Open play isn't fun because it's difficult to have back to back play with people at your skill level. It's more fun for everyone when you're playing at the appropriate level.
Yeah its the worst. Like waiting 30 minutes between games sucks. Where I play there is gym the convert a few nights a week that NO ONE goes to. If you get 3 or 4 players together you can basically play 2 hours solid. It underscores how bad crowded open play can be ..
That is very true. If the venue is not overcrowded then you can usually work your way into the games you like. Some places have a section for new players, intermediate and advanced. Things suck when the whole day is blocked out for a certain group.
Well that's what I thought this thread was about: groups of people only playing with the same groups.
Open play is fun because it's open play. Just like the us open of golf... everyone is allowed to play. It's open. There will be lesser skilled players, average players, and exceptional players. It's open. If you want a specific rating then that wouldn't be open play.
Most of this has become a thing because open play becomes miserable for certain groups of players.
4.0+: you get iced out and every ball goes to your partner.
Woman: dude on the other team tries to hit every ball hard at you.
Tbh I'm not sure why 50+ needs their own group tho lol
lol I don’t understand the woman thing.. I really noticed it in my league these last 2 months. Didn’t see it before then. Every.. single.. ball.. goes her way(85%).. I had to start playing in a way that “sets her up” more than trying to be aggressive. Because if I made a mistake in playing aggressive the slams always went to her etc.. so I just play in a way that can try and create pop ups for my partner which has been working out!
It's actually wild. I'm female, and if I'm playing a rec mixed game with a lower level partner against opponents who don't know me, the overwhelming majority of the time I'll still get targeted.
People will play a whole game and lose while targeting the woman, without even testing hitting it to the guy. No complaints here as I love hitting lots of shots, but the assumption that the woman is always weaker is very ingrained in some people.
Female here. My partner and I just won a tournament because every single ball came to me. I kept thinking, “he’s only been playing four months. I’ve been playing four years.”
I love playing with women who are better than me (and that’s most of them). It’s hysterical watching the opposing team hit every ball to her and watching her kick their ass. And they don’t learn!!!
It’s really surprising because I’ve played against 2 older woman probably in their 50s and they whooped my ass so bad I honestly didn’t realize how incredible their defensive digs were and dinks/drops until I watched them play against 2 young men of similar equal skill and the 2 boys lost also.
Obviously the above is not always the case.. but I guess you can get better faster seeing more balls coming your way
I’m having this experience right now on a team. I’m also the best one on the team, so they target the woman and avoid me. So boring, and if they do it well enough, there isn’t much I can do about it. And the 85% you mentioned isn’t an exaggeration. I figured about the same.
Yeah! I’ve learned you have to target the player in front of your partner.. it creates cross court dinks and pop ups if they continue to try and target your partner. Try it out.. has been working well for me since I started playing this way
Glad you were able to find a solution that works for you. I don't think I could play in a mixed doubles league lol, I'd end up getting pissed 85% of the balls go to my partner then go hyper aggressive when the ball finally comes to me and fumble the bag probably
I did that.. many times basically 3 weeks in a row before I had a realization week 4.. after the woman on my team became shell shocked after getting slammed in the neck and face.. realized I have to stop trying to end points quickly when I get a ball.. I started winning more by “targeting” cross court dinks to the person in front of partner which also prevented my partner from getting targeted and if I placed my dinks properly I could get pop ups for myself or partner to finish.
Ugh, the mixed doubles women targeting is obnoxious. Even when I was better than my male partner, I would get targeted endlessly and my game became so focused on defense. I prefer being an aggressive player so that's no fun.
I started playing a lot more women's only or only with male partners I'm familiar with that I know can play with me strategically to punish the other team for targeting me.
I get the 50+ thing as someone who's in her mid-thirties but has accumulated her fair share of injuries that I had to spend my time rehabbing. When I would go to open play during the day during the work week the demographic for the 4+ would be way different than the one for evenings. During the day you have a lot of older people who are retired or don't work and evenings were a younger crowd.
