Thursday, April 29, 2010

4.0 Week # 4

Flight A
Canyon Creek/Broach Garland/Brueckner Winner: Garland
Brookhaven/Bartlett Dallas Country Club/Sillers Winner: Brookhaven
High Point/Somabut Huffhines/Prather Winner High Point (Big Time!)
Fretz/Albrecht Oak Creek 3/Smith Winner: OC

Highpoint pulled out a tight match vs Garland last week.
That may have been the toughest match of the regular season for them.
But you should not overlook OC and BH, neither them will roll over for HP.

Flight B
High Point/Bazan Fretz/Chen Winner: High Point
T Bar M/Brown Lifetime Fitness/Arcaria Winner: TBar
JCC/Tanguy Eagles Landing/Woolley Winner: JCC
Garland 2/Sisk Brookhaven/Pearlman Winner: Garland

Bazen will try to get the wheels back on this week vs Fretz, Fretz is no push-over but HP should prevail. Garland v Brookhaven should be a pick-um, but I will give the edge to Garland.

Flight C
Greenhill/Kayser Village/Gordon Winner: Grennhill
Eldorado/Hampton LB Houston/Parsons Winner: LB Houston
Garland 1/Sisk Oak Creek 1/Smith Winner: Garland
Springpark/Doyle Royal Oaks/Brauer Winner: Royal Oaks

The best match of the week in this flight will be Garland v OC,
OC always seems to come up just short of Garland everytime they play, I see a 3-2 Garland victory.

Flight D
Stonebriar/Moomjian Springpark/Femrite Winner: Stonebriar
Oak Creek 2/Smith Lakes Tennis/Foy Winner: Lakes
Huffhines/Ratcliffe High Point/Jameson Winner: Huffhines (Go Grandpa!)
Greenhill/Morrison Stonebridge/Muniz Winner: Greenhill
Epic Fail of the Week
Greenhill/Morrison
Say it ain't so BMo, is the season over before it even began? Upstart Lakes delivered a mighty blow to the guts of the Greenhill team. Can they Recover? Can the Lakes keep it up, Maybe a let down this week vs a veteran OC team? We will find out.

Flight E
High Point/Entrekin JCC/Schachter Winner: JCC
Village/Johnson Samuell Grand/Robberson Winner: Village
Canyon Creek/Ferrell Eldorado/Browning Winner: Canyon Creek
Northwood/Moir Westlake/Davis Winner: Northwoods

Yawn, No Comment, Whatever........


Go Tennis Player Men!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Dallas USTA 4.5 Men Flight B & C –week 4

Corey is studying for his final exams (Good Luck!) so I will fill in for him this week again on flights B & C.


Flight B:


There are 3 unbeaten teams in this flight: Lakes, Brookhaven & Las Colinas. But that will change after this weekend.

HP/ Nguyen are playing the dangerous game of relying on their wildcard and coasting through the season. Hopefully for their sake they won’t get complacent or forget how to win….. winning is a habit and the hunger is important for a winning campaign (ok, ok– I know I’m not Dr Phil). I think Hai and co know what they are doing though and they now have a 20 man roster (I think more are still to be added) who are probably beating up on each other (in a good way) during weekday practices to stay sharp. I think they will bounce-back this week and take down TBar who have been surprisingly competitive so far. HP 4-1

Brookhaven have a routine week vs LBH/ Jones. Forecast: BHaven 5-0

Garland Sisk will likely build on their Week 2 thrashing of LBH and beat Oak Creek 2 handily. Sisk 4-1

DFW have the bye this week so…….

Match of the Week will be Lakes vs Las Colinas. One of these teams will lose their unbeaten status. It looks like Thomas Wagner is moving to singles and had an impressive win last week over Blumberg. This move could be a good one for a Lakes team that in the fall struggled to find singles strength to support their deep doubles talent. I’m picking the Lakes 3-2

Flight C:

Congrats to Corey and his team on taking down Royal Oaks. 3 & 0 to start with that schedule is impressive. They should cruise this week against LBH/ Wise. Garland 4-1

Royal Oaks will get back to their winning ways against SpringPark. Royal Oaks 4-1

Lifetime have an easier week this week playing JCC. Lifetime 4-1 (but could be 5-0!)

