French Drake, Swiss Kyle, and a Bad Case of Ceiling Yips

After watching my first high-level padel tournament, and realizing how savage it was, I decided to play one myself. I was already going to be in Los Angeles to see Blue Man Group with my girlfriend and her family, so I signed up for the Padel Up USPA 500 event in Culver City. I did it for fun, but honestly, I also wanted to see if I could hang. My Vegas buddy John and I entered Division 2, which seemed spot on, but which ended up proving that I have no idea what level of player plays Division 2 at USPA 500 events, or what level of player I am.

Because I played two matches and lost both of them, basically to different versions of two guys who beat me regularly at my home club in Las Vegas. Those two guys, Drake and Kyle are the two youngest players at the club. They’re like 19 years old, played high school tennis and a few months ago started beating me and the rest of the older guys like drums. They’re nice guys, they’ve got great padel skills, but most of all they’re young and athletic and make me feel like a statue when I play them.

I bring up Drake and Kyle because like I said, both of the matches I lost in LA were against versions of those two guys. Fabian, playing the role of Drake, and Nima, channeling Kyle, pounded John and me like nails in the first round. Like the originals, these new Drake and Kyles were athletic, good players, super nice fellows and at least 30 years younger than John and me. They ripped through us like we were sitting in lawn chairs.

That match was also the first match I’d played indoors, which did not help. I like to lob and I like to lob high, so that my opponent has to wait a while for it to come down before making the decision on whether or not to hit it or let it bounce. That strategy proved unplayable on the indoor Padel Up courts due to the ceilings. During our warmup, I hit a few balls up toward the ceiling just to get the feel of how high I would be able to lob. The first ball didn’t make it to the rafter, but the second one bounced off it, allowing me to calibrate the optimum height for in-match lobs.

Unfortunately, I was an English major and my calibration is for shit. I only managed one lob over eight or nine feet high the entire match and that one pinged off the ceiling beam and hit John in the foot. Fabian and Nima smashed the daylights out of the rest of them for winners. Fabian framed one and ricocheted it unintentionally off John’s junk, which was probably the low point of the match for John. My friend Pete had come out to see what high-level padel looked like and spent the entire 45 minutes shagging balls like a Pony League mom.

And by the way, the ceilings at Padel Up are plenty high. Thirty feet. Which should be more than high enough. If you play there, you will be fine. I don’t know why I was so geeked.

For our consolation match on Sunday, we lined up against French Drake and Swiss Kyle, two young college dudes who both played tennis and smashed even more savagely than Fabian and Nima. My friend Pete did not attend, so we had to shag our own balls. John’s junk made it through this one unscathed, unlike our egos.

Look, I’m not saying they only beat us because they were younger. I am saying if they were our age, with nasty divorces under their belts, knee and hip replacements and, maybe some pre-diabetes, we would have kicked their asses. They didn’t hit those crazy shots you see on the YouTube. They were hitting the same shots we were hitting just harder, more accurately, more confidently and more often. They ran faster, jumped higher, did not sweat. They didn’t sit down, drink electrolyte water or snarf bananas on changeovers like we did. They just switched sides, stood there not sweating and politely gave the old guys a chance to catch their breath.

Age is a real thing in sports, man. That’s why even golf kicks old guys onto the senior tour. Back in the day, I overheard a reporter ask Jimmy Connors, who was 46 and headlining the senior tennis tour, how he rated his level of play. He said, “I’m hitting the ball as well as I ever have,” which made no sense. He was visibly not the Jimmy Connors who had beaten Aaron Krickstein in five sets at the U.S. Open on his 39th birthday. What I understand now is that what he meant was: “I’m hitting the ball as well as I ever have…WHEN I CAN REACH IT.” He wasn’t talking about his hands. He was talking about his feet. The strokes were still there. He just couldn’t always get to the ball like he used to.

The whole you-kids-get-offa-my-lawn thing I was feeling made meeting Jose Romero matter more to me than it might have otherwise. Jose, who is Venezuelan and bald, not only won the Division 2 draw that week, but also the third division title two weeks earlier at the USPA 2000 event in Las Vegas. He’s in his early-thirties, has a full-time job at Apple and resembles neither Drake nor Kyle in any way. Apple pays him, but he told me his real job is trying to win as many padel tournaments as he can. In LA, he and his partner, Carlos Ramos, a Spanish version of Drake/Kyle, who had played tennis in college for St. Mary’s, tuned up Fabian and Nima 4 and 3 in the second round, and dominated the top seeds in the semis before rolling through the final.

In addition to a plaque, Jose and Carlos won a couple of nice bottles of liquor, which was appropriate because Jose, at least, was old enough to drink them.

You kids get offa my lawn.