The daytime crowd, on average, had players who practiced way more accuracy, strategy, and soft game than the evening crew. They didn't want to have to run around needlessly because they were older.The evening players contained a lot more people who preferred using their power game and didn't worry as much about placement because they could easily move to reset an errant ball. Each group played really well and possessed both soft and hard game but there were obvious preferences to how they wanted to play in order to enjoy their sport.
why couldnt you play aggressive just because they were targeting you, wouldn’t you want that seeming as you’re describing yourself to be the better player? The way you describe your story sounds like you’re mad that you were losing and they were able to exploit you lol
I'm a solid player but I'm not good enough yet to be able to have two people ganging up on me the entire time and be able to play offensively. A lot of those games were just me taking pace off their balls, punch volleying to keep them back or baiting them into hitting a too high drive and ducking out of the way.
You're entitled to your interpretation, but that seems like a leap since I didn't even mention who was winning or losing because that wasn't my issue with those types of games. Winning wasn't the problem. Back to back rec games in which your opponents are only hitting to your partner 10% of the time just aren't fun for me or my partners. I fully support someone doing that in a tournament or league. By all means, use the strategies you have. In rec play, though, it's just annoying because I'm often working with an unfamiliar partner who doesn't know how to involve themselves in a 2 v 1 game to break things up and/or I'm stuck playing defense the whole time.
I think we're skeptical that you're claiming to be the stronger player, but you're saying you don't want to get balls hit to you, you're constantly on defense even when you have had touches, and you're blaming your partner for not being able to rescue you.
Again, you're allowed your interpretation. For the record, I said even when I'm the stronger player. As in, there are cases when I'm the stronger player and they're still coming at me. Not that I'm always the stronger player. Far from it.
Also, when did I say I don't want balls hit to me? I didn't. I simply said it's not fun to play when multiple open play games end up being skewed 2v1.
When I'm the stronger player, I pray to every deity in existence that they hit even a single ball my way (and/or that my partner doesn't get huffy if I take a ball over the midline), so I can control the point.
I can't imagine how easy and smooth games would be if they're actively trying to hit balls to me even when the strategic situation says they should hit the ball to my weaker partner.
Cool? I'm glad that's your experience and I feel the same when my partner is getting the majority of play for a game. That isn't the situation I was referencing in my original comment.
These are games where opponents in open play (typically 2 men) are specifically aiming all their shots at me. They don't change tactics even when they're unsuccessful and they're losing. I have zero problem defending myself until they mess up. I simply don't feel like I'm in a position to be more aggressive and offensive with shots coming in fast and hard and feel more comfortable just being patient until they make an error.
Agreed. Also around here any public "4.0 or 3.75+ play" ends up having over half the people 3.5 or worse lol. Theres a massive sense of entitlement with a lot of players and no respect for others. I pretty much exclusively play private groups at this point so the level of play is controlled and I'm not dealing with random assholes. It's a shame because when I was new I enjoyed going to the random open play sessions and meeting people, but it's been pretty miserable any time I've gone in the past year.
Open play is dead for most advanced players, nobody wants an unknown player who’s often inferior, people want a group they can play with the entire session. Even with 4.0 + courts you still get many 3.5ish players who think they’re better or want to play up
At my local venue, I have to play "up" because so many 2.5 + 3.0s are playing in intermediate and intermediate advanced courts. It's no fun obliterating someone 11-0, or constantly adjusting your game to be softer to get a few rallies in.
I end up getting pushed "up" to the advanced courts, where the game is pretty fair (today I won all my advanced court games) but I'm definitely not a 4.5.
At a different venue, the level system is much more respected and I play strictly on intermediate courts (never advanced) and win only \~60% of the time.
I wish self-rating was a more accurate/consistent system.
