4.5 Stretch Run

4.5 Flight A – Greenhill/Rossouw remains the only undefeated team but Samuell Grand/Hanna has surged into second place.  These two haven’t played yet but SamGrand has a two match lead in the loss column so they could lose to Greenhill in the season ender and still finish second if they take care of the Eldorado team (2-4).  The race for third pits three teams all with three losses; McKinney/Jett, T Bar/Fikes and Brookhaven/Bartlett.  Brookhaven still has Greenhill left, so they should be out.  That leaves McKinney and T Bar in the hunt.  T Bar has 1-5 Greenhill/Ohl while McKinney has 3-3 Brookhaven/Bartlett left.  Both are tied on lines won but McKinney holds the head to head tie breaker over T Bar so it’s down to the wire here and every line counts. 

4.5 B – This flight has also become a two horse race with both Brookhaven/Harllee and JCC/Reiman still undefeated but everyone else having at least two losses.  They have yet to play each other so that should decide the flight.  The race for third has Oak Creek/Herget-Clark at 5-2 and Lifetime/Arcaria at 4-2.  They have yet to play each other but OC finishes with winless Greenhill/Tucker while Lifetime finishes with 2-4 Lakes/Way.  So two head to head tilts to decide city playoffs, QT (not called QT anymore) and sitting home.

4.5 C – SpringPark/Aguilar is the only undefeated team but they finish wish second place and one loss Oak Creek/Probadi.   SP holds a substantial line lead though so first should be theirs.  Second and third then comes down to 5-1 OC, 4-2 Village/Valentin and 4-2 T Bar/McColpin.  Advantage to OC here.  They do have to play SpringPark but they finish with winless Greenhill/Alzuro.   T Bar is a line back of Village but they do have the easier finishing schedule.

As a reminder, the QT level of the playoffs is all three second place teams and either the best third place team or the fall W/C winner in a four team round robin format.  Third place in flight A can finish no better than three losses.  Flight B has a great chance to have a two loss third place team if Oak Creek/Herget-Clark can beat Lifetime/Arcaria or if Lifetime beats both Oak Creek and Lakes/Way.  Flight C has two chances to finish with a two loss third place team.  Best numerical odds at the moment is Village/Valentin with 21 line wins through six matches.  Since Greenhill/Rossouw has the fall W/C and they are winning flight A, it looks like the best third place team will advance to QT this season.

Still Waiting For Something To Happen

If you'd like to read more about my vacation you can pick up my memoirs from the trip in a Half Price Books near you.  Yes, that's me on the horse just before I fell off.

My apologies but I took a much deserved vacation across the pond.  I didn’t take my racquets and I didn’t think about tennis.  I’m back and refreshed but it doesn’t seem like much changed in my absence.

4.5 flight A couldn’t have been more predictable.  Greenhill/Rossouw is rolling and I’m not yet sure there is a second place team that would deserve a playoff spot.
4.5 flight B, however, could be its own city playoff by itself.  Brookhaven/Harllee and JCC/Reiman remain the dominant forces here having only dropped three lines between them in seven combined wins.  Both have already laid waste to some pretty respectable teams as well.  Brookhaven has already done all of its heavy lifting except for JCC on June 4.  JCC still has a little work to do before the title match.

4.5 flight C has fallen into line as expected.  I took a chance on the new kids at Springpark/Aguilar and they have not disappointed yet, sitting now as the only undefeated team in this flight and having already beaten all of the major contenders.  The close TBar match left a question mark on their depth but we’ll see when the playoffs arrive.

No 4.0 matches this weekend with Mother’s Day taking precedent.

4.0 flight A was a strong pick of mine when the season started and only four weeks in everyone has lost.  What do I know?  This flight still has six one loss teams but McKinney/Kanchi and Oasis/Moehler hasn’t posted yet so one of them is at two losses now.  McKinney also plays TBar on May 15.  High Point’s loss to Royal Oaks further underscores my earlier thought that there looks to be a real absence of dominant 4.0 teams this year.
4.0 flight B shows that the 4.0 world still remains somewhat upside down as Lakes and Huffines/Ratcliffe are both 4-0.  WTF?  The two flight leaders square off on May 15.
4.0 flight C has Greenhill/Ohl and Huffines/Jayaram both at 4-0 with Hackberry at 2-0.  That’s a little more like it.  Greenhill and Hackberry square off this weekend while Former Fretz/Jayaram plays the last team actually left standing at Fretz, the 0-fer life time Ward team. 
4.0 flight D has the retooled dirty Garland at 4-0 and 19-1 but also having only played one team with a .500 or better record.  Their next match isn’t until May 22 but it’s against second place McKinney/Bazan.

