Thursday, October 25, 2007

Preview from Tuscon



Hey People,

I am taking input here on what you all want to hear/see from Tuscon.

  • Do you want the nuts/bolts of the scores?
  • Do you want to see pics of the facilities and lovely Tuscon?
  • LMK what you would like to hear/see and what you don't want to hear see.

Here is a summary of our opponents based on what information can be harvested from tennislink and/or the interweb...

All of this is pure speculation by an attorney and an anal retentive engineer. Take it for what it is worth.

All matches will be played at this public facility in Tuscon. It seems very nice and some feedback I have from people who have been confirm this.


NORTHERN CALIFORNIA (Friday 9a PDT/11a CDT):
  • We feel like this will be our 2nd hardest match in the pool (possibly hardest).
  • We play them off the bat so we won't have the luxury of seeing how our their players look in comparison to ours.
  • From a singles standpoint they have played the same two players in all 6 of their playoff matches with each posting a 4-2 record and being moved back and forth from line 1 (3-3) to line 2 (5-1).
  • Their doubles lines went 3-3 (line 1), 6-0 (line 2) and 5-1 (line 3). This leads us to believe they are either (1) very deep and consistent throughout their roster and/or (2) they stack on a regular basis.
  • We have not landed on a line-up yet. We are going to evaluate how everyone looks today during our practice session and see what makes the most sense.
  • These guys are from Redding...which is a town of 170k people about 3.5 hours north of SFO.
  • Most only play league. I see this as a small town "all star" team, since there were only 3 teams in their local league.
  • If they do play tourneys they play 4.5
  • Some/most of their people only played twice in league and then in sectionals once...these are the scary people...little is known.
  • All players are local to Redding
FLORIDA (Friday 130p PDT/330p CDT):
  • Their top singles player got DQ'd "after" their Sectionals final match (it looks like) so we are not sure if he will be available to play at Nationals....we think he might be eligible since his scores were not reversed at Sectionals.
  • It looks like this team only has 10 people eligible to play.
  • They seemed steady throughout Sectionals in their singles and doubles play but they did not seem dominant.
  • It looks like (on paper) this would be our easiest match.
  • e won't land on a line-up until after we see our results against NorCal and watch Florida's match against Southern.
  • All players with the exception of 3 play exclusively "open" level in tournaments, but play 4.0 in league.
  • There is one dude who plays 3.5.
  • These guys won state by set differential against Miami...they were lucky to win.
  • All of their players are from the panhandle area of FL
SOUTHERN (Sat 9a PDT/11a CDT):
  • We feel like this is the team to beat in our pool.
  • They really had to make a great run at Districts and Sectionals to even get to Nationals.
  • There has been plenty of chatter about this team on other blogs as well.
  • I believe they even have a corporate sponsor.
  • They also had their top singles player (9-0 in playoffs) get DQ'd after Sectionals and like the guy from Florida we are not sure if he will be eligible for Nationals or not....we'll find out.
  • We are hoping we are both 2-0 on Saturday morning and this turns into a real battle.
  • People are from Lafayette or west of Lafayette. No one was pulled from Baton Rouge or anywhere east..
  • Don't play a lot of tournaments
  • Most play 4.0 league in 2006 and 2007
SemiFinal (Sun 7a/9a):

Final (Sun 10a/12p):

With all this being said we completely understand how some teams work in that they hide their ringers up until Nationals and we may run into a buzzsaw at any point in time. However, we feel like we have a very deep team and at least 2 lines that can compete with ANY lines that will be representing their Section this weekend....and our other 3 lines are very deep.

18 comments:

  1. Jason/Chris - FYI - don't hold me to this, but I can't think of any situation in which a disqualified player would be permitted to compete at Nationals. There are only exceptions to the "lose all your matches" for DQd players (ie. Maria Taylor in 2006).

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  2. Great job with the preview y'all. I'd love to hear not only your results but what contributed to them as well as the thinking behind the strategy/lineups etc., whether they work or don't work.

