Lebron!!!

Why the title? I didn't wanna' be the only guy on the entire internet NOT to have mentioned Lebron (and yeah, I WAS at home watching him instead of heading out to the courts).

The match between Lakeside and Westside was big, not quite Lebron big, but it will go a long way towards deciding who will win citywides. Westside took a huge step towards Dallas by winning 3-2. Any Pio Davila doubters should finally be silenced as he absolutely trounced Quack Bui 6-2, 6-0. Lakeside was without Glenn Wright and Tommy Connell, which probably made the difference. Peter Hansen and Milos Dimitrijevic pulled out a third set breaker to give the Black Sheep the edge. With Houston getting a wild card, one loss is far from fatal for Lakeside. Two losses MIGHT even be able to get a team to Dallas if everything breaks right.

A good night for the Hurricanes as they pulled out two 3-2 wins in the 4.5 playoffs. The Hurricanes II - Deucebags match came down to the end. David Guy was the top singles guy on the first team I ever played on, way back in 1997. Thirteen years later, he's still playing the same level of tennis, and still grinding out clutch wins. You look at his results every year and you see losses in HTA matches to people like Chris Sandblom, David Romero, Alex Ellingsen et al. and wonder why he ends up playing singles at Sectionals...and winning. He did it again last night, pulling out a three setter against Hung Nguyen of the Deucebags to give the 'Canes a 3-2 win.

The topic du jour, as usual, seemed to be Alain Tran's lineup, as he and Trey Dugas were on the sidelines. I have never talked to Alain about it, but I just think he has a different philosophy from everyone else. I think he has confidence in all of the players on his team and feels they can all win and all deserve a chance to play. It's not like back in little league, where you were required to throw the fat kid with the coke bottle glasses out in right field for two innings a game. Alain truly believes his guys should be out there. Khang Quach and Bobby Trinh rewarded Tran's confidence by beating Chec/Hunckler.

The story for Freeman's teams were the 4.0 bumpups. Many of my old teammates acquitted themselves well last night. Tam "Pippen" Phan and Aaron Greene won at line 1 for the Hurricanes II. The Hurricanes III got all of their wins from Freeman 4.0 alums in their 3-2 win over Westheimer Indoors. Sarosh Ahmed continued his streak at #1 singles, Chambert/Grego (SAP 4.0 alum) took out Day and Marco in straight sets and Foster/Morris won at line 3.

One would have to say that the odds are now in favor of one of Freeman's teams advancing to Sectionals. Thankfully, the two teams are not playing each other at the end of the playoffs...both teams will have incentive when they play each other.

Nothing too exciting happened in the 4.0 ranks. There was a minor upset in 4.0 as the Nights took out the first place Acers 3-2, taking all three third set breakers. Prahlad Enuganti pulled out a clutch three setter against Dan Le to give the Nights the edge. The Acers were missing top doubles player Don Obenrader.

Chancellor's won fairly easily over the first place CR Comets. On paper I suppose this was an upset. Cuong Truong won the big battle at number one singles against Mal Patil in a battle of unbeatens after dropping the first set 6-1. Danh Mai again was solid in singles for the Ace Kings. (Big Slicks?)

The 4.0 Hurricanes romped past Westside Phoenix 5-0, as expected. I don't see a roadblock for that team in their flight.