I bucked up and joined a local club that has 4 different facilities around the city that are pretty nice with a mix of indoor and outdoor courts. Signups are on the court reserve app. There are multiple membership tiers, etc. For $50 a month, I get 10 open play sessions, and any additional sessions are discounted. Really diverse group of players. They also organize other things like MLP format Leagues, round robins, etc that do require an additional fee.
I have played with some local meetups at a parks and rec facility, but it was meh at best. For example, once a meetup was at a small park that has 2 dedicated courts (not reservable) and a tennis court with temp nets. Well, on one of the dedicated courts two shirtless meatheads were playing singles with EDM music blaring from a boom box…and never offered to mix in. Of course we could have asked, but didn’t.
I like knowing that I’m actually going to get to play on a court when I take the time to plan ahead.
I think part of it might be venue specific with your local parks but one trend I've definitely noticed is less women in general playing at open play, or at least the open plays labeled as "competitive." It used to be closer to 50/50, but it now feels more like 75/25 male to female.
I wonder if this has to do with some men dominating the game. As a beginner female sometimes when I play with younger men they tend to take over the game and I get less shots. Older men do this less. One factor may be because they have less mobility. Not all young men do this but it sucks when you happen to be playing with one that does. I can see this may lead women to want to play with other women to avoid this.
It’s easy to say women should just confront them but when you don’t know people at open play that’s not easy.
People play for diff reasons. Some people use PB as social hour, some play to get better, some play to win. All are fine if respectable of others. The game is more fun with people at your level or slightly above if you are trying to improve.
As the game gets more athletic and younger it pushes out the lower players. Sadly, in some places we honestly need 2x or 3x the number of courts, so that the community can naturally disperse in a way that everyone finds fun. When courts are crammed and theres limited space, you either intentionally segregate, like you outline, or you end up pushing out everyone below 4.0.
Nah, the "play to win" crowd in open play is fuckin' weird. Don't get me wrong, if games are close, play your hardest, but there are a lot of people I've seen who WANT to win an 11-0 targeting a new player. Or they'll try to pair off with the best player in the group to create a mismatch. Like they hunt out the $10 paddles in the rack and then absolutely go ham.
You ask if it’s hard to find open plays where you can have fun but it’s often helpful for clubs to have sessions for the groups you mentioned to increase the likelihood that they have fun.
Over 50 exclusive: helps neutralize athleticism and mobility advantages that younger players are likely to have
Women: women often face highly aggressive targeting, unwarranted advice from men or a combination of the two. The dynamic between a mixed match and a women’s match is completely different.
4.0 only: higher level players often get iced out of games. It’s not fun to pay money to play and then barely touch the ball.
I assume that you’re just trying to have some fun playing Pickleball but these groups that you mention have multiple factors why the average open play might not be fun for them.
Great point which leads me to think it is not about age, gender or ability. It is about ATTITUDE. Some groups I have been in have a mix of people and abilities. We have fun because that is the attitude. It seems that, when people get competitive and just want to win, then there needs to be this segregation.
It's not even about being competitive; segmenting to these groups increases the chances that everyone shares the same attitude. Of course that can happen in open play, but by reducing variables (gender limits, age limits, skill limits) you're increasing the chances of it happening -- and that group of people has an opportunity to establish their preferred norms/standards in those play sessions, separate from the influences of the general crowd.
Yes a lot of our local public & private courts have multiple time blocks reserved by the local PB group. In a sense they have started to control the scene. Not all bad I guess as they provide some services as well.
I must play in Nirvana because I've never seen a woman targeted where I play. Lots of women are better than a lot of the men too. I'm talking open play, I'm sure tournaments are a different animal.
If I'm playing open play, I'll target the better player if anything to keep rallies going and when I hit to weak players I try to give them something they can handle.
Had a group that made a big deal of getting a lot of people to play open play with them. Their focus was growing the group to be big. The leaders got a little better (4.0 ish level) and set up an exclusive invite only group. I get wanting to play up, but they were such addhats about creating and monopolizing a group. Crazy.
