Yeah, it's a welterweight battle. I'm still not convinced that these teams can hang with the big boys, but I've been wrong many times before. Copperfield takes on West Side this Thursday in a battle for early supremacy in 4.5 Division II.
Copperfield's singles were quite disappointing last week, as David McMullan lost to a newcomer (Samuel Holmes) and Mike Salinas was absolutely destroyed by veteran Lawton Park, who has mainly played doubles in recent years. That doesn't bode well for Copperfield's singles this week. Humberto Alzate has proven himself to be a capable and consistent singles player over the last year plus, and probably rates as a favorite over Salinas. At line one, Murray Fonseca made his debut last week, and scratched by Quack Bui, which makes me believe he's a decent player, but not an unbeatable one. He and David McMullan should have a competitive match.
Copperfield's doubles look solid. Last week they swept the Jedi Knights, even without Bryan Robins in the lineup. At line 3, they benefitted by playing against a 3.5 player and won't have that luxury this Thursday. It'll be interesting to see if John Kudrick will be able to dominate all year long at line one, even while seemingly playing with marginal partners. West Side has not lost a line in doubles yet this season, and yet other than Peter Hansen has few players (no players?) who've made it up to sectionals. Mike Hansen is a competent veteran. Stale Berge and Sean Lacy are unknown commodities, and Toshi Mochizuki and Milos Dimitrijevic are competent. The doubles are a tossup, and it appears the match between the two teams is too tough to call.
Lost Forest has revamped their 5.0 roster and appears to be the lone challenger to the Met's supremacy. They play Craig Bobo's 5.0 team this week in a match which could effectively eliminate the loser from contending for the trip to Sectionals.
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Maybe Cooperfield wil bring thier 5.5 ahhhhmmm 4.5 players out to play this week. My money is still on Westside, they are solid on every line and copperfield is not.
ReplyDeleteThe newcomer, Samuel Holmes, is a kid that plays for a local community college team. He's not bad.
ReplyDeleteHow about some 4.0 predictions and rankings?
ReplyDeleteDIVISION I:
ReplyDeleteCopperfield-Copperheads and Bear Creek win.
DIVISION II:
Chancellors, JCC, Cinco Ranch-Comets and Westside win.
DIVISION III:
Sienna-Top Spinners, SAP and Rolido Boys win.
DIVISION IV:
Hurricanes, Rice and Acers win.
1. Chancellors
1. Hurricanes
3. Copperfield-Copperheads
4. Sienna-Top Spinners
5. JCC
6. Rice
7. Bear Creek
8. SAP
9. Smokers
10. Lost Forest
11. Acers
12. Royal Oaks
13. Cinco Ranch-Comets
14. Rolido Boys
15. Copperfiled-Net Rushers
16. Westside-Pheonix
17-28. Others Remaining
Acers at #11? More like 20-28.
ReplyDeleteI imagine the Rice ranking is based on history and not this years specific team. Rice should not be in the top 10. They lost badly to an average Acers team last week 4-1.
Copperfield is way too high and no teams from Division III should be in the top 10.
Lost Forest should be higher.
Westside over Copperfield 4-1. Westside is every bit as good as Kingwood.
ReplyDeleteWestside vs. Copperfield:
ReplyDelete3-2 Westside
Kingwood vs. Met
3-2 Kingwood
Swing vs Sugar Creek
3-2 Sugar Creek
4.0 Rice didn't really have any ringers last year either but they somehow made it to the playoffs and sectionals...
ReplyDeleteYah, but they had Wade Karel and Quach Bui. Nobody like that on their team this year.
ReplyDeleteRice had a very nice team last year with Evelt, Strasser, Bui, Karel, Graham and a long list of similar players. Rice is down this year but how did they manage to lose to the Acers last week?
ReplyDeleteRoyal Oaks has a majority of the Lakeside guys from last year and they are 0-2. Are these teams down or if Division IV that tough?
Lakeside hasn't been doing so well since they lost all their single players. Plus the old men are older now and they can't hold their own in 4.0 anymore. I don't think to many people like that team... they are kinda shady, especially the old captain Don.
ReplyDeleteRice 4.0 has good but sort of rusty players this season. I don't think they were as gung ho about the season as much as they were in the past. That said, they do have good players and I'm sure they're just hoping that they don't peak at the end of the season or something.
ReplyDeleteTalked to a rice guy and he said they were down several players and were trying a sort of experimental lineup which apparently didn't work...
ReplyDeleteI think they'll eventually turn it around and they'll end up fighting for that 2nd place spot in that division. This week is a big match for them as they will host Rice. The loser will be fighting an uphill battle the rest of the season.
