The most surprising result of the night was the loss by the 4.0 Hurricane juggernaut to the lowly Columbia Lakes squad, which had its first victory of the season last night. The Hurricanes have their division locked up, so the match had no bearing on the standings. However, it will be interesting to see if/how this affects playoff positioning. In my mind, the Hurricanes are still the top team (I still have Lakeside as number two despite their loss). However, I don't make the seeding, and it might be hard and/or unfair for Lera to seed teams on reputation. There may be three undefeated teams when all is said and done, and if any seeding advantage is to be gained, they should be the recipients.
In other matches last night, both 4.5 Hurricane teams won key battles. Sarosh Ahmed and Bharath Gururaj won tight singles matches with Antoine Ford and Simon Jim. Coach Douds surprised everyone by splitting up the Burrmann/Day duo. No Way Out didn't offer the other Hurricane team much resistance as Chris Towle became playoff eligible for the 'Canes.
In 5.0 play, Aadrian Hasker had a great win against Alim Mambetov as the Met team continued to roll on their way to Sectionals.
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once again, their was drama during an ahmed match. in addition, ford blew 4 match points, but give credit to ahmed for playing tough
ReplyDeleteIs the 4.0 loss a surprise or a don't care at this point? The nearest team is 4-4.
ReplyDeleteIt's a little of both.
ReplyDeleteWow, 4.0 division IV has 3 teams with 4-4 records and Rolido Boys in 5th place with a 3-4 record. Each of these teams play each other in the next 2 weeks. None of them will make any noise in the playoffs but it will be interesting seeing how the 2nd place spot plays out.
ReplyDelete4.0IV is definitely an interesting division. The Rolido Boy's and the Lobster's chances don't look so good since they have to still play the Hurricanes again. Unless the Hurricanes have another brain cramp, both of them will end up behind the winner of the JCC/Nights battle next week.
ReplyDeleteGiven that that match is indoors at the JCC, I'm favoring the Dudes.
top 20 singles:
ReplyDelete1. lock 3-0
2. bharath 3-0
3. bui 5-0
4. borkop 3-0
5. h.nguyen 2-0
6. moser 3-1
7. hess 3-1
8. davila 4-0
9. fonseca 1-0
10. cooper 3-1
11. alzate 2-1
12. kent 0-0
13. martinez 3-0
14. mccool 1-1
15. ahmed 2-0
16. ford 4-2
17. callaway 3-1
18. guy 1-0
19. jim 3-1
20. narajos 1-1
So who will win division 3 in 4.5's ? Looks like 2nd place will come down to the wire.
ReplyDeleteLast night I watched an epic match up that really exemplified USTA tennis. I watched a very good self-rated 4.5 play a 4.0 bump up in singles.
ReplyDeleteThe 4.0 bump up was clearly angling to get double bageled so he could drop back down to 4.0. The 4.5 self-rate on the other hand was trying not to blow out the player to avoid being DQ'ed (or bumped to 5.0).
I won't go into details, but let's just say that there were lots of double faults and bizarre errors at critical points. In the end, it turned out OK for both of them with the self-rate winning in very sound, but not quite overwhelming fashion.
Remaining big matches:
ReplyDelete4.5
Div. I - Duecbags v Katy Coaches; Sssshhwing v. Katy Coaches
Div. II - done
Div. III - Hurricanes v. Copperfield; Copperfield v. Westheimer
4.0:
Div. 1 Lakeside v Glenloch
Div. II SAP v. Westside-Phoenix
Div. III - done
Div. IV - great battle for 2nd - JCC-Dudes v. LLTC-Nights
Div. V - done
I forgot to mention that the two Cinco Ranch teams played last night with the Comets beating the Aces. Self-rates Boris Barrios and Tim Rogers continued their dominance for the Aces.
ReplyDeleteOnce again it looks like Capt. Douds blew another key match for his own team. Ken you are constantly blowing it for your team every season. Are you tanking your matches so you can play 4.0 next season? You have a pretty hefty roster, anybody else could have played line 3 and get the W for the team
ReplyDeleteThat is an ignorant comment. Douds had a great lineup out there last night which gave him 2 out of 3 doubles lines. I think most teams would take that against the Hurricanes (or any team for that matter). Ken has done a great job and his team is still very much in the running for a playoff spot.
ReplyDeleteWhat would you have done different?
it's not douds fault. don't know what happened to ford last night, but i've seen him play better. he should be beating players like ahmed 6-3, 6-3. he had at least 4 match points. one of them was a simple, "just get it in the court and you win" backhand volley. at the very end of the match, ford looked drained and ahmed looked fresh. ahmed was being a punk at the very end, maybe that took ford off his game.
ReplyDeletehow was ahmed being a punk?
ReplyDeleteSarosh made several questionable calls (big surprise, huh?) and then started stalling and acting like a punk. Give him credit for playing well, but what an ass.
ReplyDeleteThere was no doubt there was some gamesmanship going on by both players. Antoine wasn't an angel and I didn't see any questionable calls, just questionable actions by both players. Even so, it was a fantastic match as both players playerd hard and were hitting well. It was a fun and entertaining night at Westheimer. Kenlee always is a great host.
ReplyDeleteWhat players on the roster of the 4.5 Hurricanes II team are doing a good job to get them through the playoffs?
ReplyDeleteSarosh is known for making questionable calls, bad reputation there but I think its reasonably allowed to be an ass on the court at this league, this level
ReplyDeleteWow! Great win by Hasker over Mambetov in the 5.0's. He got smoked by him a month ago. Looks like the Bobo/Toney Team has wrapped up the 5.0 Division and are headed to the Big D. The Willowfork team that made it to Nationals 2 years ago has 3 losses now and is out of contention.
ReplyDelete4:34pm is right that it is allowed to be an ass on the court. However, it is equally allowed for everyone to revile someone for being an ass.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, almost all of us play because we enjoy the game and its competition. Folks like Ahmed spoil that enjoyment for many of us and richly deserve the scorn of others.
11:46AM, I would agree with the general thesis of your statement with the caveat that an overwhelming amount of "scorn" that is directed at players/captains/league officials on this blog (and others) come from people with no first hand knowledge of who they are scorning and/or what they are scorning about. There are very few honest brokers that post in these arenas, hence the 90+% anonymous postings.
ReplyDeleteSays the anonymous intellectual in a run on sentence.
ReplyDeleteany reason why the scores are not posted yet for canes vs titans
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to Chris Towle. He and Kayla welcomed their newest into the family this morning. Pressly Kay
ReplyDeleteCongrats, Chris. Good luck on balancing family and tennis. My kids sucked many a good year out of my game, but it was well worth it to spend time with them as they grew up.
ReplyDelete