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  3. I'd like to hear the most interesting stories from the tournament and the trip - who came back from a set and a break down to give you a 3-2 win for example, or who tried to raise hell against Sarosh or Kern, or what did the other teams say about you all or 4.0 nationals last year, and what did you do for entertainment in Tucson, etc.

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  4. definitely would like the lowdown of each of your matches as well as why you lined up the way you did against certain teams. I do think those late DQ's on those two teams should help. Best of luck today and this weekend, I will check my computer faithfully this weekend, bring back some hardware to TX!

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  5. I just saw the bad news, a 2-3 loss to Nor Cal. Must be some amazing talent up there. This further shows me I need to play 3.5 for awhile. It is a good the match was close though because it looks like this is a very tough flight and there may not be an undefeated team. Keep hope alive!

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  6. Well only ringers Ahmed and Kern were victorious for Freeman, as they went down to California in the first round.

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  7. I will have a summary in a bit. The ringer comment is way off.

    Very tight matches.

    We are headed back out there for the afternoon match.

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  8. I sure would like to get Freeman and others' take on the NorCal match. They have such a bad reputation, I hope they played us clean.

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  9. no I think the ringer comment is dead on, those guys self rated themselves and I have seen both of them play... Kern is definitely a 4.5 level player

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  10. And actually the ahmed and kern scores weren't close at all. Both blowout straight setters.

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  11. bitter much? if you are that upset about those two you should be happy the team lost. It jus shows a team needed more players like Kern and Ahmed to compete at that level so why be upset those two did well today. I am sure there are a handful of players that could hang with them or beat them not including the DQ'ed guys that got knocked before nats even started.

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  12. While Kern and Ahmed may have self rated initially, both of them have computer generated ratings from last year (Ahmed appealed down from 4.5...I assume his rating was within tolerance).

    I'm not second guessing the lineup choice at all, but I'm curious as to the thinking behind it as it was not exactly what I would have expected. Did having a second match affect the lineup choice in the first one? Is everyone available? I kind of expected to see Janek in the singles and Knutson in the doubles...I realize Knutson beats Janek head to head and is an excellent singles player. Would a lineup of Janek at 2 singles and Knutson at 3 dubs with either Wood or Patton (other shifting may have occured) have done any better? Who knows. I like to speculate on these things sometimes...

    Hacker

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  13. The mistake they did was that they played their strongest players at line 1 singles (sarosh) and line 1 doubles (kern). The other team put their weakest players at line 1 singles and line 1 doubles, which is why those matches where over in no time. Also, Knutson is indeed more worth in doubles. But because the Texas team lost due to a line-up mistake, there is still a reasonable chance, the other team will not go undefeated.

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  14. yeah, Goldberg should have played singles instead of doubles.

    here is the ideal line-up with the same players:

    singles: sarosh, goldberg
    doubles: kern-velleux, wood-knutson, tranpark-patton

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  15. absolutely to whomever said their problem was they played straight up. You NEVER play straight up at Nationals. That's your personal death wish. Someone gave Jason the advise to understand that there is no such thing as a ringer at Nationals because everyone else has ringers too. I bet he wishes he had taken that advise now.

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  16. So, at what point is someone out there going to acknnowledge that Texas is an avg to slightly above avg section at best. Freeman's 3.5 and 4.0 teams were supposed to be some kind of mega team and they've both faultered. As did both 4.5 teams. I think it's fair to say that there are a lot of people out there whining about these so called ringers. Looks to me like those whiners are the ones that are playing above their level and need to have a reality check.

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  17. Another one bites the dust. Freeman's team lost to Florida. Texas' so called ringers are not such ringers after all and all those complaining about them being ringers are weak (at best) at their level and shouldn't be playing there after all. CASE CLOSED! Quit F'ing whining!!!!!

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  18. It really is amazing when you think about how much they dominated at Sectionals. What are the whiners gonna say now? So, they were beaten by people who actually belong at that level.

    BUT, there was also validity to someone's point that Jason's team was mostly composed of Tournament stars and not true superstars.

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