ReplyDeleteThey have been shady in the past. Very arrogant as well. I smiled when I noticed they were in the pool with the Hurricanes and even happier when I saw the 5-0 whoopin that was laid on them last week.
New blood in the Houston 4.0 playoffs this year as Rice and Lakeside (Royal Oaks) will probably be sitting at home.
Rice and Lakeside seem to be short on singles players. Rice may be 1-3 after their next 2 matches since it looks like they play Lakeside and then the Hurricanes. They better win this week and catch on fire towards the end of the season.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe Lakeside (Royal Oaks) will be a factor in 4.0 anymore. They use to recruit the young guys to play singles, which they might still do. The difference now is the older guys cannot win in doubs.
ReplyDeleteThose old guys can still win most doubles matches and they can beat most teams 3 out of 5 lines at the 4.0 level but hey definately are not king of the hill anymore.
ReplyDeleteI hope I can play as well as those guys when I'm that old.
What will happen in the Sssswing/Sugar Creek match up?
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling it will be 3-2 but I can't determine which way.
Day/Burmann = Win
Cooney = Win
Where is Sugar Creek's 3rd win going to come from? I don't see it if Rothe uses the same line-up as he did in his first match. Lets face it, he just about has to. One more loss and he can kiss the playoffs goodbye.
Ssshhhwings win 4-1 over Sugar Creek. Not going to be a good year for Douds and company.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately not many people want to play for Rothe, but he does have some good doubles combinations.
ReplyDeleteRothe may not be the same player he was a few years ago, but he is still a pretty good dubs player in my book.
ReplyDeleteAll the good player eventually leaves his team.
ReplyDeleteThen why can't Douds recruit better players? Everyone seems to like him but his team has stayed stagnent for years now. He has been litterally 1 or 2 players away from advancing to sectionals over the past couple of years. Burmann, Day and Cooney is a nice foundation but they can't carry an entire team.
ReplyDeleteGood, difference-making players are hard to come by. Ask any captain at any level.
Sugar Creek is a good bunch of guys, but who the hell wants to drive almost to Richmond/Rosenberg to play tennis after a hard days work.
ReplyDeleteKenley actually won all his matches last summer, even though he didn't play great competition.
ReplyDeleteCopperfield has a hard time recruiting guys too. The dynamics of their team has not changed much either. Kilshaw probably would to if he played out of somewhere North like KCC.
ReplyDeleteIn order to play on Copperfield you have to be a member. there is no recruiting going on like other teams.
ReplyDeletepediction is that Copperfield wins match 4-1 over Westside
ReplyDelete4-1, wow. Who do you think would get the 1 line for Westside?
ReplyDeleteNever have been a member of Copperfield, but have been asked if i was interested i joining their team.
ReplyDeleteNot sure who asked mr. anonymous to join the Copperfield team but being a member of Copperfield I can confirm that we can only recruit from members of the club.
ReplyDeleteGood win for Westside. They might be the team to beat.
ReplyDeleteSome One on the West Side team likes to toot his own horn. That team has no talent.
ReplyDeleteWestside in Div II is a very solid team. Have seen a few of their players compete and they do it well.
ReplyDeleteSo did Kingwood win last night?
ReplyDeleteSome seamed to be of the mind-set that Westside would get destroyed. A 4-1 win and the 1 loss was a 3 tie-breaker loss. That is decent for a no talent team.
ReplyDeleteseems like alot of teams got rained out... along with kingwood/MET
ReplyDeletePlayed Westside, they play well and are nice group of guys with good sportsmanship. Nice win.
ReplyDeleteGive Westside credit for winning. They beat a good Cooperfield team 4-1. That's impressive.
ReplyDeletegood job Westside! definitely the team to beat.
ReplyDeleteKingwood/MET got their singles lines started last night before the rain postponed all matches.
ReplyDeleteMills led Dibua 4-3, and Lopez led Hunckler 5-2.
Hunckler is a very good singles player, but Lopez was on fire.
ReplyDeleteLopez is a good singles, and he was not missing much last night.
ReplyDeleteHunckler
Did I see that Copperfield played Mike Salinas #1 and David McMullan at #2?
ReplyDeleteBefore the name calling gets going again I just wanted to mention that the Copperfield 4.5 team has a really good group of guys. Their whole team stuck around to start most of the matches at 9:00 Thursday so we could play indoors and get the match in. I know most of them had a long drive back so it was very cool for them to do that so we didn't have the headache of a make up. They have a really good team and we feel fortunate to get the win.
ReplyDelete