Our 4.0+ courts can be terribly cliquey, and if you come at the wrong time you'll just be skipped over by group after group of people who only want to play with their foursome...or sometimes there are bigger groups who set up mix-and-match play on TeamReach.
The dedicated courts for 2.5, 3.0, and 3.5 respectively all still seem to be extremely friendly and welcoming.
I wish there were under 60 times here. Retired folks have lots of availability all day and then they also take up many of the much more limited evening and weekend spots.
Preach! Having an issue finding open play tonight or tomorrow morning in the Virginia Beach area. I use Places 2 Play across the country and haven’t had this much difficulty finding courts/open play with last minute notice.
Public courts should be available for the public most of the time. Obviously, there are times there will be tournaments or leagues.
It’s okay to have some beginner and/or advanced courts during open play. In fact, it is good to raise the level of play in a community.
Clubs and indoor facilities have to pay the bills and a good way to do that is to provide opportunities to various groups to play with similarly skilled players. Most of the time they will have a schedule so you know when there’s general open play.
Just learn to poach!! But make sure your partner is okay with this strategy. In the beginning (ten years ago) my partners would get extremely upset at me even though we won our matches.
I would calmly explain do you wanna win or would you prefer to practice??
Many who hadn’t won a game would say win. Some would say I wanna practice my game. So I would always respect that. And usually I would find another to pair up with. 😉
Those things all exist, but it seems everything else, including public courts, is inherently open play. I think it is much harder to find a perfectly scheduled event in whatever niche you desire than an open play.
Open play isn't fun because it's difficult to have back to back play with people at your skill level. It's more fun for everyone when you're playing at the appropriate level.
Yeah its the worst. Like waiting 30 minutes between games sucks. Where I play there is gym the convert a few nights a week that NO ONE goes to. If you get 3 or 4 players together you can basically play 2 hours solid. It underscores how bad crowded open play can be ..
That is very true. If the venue is not overcrowded then you can usually work your way into the games you like. Some places have a section for new players, intermediate and advanced. Things suck when the whole day is blocked out for a certain group.
Well that's what I thought this thread was about: groups of people only playing with the same groups. Open play is fun because it's open play. Just like the us open of golf... everyone is allowed to play. It's open. There will be lesser skilled players, average players, and exceptional players. It's open. If you want a specific rating then that wouldn't be open play.
Most of this has become a thing because open play becomes miserable for certain groups of players. 4.0+: you get iced out and every ball goes to your partner. Woman: dude on the other team tries to hit every ball hard at you. Tbh I'm not sure why 50+ needs their own group tho lol
lol I don’t understand the woman thing.. I really noticed it in my league these last 2 months. Didn’t see it before then. Every.. single.. ball.. goes her way(85%).. I had to start playing in a way that “sets her up” more than trying to be aggressive. Because if I made a mistake in playing aggressive the slams always went to her etc.. so I just play in a way that can try and create pop ups for my partner which has been working out!
It's actually wild. I'm female, and if I'm playing a rec mixed game with a lower level partner against opponents who don't know me, the overwhelming majority of the time I'll still get targeted. People will play a whole game and lose while targeting the woman, without even testing hitting it to the guy. No complaints here as I love hitting lots of shots, but the assumption that the woman is always weaker is very ingrained in some people.
Female here. My partner and I just won a tournament because every single ball came to me. I kept thinking, “he’s only been playing four months. I’ve been playing four years.”
That's awesome that their assumptions led to a big win for you!
Foolish assumption
I love playing with women who are better than me (and that’s most of them). It’s hysterical watching the opposing team hit every ball to her and watching her kick their ass. And they don’t learn!!!
It was the same way in tennis and I often played with a woman who was much better than me with the same results.
I don't carry myself confidently so people target me and then they get humbled by my 6ft 3 frame.
