I'm not going to do any kind of detailed preview, mainly because I haven't paid close enough attention to know who the strongest teams and hidden players are.
In 4.0 my perception is that Waco and Austin may be the two toughest (non-Houston?) teams. Unfortunately for the locals, both of those teams ended up in "our" flights. The Unicorns play Austin in their second match on Saturday after a morning match against Midland. One online ratings guru has Midland 4.0's with the highest average DNTRP of any city. Take that for what it's worth.
The 4.0 Hurricanes open up with Waco Friday morning, bright and early. At one point I had a lot of confidence in this team, thinking it ranked right up there with the 2011 team which finished second in the nation. That was before the Ronnie Cline DQ, injuries and defections all hit at once. It will take a monumental effort to get past Waco and its roster littered with ex-supers, former Juco players and Sectionals veterans.
I am not privy to the travel plans of all of the 4.5 Hurricanes, but this does not appear to be as strong a roster as some of the previous teams. They open up with Corpus, who usually show up with the same cast of characters while attempting to add a questionable ringer or two. Amarillo may be the team to beat in their flight. Also present is Wild Austin. Interestingly, Andrew Merritt has qualified for both that team and the Austin 4.0 team. I have no idea which team he's declared for, but if it's the 4.5 time, please remove the Austin 4.0 team from favorite status.
The Good-er Guys ended up in a flight with (usually mighty) Dallas, but may have a chance, as Dallas doesn't appear to be unbeatable. They do have a roster of 26 players, so it's hard to figure out just who their top lineup will be.
Best of luck to all of the locals.
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Thanks for the love Hacker, but I think you're giving us too much credit. If we can just win one match, well, that's one match better than last year!
ReplyDeleteBill Sanders
Do you guys think NOHO has a chance?
ReplyDelete4.0 or 4.5?
DeleteIt doesn't matter. The answer is no, either way.
Did NOHO add any 4.0s? It looks like their singles are weaker. Not seeing a lot of damage in Dallas this weekend. I did notice it is suppose to be in the mid 80s. Never seen that at sectionals before.
Delete4.5 Noho have Teague, Rassin, and Ballesteros that didnt play for the Hurricanes in the playoffs. I would assume they will play with NOHO in sectionals? If so, NOHO is better.
ReplyDeleteThat's funny. Those guys are terrible compared to good Sectionals players.
DeleteThe question is did they not play with the Hurricanes because the players wanted to play with NOHO or because the Hurricanes wanted them to play with NOHO.
DeleteThen why have these guys on the Houston roster if they were going to play with NOHO. NOHO gets a sectional bid without playing a playoff system. Safer bet than to play in the playoffs to get to sectionals, but very weak move. It would be interesting to see NOHO vs Houston.
ReplyDeleteJason needed them when his good players could not play in the regular season and they get some practice out of it. Win-win.
DeleteTo Anonymous 12:55 I have 7 wins and 4 losses at Sectionals and THREE trips to Nationals since 2004! In 2008 Huffman and I clinched the tie to go to Nationals. How many sectionals matches have you even played? Got anymore ignorant comments? Andres Ballesteros
ReplyDeleteActually, its 9-4, I forgot last year's wins with Rassin. Andres B.
ReplyDeleteNOHO 4.5 easily would have finished 2nd behind Hurricane in Houston and taken the wild card. Unicorn and Gooder Guys said the same last year and fell to primarily the same team. Ignorance is bliss!
ReplyDeleteNOHO is not as good this year. Who plays singles for them other than Coyle? There is no Jorge Cuesta this year. No Kevin Moran. No Quack Bui. They added Red Benzon but he is about 400 pounds now. I have no idea if Patrick Baer is playing for NOHO or Houston, but at least he's good.
DeleteAnybody check out through 4.0 flight with corpus San Antonio and Wichita?
ReplyDeleteI think Baer played on the Houston team in the cities playoffs. Doesn't that make him ineligible to play with NOHO in sectionals? He has to play with Houston. Does anyone think Houston can win it all this year? Andres you are a sensitive cat, prove it on the court.
ReplyDeleteHe still remembers those big wins from 6 years ago, though. Some of us were barely teenagers back then.
DeleteHow did Ballesteros do this weekend. How did NoHo do?
DeleteLooks like the Dallas blog has waived the white flag at 4.0
ReplyDeleteWaco or Houston?
ReplyDeleteThe Hurricanes were a little too strong for us this year again. (OK a lot too strong) Congratulations on winning flight 1 and good luck on Sunday. We are proud of what we put together in Waco this year, but the better team won, and deserves to move on. See y'all next year!
ReplyDeleteUnicorns and Hurricanes in 4.0 finals. Chancellor's probably 3rd best team in the state. They got f*cked.
ReplyDeleteOnly two teams from Houston can go to sectionals so if they're the third best team in Texas they're also the third best team in Houston.
DeleteAgain with Chancellor... you lost, get over it.
DeleteIt's real easy to "win" with 9 self rated players! Explain to me why a super, JUCO or D1 player would want to play 4.0 tennis?! It's laughable......but hey, they should feel so proud actuall beating computer ranked 4.0's! Pretty sad that Texas USTA is represented by leaguers who'll do anything for the "win"...��
ReplyDeleteBitter, party of one.
DeleteCan someone explain why there is a NOHO team? Do they really have any chance at sectionals? Silly
ReplyDeleteIts like you read my mind! You seem to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you could do with some pics to drive the message home a bit, but other than that, this is great blog. A fantastic read. I will certainly be back. wolves on tv
ReplyDelete