Greenhill have the bye this week so…….

Match of the Week (kindof) in this flight will be HP/ Bowman who are playing the dangerous Gleneagles Juhn team and need a pick me up after their disappointing showing against Lifetime. I’m going to go with the upset here. HP 3-2

Thursday, April 22, 2010

4.0 Week # 3

There were a lot of team who could not manage to squeeze their match in last week.
So there is still much to be determined in the flights.

Flight A

Team Somabut played their first match last week and won 5 - 0 including dropping a double bagel bomb at line #3 doubles.
This week they will be taking on a tougher opponent in Garland/Brueckner, Garland lacks depth but they have potential to pull an upset here and make things interesting.
This weeks winners: BH, HP, DCC (the 5 man Wrecking Crew), and the OC.

Flight B

After taking a week one loss to TBar Garland will be out for revenge vs Lifetime.
This match looks a lot like the the 3.5 city play-offs from last season, I'm picking Garland based on team depth, but Lifetime is capable of rolling out 3 lines that can win. We will see if the BigUnit can come up big this week.
This weeks winners: GAR, TBAR, FTZ, and BH

Flight C

Garland 1 will get their first match in this week vs the Village.
Everyone else is competing for 2nd in this flight
this week's winners: GAR, GE, LB, AND RO

Flight D

The Lake get their chance to prove that they are for real this week vs Greenhill, the odds are small (10 to 1?) but you never know. The Greenhill team added a "Nikolay Frolov" who appears to be a self-rate, anybody have any information? Rattcliff takes on Stonebridge in his continuing effort to be competitive, Sorry Ed I don't see a win this week.
This weeks winners GH, SB, SP, and HB

Fight E

The red-headed stepchild flight.
I really don't know what to say, JCC looked ok last week? I don't know.
Winners: JCC, ED, CC, and VIL
Go Tennis!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Dallas USTA 4.5 flight C

So obviously as a new 4.5 I do not know everyone at 4.5 and am still learning about the team and players but fortunately the usta website has a lot of information on records and past matches so I can use some of that as a guideline. The objective here is to promote some polite debate without name calling. I’m sure some of you will disagree with my views or predictions and I’m sure I will be wrong often but we are trying to get some interest going. In an attempt to avoid biased opinions, I am reviewing Flight C because it is the flight Corey’s team is in. My team is in flight A which he will cover.

Matches so far:

Heart-breaking loss for Lifetime in week 1 to Garland/ Noel! This was really close and obviously in Nicklaus Clifford, Lifetime has yet ANOTHER stud singles player to add to an already impressive list. I know a few guys on the Lifetime team and they are tennis fanatics so that small roster is actually pretty big for them as most are available every week and want to play. I expect that the rain influenced match against SpringPark will go Lifetime’s way and they will get on track. Anyway, they were unlucky to lose in week one behind strong singles - only a 3rd set breaker separated them from a win.

Royal Oaks had a bye in week 1 but rolled through LBH/ Wise quite easily in week 2. I know more of the guys on LBH/ Wise and there are some useful players on that roster but no super stars. In contrast, based on their past records, that Royal Oaks team looks salty and a team to be reckoned with.

In week 1 LBH played against the Juhn team that relocated from Oak Greek to Gleneagles. Interesting to see the tough team of Wittington and Benjamin broken-up. But they cruised to a 4-1 week 1 win. I don’t know many of their other players but Frank Vo has a solid record and this team shouldn’t be taken lightly. In week 2 they gave Garland/ Noel another tough match with a third set breaker separating the 2 teams. Garland could easily be 0 & 2 at this point but they are not and that will make them breathe a lot easier going into a third consecutive week of tough tennis against Royal Oaks. Wouldn’t mind getting this on PPV!