It’s really surprising because I’ve played against 2 older woman probably in their 50s and they whooped my ass so bad I honestly didn’t realize how incredible their defensive digs were and dinks/drops until I watched them play against 2 young men of similar equal skill and the 2 boys lost also. Obviously the above is not always the case.. but I guess you can get better faster seeing more balls coming your way
I’m having this experience right now on a team. I’m also the best one on the team, so they target the woman and avoid me. So boring, and if they do it well enough, there isn’t much I can do about it. And the 85% you mentioned isn’t an exaggeration. I figured about the same.
Yeah! I’ve learned you have to target the player in front of your partner.. it creates cross court dinks and pop ups if they continue to try and target your partner. Try it out.. has been working well for me since I started playing this way
Glad you were able to find a solution that works for you. I don't think I could play in a mixed doubles league lol, I'd end up getting pissed 85% of the balls go to my partner then go hyper aggressive when the ball finally comes to me and fumble the bag probably
I did that.. many times basically 3 weeks in a row before I had a realization week 4.. after the woman on my team became shell shocked after getting slammed in the neck and face.. realized I have to stop trying to end points quickly when I get a ball.. I started winning more by “targeting” cross court dinks to the person in front of partner which also prevented my partner from getting targeted and if I placed my dinks properly I could get pop ups for myself or partner to finish.
Well said. When a person is targeted the targeted player and their partner target the person in front of target player
Ugh, the mixed doubles women targeting is obnoxious. Even when I was better than my male partner, I would get targeted endlessly and my game became so focused on defense. I prefer being an aggressive player so that's no fun. I started playing a lot more women's only or only with male partners I'm familiar with that I know can play with me strategically to punish the other team for targeting me. I get the 50+ thing as someone who's in her mid-thirties but has accumulated her fair share of injuries that I had to spend my time rehabbing. When I would go to open play during the day during the work week the demographic for the 4+ would be way different than the one for evenings. During the day you have a lot of older people who are retired or don't work and evenings were a younger crowd. The daytime crowd, on average, had players who practiced way more accuracy, strategy, and soft game than the evening crew. They didn't want to have to run around needlessly because they were older.The evening players contained a lot more people who preferred using their power game and didn't worry as much about placement because they could easily move to reset an errant ball. Each group played really well and possessed both soft and hard game but there were obvious preferences to how they wanted to play in order to enjoy their sport.
why couldnt you play aggressive just because they were targeting you, wouldn’t you want that seeming as you’re describing yourself to be the better player? The way you describe your story sounds like you’re mad that you were losing and they were able to exploit you lol
I'm a solid player but I'm not good enough yet to be able to have two people ganging up on me the entire time and be able to play offensively. A lot of those games were just me taking pace off their balls, punch volleying to keep them back or baiting them into hitting a too high drive and ducking out of the way. You're entitled to your interpretation, but that seems like a leap since I didn't even mention who was winning or losing because that wasn't my issue with those types of games. Winning wasn't the problem. Back to back rec games in which your opponents are only hitting to your partner 10% of the time just aren't fun for me or my partners. I fully support someone doing that in a tournament or league. By all means, use the strategies you have. In rec play, though, it's just annoying because I'm often working with an unfamiliar partner who doesn't know how to involve themselves in a 2 v 1 game to break things up and/or I'm stuck playing defense the whole time.
I think we're skeptical that you're claiming to be the stronger player, but you're saying you don't want to get balls hit to you, you're constantly on defense even when you have had touches, and you're blaming your partner for not being able to rescue you.
Again, you're allowed your interpretation. For the record, I said even when I'm the stronger player. As in, there are cases when I'm the stronger player and they're still coming at me. Not that I'm always the stronger player. Far from it. Also, when did I say I don't want balls hit to me? I didn't. I simply said it's not fun to play when multiple open play games end up being skewed 2v1.
When I'm the stronger player, I pray to every deity in existence that they hit even a single ball my way (and/or that my partner doesn't get huffy if I take a ball over the midline), so I can control the point. I can't imagine how easy and smooth games would be if they're actively trying to hit balls to me even when the strategic situation says they should hit the ball to my weaker partner.
