Monday pickleball was a small group – just 4 of us with an even split of men and women. We had a lot of good games with a solid amount of dinking and some strategic play and decisions. I didn’t do a lot of drives and my drops were high. I think I’m due a break because I still felt a little flat. I couldn’t get loose as quickly as usual and feel like I have heavy legs.
I stacked with everyone today but when we were on defense I really struggled with the middle ball. I’m not over in time to block a drive and with it being my partner’s backhand and them on the move, they also aren’t thinking about knocking down a hard drive. I know a fix for this is to signal and switch but finding people who want to or are willing to do that isn’t an automatic thing.
Additionally, switching causes its own set of hiccups, often more problematic than solving for the middle drive. I need to focus on covering the middle when I’m in that position. That will be a pretty big shift in mindset so I can’t beat myself up if I don’t figure it out overnight.
One of the guys was willing to work with me on signals and switching. It’s not something I do very often because I don’t play many competitive games that would “need” me to do that. When I am in a situation that I need to do it the first thing that runs through my head is, I wish I would practice this more often. So, today I got to practice it and that made me pretty happy.
Probably the biggest tactic to figure out strategically was deciphering where to hit the ball when 1 guy stayed at the baseline and the other was near the kitchen. We kept hitting to the baseline guy to keep him back but his partner is really fast, and deceptive, so he seemed to be like a sneaky cat waiting patiently to pounce on our keep-him-back shots. I normally would have just tried to hit my second or third ball behind the cat, rather than just keep feeding the baseline guy wimpy shots (I couldn’t overpower him) he could return but the cat has a lot of speed and reach that I didn’t want to test. It worked out, my partner was able to hit the right angles just out of reach of both guys, but in the moment my decision making felt handcuffed.
My injury of the day was getting whacked in the chest on a miss hit ball. It was a good zinger that took some time to stop throbbing. I got pushed to the outside to get a backhand dink which resulted in a pop-up. I turned to defend it but only got my body around – I left my paddle below my waist – and whop, took it right in the chest. I’m certain he didn’t mean to hit it that high but I’m certain my paddle could have been in a better place to defend it.
My memorable shots of the day were a nice backhand ATP and one decent 2-hand backhand.