JCC had a bye in week 2 but had a rough outing in week 1 against HP/ Bowman who clearly should not be underestimated! Kyle & Co very nearly followed-up their opening win with an upset of the fancied Greenhill team who scraped through via a deciding 3rd set breaker 10-8 win by Griggs over an ever improving Oleg.

Greenhill move to 2 & 0 after their routine week 1 win over SpringPark.

Week 3 match-ups:

LBH/ Wise have the bye and an opportunity to get back to the drawing board and figure-out what the dubs partnerships should be and maybe if Jason should put himself out there at singles!

JCC play Greenhill and I expect a fairly comfortable Greenhill win this time. Depending on who JCC have available they have an outside chance with either Lieberman or Solomons as they are both good, but based on record Howard & Wallace (Griggs is likely out as he is playing the tourny at Brookhaven) look too strong for any of the JCC singles guys. Lutes and Reiman together will be a tough line for Greenhill to overcome but other than that I don’t see another line for JCC to scratch a win from. Forecast: Greenhill 4-1

SpringPark play the Juhn team and I expect Juhn to put in another strong performance and win 3 lines comfortably and probably take a 4th. Juhn 4-1

LifeTime and High Point will be a really good match-up but Lifetime’s singles is too strong and I see them sweeping singles and they’re good enough to get 1 or 2 lines of dubs. I think the dubs matches will all be close but Lifetime prevails – probably 4-1 but 3-2 is possible

Match of the Week will be Royal Oaks vs Garland/ Noel, as alluded to above, a third consecutive tough outing for Corey’s squad. Can they squeak out a 3rd win? If so I think they will then be on cruise control for a play-off spot until they meet Greenhill in their last week but if they lose the top guys will have to play every week to make sure to overcome those opening close wins and thereby find an edge in tie-breakers. Royal Oaks 3-2 (sorry Corey, this result will keep the flight interesting especially with RO still having to play Juhn, GHill & Lifetime)

Friday, April 16, 2010

4.0 Week # 2

I don't know if you Jerk-Asses noticed.
But I went 15 - 1 in my picks last week, Suck on that!

That exhaustive write up last week took me 3 days.

I don't have that much time this week so here is the down and DuRRRRRty.......

I had not notice last week but since there is and odd number of teams in Fight E their first match is this week.
So everything said last week stands.

Flight A
Somabut will make his debut this week,
Dallas CC was victimized by a very strange DQ.
Brookhaven showed that they ned to be taken seriously in this Flight.
Winners this week...HP,GH,GAR, and HUF

Flight B
HP/Bazan needs to bounce back this week if they have any hope of keeping pace.
Garland's "B" team also took a big hit last week but should bounce back vs CC
Brookhaven had a statement win vs HP last week.
This weeks winners HP, GAR, BH, and EL

Flight C
DuRRty Debut this week vs GH/Kayser
Winners this week...GAR, GE, RO, and LB

Flight D
BMo rolled last week, should be the same story this week.
Can anybody step up to challenge them?
Winners this week...SB, GH, SB, and LAK

Go Tennis!

Monday, April 12, 2010

3.5 Week One Approaches - Is Excitement on the Horizon, or just a "Watered Down" Level

3.5 gets underway this weekend. Does anyone on the blog care?

The teams are mainly comprised of the "left-behind" 3.5ers and last year 3.0s mixed in with a gob of self rates. I will make an initial assessment of the flights and then we can see what level of interest there is in the discussion.

Flight A - Garland Sisk. Need I say more? He already has 19 on the roster and players from all over the city. I see 5 self rates so I am sure there is a ringer or two in there somewhere. I really don't see any other teams in this flight causing him to lose sleep. JCC Mellman has some decent players and Mellman has been captaining for sometime, but I don't see them threating GTC. LB Houston Tinner is now back in the picture being bumped from 3.0. Brookhaven appears to have their B team in this flight. Greenhill has a team but most of the players have losing records. I am already starting to yawn....zzzz....