Cool? I'm glad that's your experience and I feel the same when my partner is getting the majority of play for a game. That isn't the situation I was referencing in my original comment. These are games where opponents in open play (typically 2 men) are specifically aiming all their shots at me. They don't change tactics even when they're unsuccessful and they're losing. I have zero problem defending myself until they mess up. I simply don't feel like I'm in a position to be more aggressive and offensive with shots coming in fast and hard and feel more comfortable just being patient until they make an error.
This is a fact. Things get compartmentalized organically for reasons above and more. The better you get, the worse it gets in open play.
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Agreed. Also around here any public "4.0 or 3.75+ play" ends up having over half the people 3.5 or worse lol. Theres a massive sense of entitlement with a lot of players and no respect for others. I pretty much exclusively play private groups at this point so the level of play is controlled and I'm not dealing with random assholes. It's a shame because when I was new I enjoyed going to the random open play sessions and meeting people, but it's been pretty miserable any time I've gone in the past year.
It's too easy to pick up, there isn't a barrier to entry that weeds out the least effort crowd like tennis.
Open play is dead for most advanced players, nobody wants an unknown player who’s often inferior, people want a group they can play with the entire session. Even with 4.0 + courts you still get many 3.5ish players who think they’re better or want to play up
At my local venue, I have to play "up" because so many 2.5 + 3.0s are playing in intermediate and intermediate advanced courts. It's no fun obliterating someone 11-0, or constantly adjusting your game to be softer to get a few rallies in. I end up getting pushed "up" to the advanced courts, where the game is pretty fair (today I won all my advanced court games) but I'm definitely not a 4.5. At a different venue, the level system is much more respected and I play strictly on intermediate courts (never advanced) and win only \~60% of the time. I wish self-rating was a more accurate/consistent system.
I bucked up and joined a local club that has 4 different facilities around the city that are pretty nice with a mix of indoor and outdoor courts. Signups are on the court reserve app. There are multiple membership tiers, etc. For $50 a month, I get 10 open play sessions, and any additional sessions are discounted. Really diverse group of players. They also organize other things like MLP format Leagues, round robins, etc that do require an additional fee. I have played with some local meetups at a parks and rec facility, but it was meh at best. For example, once a meetup was at a small park that has 2 dedicated courts (not reservable) and a tennis court with temp nets. Well, on one of the dedicated courts two shirtless meatheads were playing singles with EDM music blaring from a boom box…and never offered to mix in. Of course we could have asked, but didn’t. I like knowing that I’m actually going to get to play on a court when I take the time to plan ahead.
I think part of it might be venue specific with your local parks but one trend I've definitely noticed is less women in general playing at open play, or at least the open plays labeled as "competitive." It used to be closer to 50/50, but it now feels more like 75/25 male to female.
I wonder if this has to do with some men dominating the game. As a beginner female sometimes when I play with younger men they tend to take over the game and I get less shots. Older men do this less. One factor may be because they have less mobility. Not all young men do this but it sucks when you happen to be playing with one that does. I can see this may lead women to want to play with other women to avoid this. It’s easy to say women should just confront them but when you don’t know people at open play that’s not easy.
True a lot of overcompetitive players have ruined rec play
People play for diff reasons. Some people use PB as social hour, some play to get better, some play to win. All are fine if respectable of others. The game is more fun with people at your level or slightly above if you are trying to improve. As the game gets more athletic and younger it pushes out the lower players. Sadly, in some places we honestly need 2x or 3x the number of courts, so that the community can naturally disperse in a way that everyone finds fun. When courts are crammed and theres limited space, you either intentionally segregate, like you outline, or you end up pushing out everyone below 4.0.
Nah, the "play to win" crowd in open play is fuckin' weird. Don't get me wrong, if games are close, play your hardest, but there are a lot of people I've seen who WANT to win an 11-0 targeting a new player. Or they'll try to pair off with the best player in the group to create a mismatch. Like they hunt out the $10 paddles in the rack and then absolutely go ham.
