I am no expert at 4.5 tennis (have you seen my serve, eek?) but here is my humble opinion on the 4.5 playoffs. Please feel free to chime in upper level players out there. I am interested to catch a match or two that weekend, can you say Tri-Level recruiting???
Ok here we go:
4.5 Playoff Rankings
1. OC/Branch
Kind of hard to rate them lower since they have won this league for I am not sure how many seasons running. With James and Walker playing singles most of the way and doubles teams that have wins at the sectional level it will be hard to pick against them. But I am an underdog lover so I cheer against the Yankees, Spurs and Patriots so I have to root for another team to knock them off this time around.
2. T Bar M
This could be the team to beat OC this time, they beat them in the regular season but I am curious how “real” those results are but I don’t think these guys are light years behind. They have a huge roster so they maybe hiding some players of their own. They also have some players coming down from 5.0 much like Branch’s group so they should at least make it interesting.
3. Fair Oaks
Surprise team of the season and I don’t know what to think but I plan on checking out one of their matches to see what is up. I have seen their two 4.0 rated players before (Gervelis and Russell) as well as former 4.0 Robinson. Seems like their strength actually lies at singles with Jeff Wells, Chris Pak and Corey Noel. I think they will need to win a lot of singles matches that weekend in order to do any damage because I just don’t see that much amazing doubles results that could contend with the top two teams here.
4. LB Houston
Hard to rate them any higher than this spot since they lost their last regular season match v. OC/Feldman and at the time that win would have clinched a spot instead they got some help from Greenhill to get into the playoffs. Definitely some quality players but I don’t see them scoring any upsets. They will mostly be hurt by lack of good singles play, many matches they won 3-2 by dropping both singles matches. With that said the obviously have some good doubles players and I guess will be in a lot of 3-2 matches but at this level it will be tough to sweep the doubles matches.
Watch out for Fair Oaks, we came into the season with no expectations so we've got nothing to lose. We know we are going to have some key additions next season so we don't need to win this anyway, but we will try.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with your rankings but that doesn't mean that is how it will end up. T Bar crushed OC in singles in the regular season so if those two guys play again, I expect the same results. Branch's team has the better reputation but we will see if it holds up. I'm not looking forward to playing either of them.
ReplyDeletegood notes Corey, our team as I mentioned lost 0-3 in the playoffs in the Fall but that was the best thing that happened to us because we weren't tied down to keeping the same roster and I redid our entire roster and only kept 1/3 of the team not 70%. I like the attitude of nothing to lose that is a good way to take off the pressure of the weekend. I look forward to seeing you all there. I think T Bar could win as well because OC looks to be waiting to get Branch back along with some other ringers for next Spring so they may struggle at singles against T Bar. I hope I can watch that match.
ReplyDeleteRumor is that T Bar will have their top two singles players playing for their 5.0 team in the playoffs, this would put their 4.5 team at a huge disadvantage since singles was their biggest strength.
ReplyDeleteI like this blog but I am wondering if there is a blog that has more Dallas 4.5 and 5.0 information?
ReplyDeletenot that i know of, this is the only one here in Dallas. I will probably take more of an interest in 4.5 this upcoming season since some of my guys will begin to move up to that level. As far as 5.0, that isn't that deep of a rating in the area. 4.5 has been rather boring in Dallas too since Oak Creek wins every year for about 8 years running but there seems to be a couple of good new teams that might make it interesting so check back in April to see how it shapes up.
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