Flight B - Brookhaven Alzuro has seemed to gathered the more respected players from the club with a mix from his last year's 3.0 team and 3.5 team. No real standouts or ringers but the season is early. High Point Vincent are several players coming from Bender's 3.0 team from last season and thus I would imagine they should fare well. Gleneagles and Stonebridge have stacked their rosters with 19 & 18 players, respectively, yet there are only 7 matches to be played. I see nothing in either of those teams getting their players post-season play. Village is back but think Brookhaven and HP will fare better. Wild Card - Las Colinas as the new-comer with 8 self rates. You never know but I doubt there is anything there.

Flight C - High Point Bender - as with Sisk, speaks for itself. Appears to have the stronger of his talent from last year's 3.0 and added a few 3.5 left behinds. Not too many self-rates yet but it is early. Oak Creek I have to mention, not because of any depth of talent, but because they added Thomas Mus to their roster (last name on the roster)which comes from the Fall City Champs and thus gives this team the golden ticket to the QT, regardless. Garland has another team but I can't imagine there is much talent on it as Big John would have them playing for him. The Four Season is a new-comer to the league and has a record breaking 10 self rates. Welcome to the new 3.0. (I say that because that is the only level you would expect to see that many self rates on one team.) Who knows what they have but have to admit that the players who get to play their matches there are lucky. Beats GTC !!

Don't see any exciting matches until the post-season with it coming down to Bender and Sisk duking it out in the finals. Just made my job easy.....

Comment.....

P.S. Anons - you can use a bogus email to post (i.e. smith@aol.com). Don't let the new format hold you back !!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

4.0 Week #1 - Let the Games Begin

With the sheer amount of teams in the 4.0 Div it's a bit intimidating to do a write up for each division. So I will take them one at a time. (And if Lucky Thunder would like to jump into this post and help me out that would be great.)
Let start randomly with Flight B

JCC/Tanguy vs Bye
T Bar M/Brown sv Garland 2/Sisk
Brookhaven/Pearlman vs High Point/Bazan
Canyon Creek/Heflin vs Eagles Landing/Woolley
Lifetime Fitness/Arcaria vs Fretz/Chen

Interesting match here with HP vs Brookhaven, Cary's team has some good 4.0 players who managed to avoid the bump up in Bowman, Tuorto and Gomez. But can you ever really pick against the team that has the league coordinator on it?
T-Bar has a nice thick team and usually does well.
Lifetime and Fretz are both chocked with 3.5 bump-ups and only have 10 players on each team and 10 is not enough for the long haul.

Next Flight A...
High Point/Somabut vs Bye
Brookhaven/Bartlett vs Fretz/Albrecht
Oak Creek 3/Smith vs Canyon Creek/Broach
Greenhill/Arnette vs Huffhines/Prather
Dallas Country Club/Sillers vs Garland/Brueckner

Somabut's team looks pretty solid but still needs some depth,
Bartlett should give Bob a good run in this flight.
Both Oak Creek and Garland have some nice pieces on their teams, but need more players.
Those should be your top 4 teams in this flight.

Next Flight C....
Garland 1/Sisk vs Bye
Eldorado/Hampton vs Springpark/Doyle
Royal Oaks/Brauer vs Greenhill/Kayser
Gleneagles/Fults vs Oak Creek 1/Smith
LB Houston/Parsons vs Village/Gordon
Since 4.0 is the new 3.5, it's going to be tough to dethrone the "King of 3.5" John Sisk.
He has put together what I surmise to be the "Best" Dallas 4.0 team and should take this fight easily.
My Dark Horse in this flight is Gleneagles, I look for them to finish 2nd.
Flight C - Garland. End of conversation.

Next Flight D....
High Point/Jameson Bye
Oak Creek 2/Smith vs Greenhill/Morrison
Stonebridge/Muniz vs Stonebriar/Moomjian
Hackberry/Myers vs Huffhines/Ratcliffe
Lakes Tennis/Foy vs Springpark/Femrited

This is BMo's flight. Greenhill has been the pre-season pick of may on this site. Oleg and Bergeron are good singles players and they have some solid doubles options, but I'm not quite sold on this team yet. A big question here will be how well BMo can manage his personnel. StoneBrair has a deep team with some nice players, and Caras has a win over Oleg. Look for these two team to battle it out for the #1 spot.

