back and shower, returning for the party at 6. I ate alone, worried that doing so literally put ‘not charismatic’ on my back. One lady was nice and asked me if I wanted to eat with them but at that point I had about 4 bites left so I thanked her and shoveled the rest of my meal down. I found a corner to hang out in, talking to one of my pod partners and her husband. I posed for photos and talked with a lady who has a son that works for Diadem. We watched the team owners pick their draft position out of a cup and then we posed for a group photo. By then I knew I was going to play at noon the next day so I was able to decompress and sleep without an alarm. Day 1 was a success in my book.
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