4.5 sectional bound:
LLTC-Mob Squad and MPTC-Kingwood Crush. Two teams that were the favs didn't drop a match and are headed to Dallas in a few weeks. Kingwood wins the playoff and is the city champ and Mob Squad will take the WC entry. Omon Dibua at line 3 doubles, this team is gooooood!!
4.0 sectional bound:
Hmmm. Let me guess yep Jason Freeman's Hurricane team is the city champ as they swept the Chancellor's Outlaws in the final. Is this team even better than the national rep from 2007. Knowing Jason and his will to win, probably. They await the Dallas champ who will be crowned next weekend. Not sure this Houston wild team will be a factor in Dallas.
3.5 lone sectional rep:
MPTC Racqueteers win 4-1 over one of 2007 Houston sectionals teams Sienna. Some impressive scores in the winner take all final. This team looks like they will be factor come August.
Hello Dallas world,
ReplyDeleteDon't think that Freeman's team is as good this year as last.
They are a good bunch, but lack the "sure thing" wins that were around last year.
The strategy last year was to have a sure win on one singles line with Sarosh and one doubles line with Kern/Viellux (sp?).
Following that they could easily pick up one more line of the remaining 3.
They lack the 'sure thing' lines this year. I watched it this weekend.
The Chancellor's team bearly survived all of the round robin matches 3-2 and some argue just were on the winning side of some no-ad 3-3 points and tiebreaks to make it there.
Their roster is depleted as one of the other captains protested their lack of membership to HTA (league requirement) and they lost several guys due to DQ.
Houston leagues play No-Ad???
ReplyDeleteYes, Houston is infamous for this. It favors the weaker team IMHO.
ReplyDeleteFormat is two sets with no-ad scoring and a third set tiebreak.
All leagues (fall, spring, USTA summer) are this format.
Najaros looked like he was overrated when he played us this weekend. Ben Ho should have beat him.
ReplyDeleteFreeman's team is deeper this year, but I think they lack the singles star quality that they had in Ahmed last year. Narajos is good, but he is not the ringer that Ahmed was.
ReplyDeleteKingwood is good, but not as strong in singles as last year. I hear injuries have plagued their singles players, but they do have a little less than a month to go before show time. Never underestimate their doubles: Valentine/Wright, and Hurlbert/Armstrong are pretty much untouchable by any team in Houston, and probably in Texas.
ReplyDeleteFreeman's team definitely looks better on paper than in person. Come sectionals, everyone will see that they are true 4.0 players. Kudos to Freeman for not sandbagging this year
ReplyDeletetranslation : kudos to Freeman for bringing a team out that will get beat this year.
ReplyDeleteGod forbid anyone that brings a team out and wins. If you win, you get blasted and taunted by the dallas bloggers. If you lose or bring out a weaker team, you get kudos....hmmmm what is wrong with this picture.
you guys in Dallas have to be the biggest whiners in the state. why don't you compete and try to keep up instead of whining so much. Go Houston, Austin, S.A - don't care - just not Dallas.
I don't think we whine much at all here we are just in little dry spell but we will be back very soon. I think most here know our 4.0 tennis is a little below Houston and Austin right now but these reigns much like in any sport are short lived and even more so in league tennis where nats teams are forced to separate an I have a feeling ESRs and end of season ratings will be more agressive this year.
ReplyDeleteI think someone talked about how at 3.5 there is a lack of organization to compete at sectionals with the likes of a Freeman or any other city who puts together a top tier team.
here is Dallas we have gotten so big in participation it is harder I think to do this so what we have is 5-6 solid teams with 1 or 2 high level players. It makes for really great competitive regular season tennis but does hurt us at the upper level.
If you ask me as much fun as sectionals are it is just one weekend as is nationals. League tennis was built for the weekends of our lives and I would rather have great matches all year long than just once or twice a year.
Good points Carey - We don't gripe in Dallas at all - a few sour grapes every now and then, but for the most part we have fun.
ReplyDeleteCome out and watch sectionals this year and you will see Dallas compete from 3.5-5.0 at every level - every line. The worm will turn this year and you will see some Dallas teams at Nationals very soon. We have some very good teams and a lot of our captains are starting to learn how to recruit and compile teams that can compete at the state and national levels. Dallas will be in the hunt - win or lose - and you won't see a lot of whining.
On the court Dallas guys are pretty good as well although you won't meet a nicer guy than Freeman. In our sectional match we matched up for essentially a spot at nats it was the most laid back match I have ever been a part of during the changeovers and between points.
ReplyDeleteof course I believe Dennis put it best a couple of weeks ago is that 95% of league tennis experiences are positive but there is always a couple of crazy people who make asses out of themselves and we usually tell those stories, don't know who those guys are I would never name names (Bob Northcut) oops I did it.
I also heard about the theory of maturity that is like an arc with juniors being on court babies and cheaters and then we mature abound 50-60 and then plummet into being crotchity old cheaters again as we end our tennis playing years.
The following comment equates too the fact that captains in Dallas are learning how to hide their ringers much better than before:
ReplyDelete"We have some very good teams and a lot of our captains are starting to learn how to recruit and compile teams that can compete at the state and national levels."
My posting is not a slam to finding ringers and playing them, because honestly, if you dont have them you will not make it through sectionals to get to nationals. Kudos to Dallas!!!
Breaking News!!! Starting in 2009, 3.5 league sectionals will be at the level of a Tier IV professional event, 4.0 will be at Tier III, and so on and so on.
Dallas sucks and Houston 4.0 will dominate
ReplyDelete