Last Flight E ...
Canyon Creek/Ferrell vs High Point/Entrekin
Village/Johnson vs Northwood/Moir
Samuell Grand/Robberson vs Eldorado/Browning
Westlake/Davis vs JCC/Schachter
This is the most open flight, early indicators point to JCC being the head of the class, but Ferrell has show good captaining skills in the past and the ability to recruit. We will just have to wait and see who steps up here.

Well we are finally done, best of luck to all the teams.
Have fun, play fair, and be safe.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

4.5 Preseason Predictions

OK, we are close enough to the season now for me to make some kind of legitimate predictions for the upcoming 4.5 season and give my opponents some bulletin board material. The playoff format isn't laid out in the captains' folder so I'm basing those predictions on how I think they will do it.

Flight A

This is clearly the worst flight in my opinion. If you remove Branch, I really don't think any of the other teams would make the playoffs in any other flight. However, that does make for many competitive matches throughout the season. I'm not familiar with the 4.0 bumpups for the most part so the bottom of the flight is really just a guess.

1. Oak Creek/Branch--I expect another gaudy regular season record from this team as I don't think any team can challenge any possible lineup from this flight. It's always tough when every team brings out their best lineup against you but I don't think that will matter.

2. T Bar--This team really lost a lot of their strength from last season but they did retain their depth in doubles and the acquisition of Dick Fikes is a good one. However, almost the entire team is full of seniors and that is not usually a key to success in a league that goes through July.

3. Brookhaven/Ludwig--I will go with Andy's team here simply because of their success last season. I'm not that familiar with his players but I know he can recruit players and they have strength in doubles.

4. High Point/Somabut--Bob can always recruit but it remains to be seen if he is putting his emphasis on 4.0 or 4.5 this season. Addition of Keith from Hai's team will be good but I don't see any other players with winning experience at the 4.5 level.

5. Oak Creek/Smith--Strange combination of Bovermann's old team and 4.0 bumpups but there is some talent on the roster. Will be interesting to see how the captain can evaluate these players since it really looks like the meshing of two teams.

6. Hackberry--Some players here with winning experience at 4.5 but depth is lacking. This team has always had the ability to put a scare in the top teams but usually can't win consistently.

7. Canyon Creek/Rossouw--I have a lot of respect for Mark as a captain and I admit I'm not too familiar with his players but the ones I do know are not ready to compete for a playoff spot. Good luck and prove me wrong!! How's that for motivation?

8. Collin County/Aud--This team has a really strong line 1 doubles team and a few strong singles players but bottom of the lineup is weak like normal. Lineups are usually predictable which makes them an easy out.

9. Village--A few strong doubles players and some players' names I don't know which is always scary but I think the Village usually has a team for fun. A few teaching pros who have other priorities than to play tennis on Saturday.

10. Stonebridge--This team has lingered around the bottom of 4.5 for a long time and it's a shame because I really like all the guys on the team that I know. Tim has been a captain for a long time so maybe he can turn it around but the club just doesn't have enough 4.5 talent to compete. Mark Teat is the strongest on the team by far but I don't know who can help him out on the roster.

Flight B

This flight looks like the toughest by far to me with as many as 5 teams with a realistic shot at making the playoffs. One or two roster moves before the end of the season could make the difference.

1. High Point/Nguyen--Have to go with the fall champs to win the flight and it would certainly help the other playoff teams if they did. Addition of Jamie Ribman and Blumberg will help counterbalance losing Keith and any others. They are still missing a singles lock but it's still early.

2. Brookhaven/Harllee--I give them the slight edge over the Lakes because of singles strength but so much of their success has always been dependent on lineups and injuries. With their top lineup, they are one of the best in the city easily. Subtract one or two, they are average.