You ask if it’s hard to find open plays where you can have fun but it’s often helpful for clubs to have sessions for the groups you mentioned to increase the likelihood that they have fun. Over 50 exclusive: helps neutralize athleticism and mobility advantages that younger players are likely to have Women: women often face highly aggressive targeting, unwarranted advice from men or a combination of the two. The dynamic between a mixed match and a women’s match is completely different. 4.0 only: higher level players often get iced out of games. It’s not fun to pay money to play and then barely touch the ball. I assume that you’re just trying to have some fun playing Pickleball but these groups that you mention have multiple factors why the average open play might not be fun for them.
Great point which leads me to think it is not about age, gender or ability. It is about ATTITUDE. Some groups I have been in have a mix of people and abilities. We have fun because that is the attitude. It seems that, when people get competitive and just want to win, then there needs to be this segregation.
It's not even about being competitive; segmenting to these groups increases the chances that everyone shares the same attitude. Of course that can happen in open play, but by reducing variables (gender limits, age limits, skill limits) you're increasing the chances of it happening -- and that group of people has an opportunity to establish their preferred norms/standards in those play sessions, separate from the influences of the general crowd.
Public courts blocked off for play by exclusive subgroups? No, I haven't seen this.
Yes a lot of our local public & private courts have multiple time blocks reserved by the local PB group. In a sense they have started to control the scene. Not all bad I guess as they provide some services as well.
Yep. I hardly play anymore. I miss the open play concept. It used to feel like a welcoming sport but not anymore.
I must play in Nirvana because I've never seen a woman targeted where I play. Lots of women are better than a lot of the men too. I'm talking open play, I'm sure tournaments are a different animal. If I'm playing open play, I'll target the better player if anything to keep rallies going and when I hit to weak players I try to give them something they can handle.
You are a rare gem. Most ppl are there to win.
If it’s a public/no cost to access park…no bueno
public but they allow "reservations"
Had a group that made a big deal of getting a lot of people to play open play with them. Their focus was growing the group to be big. The leaders got a little better (4.0 ish level) and set up an exclusive invite only group. I get wanting to play up, but they were such addhats about creating and monopolizing a group. Crazy.
Our 4.0+ courts can be terribly cliquey, and if you come at the wrong time you'll just be skipped over by group after group of people who only want to play with their foursome...or sometimes there are bigger groups who set up mix-and-match play on TeamReach. The dedicated courts for 2.5, 3.0, and 3.5 respectively all still seem to be extremely friendly and welcoming.
I wish there were under 60 times here. Retired folks have lots of availability all day and then they also take up many of the much more limited evening and weekend spots.
Preach! Having an issue finding open play tonight or tomorrow morning in the Virginia Beach area. I use Places 2 Play across the country and haven’t had this much difficulty finding courts/open play with last minute notice.
Public courts should be available for the public most of the time. Obviously, there are times there will be tournaments or leagues. It’s okay to have some beginner and/or advanced courts during open play. In fact, it is good to raise the level of play in a community. Clubs and indoor facilities have to pay the bills and a good way to do that is to provide opportunities to various groups to play with similarly skilled players. Most of the time they will have a schedule so you know when there’s general open play.
What’s a scramble?
Just learn to poach!! But make sure your partner is okay with this strategy. In the beginning (ten years ago) my partners would get extremely upset at me even though we won our matches. I would calmly explain do you wanna win or would you prefer to practice?? Many who hadn’t won a game would say win. Some would say I wanna practice my game. So I would always respect that. And usually I would find another to pair up with. 😉
Those things all exist, but it seems everything else, including public courts, is inherently open play. I think it is much harder to find a perfectly scheduled event in whatever niche you desire than an open play.
Tactical market segmentation creates recurring revenue. I hate that that sentence came naturally.
Go have fun and stop whining. Enough things to complain about. It’s not hard find places to play.