3. The Lakes--This team rolled all season in the fall with their doubles. Only addition I see is Ryan Kirkpatrick and with the tougher spring competition, I'm not sure they can duplicate their success from last season. They are still missing a #1 singles player.

4. Las Colinas/Herget--This looks like the second-string Branch team which could still be good enough to make the playoffs. If they can recruit a player or two from their new club they could be really strong. A lot of reliable doubles players but they are missing at least two singles players unless Andre is going to play every week. Maybe the Buffalo can step in??

5. Garland/Sisk--The recruiter will surprise somebody in this flight. Based on current roster his team will not go far but Sisk's teams are notorious for late-season additions. I expect this team to compete with anybody.

6. DFW Hilton--This team has made slight improvements recently but the defection of Huffman to Branch's team takes away their best player. They have some good doubles players but not enough to compete with the best teams.

7. T Bar--This is the weaker T Bar team. They have strength in doubles but very little in singles. Without some recruiting they will be an easy out for most teams.

8. LB Houston--18-man roster with 7 4.5 players. I don't know that I know anybody on this team but I think it's safe to say they will stay bottom-feeders in the flight. With so many players getting moved up, how can you have 11 4.0s on a 4.5 roster?

9. Oak Creek/Smith 2--This is the B team for Don so I don't expect them to do anything. Should be good match experience for these guys and get them ready for future seasons, or get them moved back to 4.0, whichever they are hoping for.


Flight C

This flight appears to be the easiest to predict with the top 3 teams pretty obvious but you never know what can happen. Kind of disappointing for me that of our 8 matches, 4 are the same from last season and 2 of the others are 4.0 bumpup teams.

1. Garland/Noel--OK, I know I'm jinxing myself by picking my team number one but I'm doing it anyway. We kept all of the key players from last season and added at least 4 new ones so I like the way the roster is shaping up.

2. Royal Oaks--Deceptively small roster at this point. John Ponder is a great player (I've heard) so adding him is big. Good doubles players and above average singles players will make this a tough team. I still expect a few additions though.

3. Greenhill--This team always just misses the playoffs or winds up in the QT and this season looks the same to me. Same lineup from previous seasons but they have a few tournament players on their roster which make it tough for consistency in lineups.

4. Lifetime--A few old team members return this season to make a playoff run. Strong players throughout the lineup but hard to classify anybody as unstoppable. Brandon should have more confidence after his win over Phillip Griggs this weekend. I will know more after our team plays them in week 1.

5. Oak Creek/Juhn--This team looks to be much improved from previous seasons. Singles players are very solid and a lot of veteran doubles players make this team much stronger. If Frank Vo signs up, that gives them three singles players that can compete with anybody.

6. High Point/Bowman--A few solid players on this roster will make this team competitive. If they can get a strong lineup, I see them being a tough out for any team. This is not the traditional bumpup team since many of these players have played 4.5 for a while.

7. LB Houston/Wise--This team has not done well historically but in the new 4.5 landscape they certainly have some players that can win. Nice all around players that can play singles or doubles give them a chance to manipulate lineups based on who they're playing.

8. Springpark/Walters--This team had some solid players in the past but this season appears to be almost all 4.0 bumpups. Not many on the roster that can compete with the top 4.5s.

9. JCC/Reiman--Jermaine and Justin are good and I don't know much of the roster but I don't see how they can compete at this level with 6 4.5 players on the roster.

QT

1. T Bar
2. Ludwig
3. Brookhaven
4. Lakes
5. Royal Oaks
6. Greenhill

DCC

1. Brookhaven
2. Branch
3. High Point
4. Noel

Top two advance to Sectionals

1. Branch
2. Noel (this is the year baby!!!)

I have no idea how many will be in QT, DCC, or Sectionals but this could be it. Or they could take 2nd place from each flight and the 3rd place with the best record to QT. Or they could take top two from QT to DCC. Also depends on how Hai's team does during the season.

Good luck to all!!