Maybe its jet lag or maybe the results to date really are a snoozer but I don’t think we see anything really interesting until the playoffs except for the 4.5 Brookhaven v JCC tilt.  And it’s a month away.  Plenty of time for a nap.

 

And We're Off

There was a little rain in Dallas on Saturday, particularly if you were playing later in the afternoon, so I’m not sure how long it will take to get some of the 4.5 scores in.  Here’s a recap of what we have so far.

4.5 A – We haven’t learned a lot in this flight yet but I really don’t think there is much to learn.  Greenhill and McKinney have posted big wins over Royal Oaks and Samuel Grand but that was expected.  Rossouw’s troops should sleepwalk through this flight.

4.5 B – Not many scores posted here yet but my question for week one was answered when Oak Creek beat Lakes 3-2.  There were FOUR three setters in this match, with each team winning two of them.  This one was expected to be close and it was.  This will be an interesting flight to watch all season with several good teams in it.  Next week I’d say the Brookhaven/Harllee versus Lifetime/Arcaria match will be of the Match of the Week.

4.5 C – I was curious about the SpringPark versus Village match but it hasn’t posted yet.  I’ll keep an eye out for it.  TBar took a 4-1 win over Gleneagles who had a good 40s run.  Next week it looks like the Huffines/Hammond versus SpringPark/Aguilar match will be one to watch.

4.0 A – In last week’s MOW it looks like McKinney didn’t get the memo, rolled out a suspect lineup, and lost a very close 3-2 match.  Maybe they are relying on the automatic QT birth.  High Point should sail through the rest of this flight.

4.0 B – Oak Creek, McKinney, Huffines and Greenhill separated themselves a little from Brookhaven and SpringPark in week one.  We will have Oak Creek and Greenhill in week two so someone has to give one back quick.

4.0 C – Huffines/Jayaram made a bit of a statement sweeping McKinney/Oh.  Looks like Huffines, Greenhill/Ohl and Canyon Creek/Patterson to duke it out here.

4.0 D – The best 4.0 matches will be in this flight with all four undefeated teams squaring off against each other.  McKinney/Bazan faces Oak Creek/Iyer while LB Houston/Gordon faces Garland/Sisk.  It won’t be over after two weeks but it will be pared way down.

 

Let the Games Begin - 18 and over starts this weekend

I'm ready to play, coach.

Now it's time for the real tennis to start.  Bring on the kids.  Let's see what we have for this weekend.

5.0+ (yes, the chart keeps going above 5.0) has one 10 team flight.  Wow, 10 teams.  That has to be a recent record.  There are several good matchups in week one but for the Match of the Week I'm going with Greenhill/Rossouw versus TBar/Bartzen.  TBar has the wild card from the fall so let's see how strong they decide to come out this spring.

4.5 A - This flight is a 4.0 city playoff reunion.  Almost all of these teams are 4.0 bump up squads.  Greenhill/Rossouw better run away with this flight.  Samuell Grand/Hanna versus McKinney/Jett is a mid-market undercard for week one.

4.5 B - Lakes/Way versus Oak Creek/Herget-Clark is MOW for this flight.  And it's easily the hardest flight when you take these two and add JCC/Reiman, Brookhaven/Harllee and Lifetime/Arcaria.  Whoever makes is out of here will be battle tested.

4.5 C - For MOW here I like SpringPark/Aguilar versus Village/Valentin.  SpringPark was my surprise pick in this flight so let's see how they get started.

4.0 A - Match of the Week for week one overall may be the match of the season in 4.0 with McKinney/Kanchi and High Point/Somabut squaring off on week one.  These were two of my early favorites for Dallas city champions and after the first week one of them will have a loss.  Big stakes so early.  I'm going with the fall champs out of McKinney in this one.

4.0 B - Easily of the most interest in this flight will be Brookhaven/Bartlett versus Huffines/Ratcliffe.  Again, someone starts off with a loss early.

4.0 C - in a QT battle, Huffines/Jayaram faces McKinney/Oh in week one.  Is it just me or did everyone USTA men's team leave Fretz?

4.0 D - not much of interest here for the first week, but we'll watch McKinney/Bazan versus Seay/Jacob for grins.

City Playoff Results - 40s and 55s

Not a lot of surprises this weekend as all the favorites won fairly easily.

At 4.5+, SpringPark/Sweeney was as good as their undefeated regular season record suggested.  No real surprise here since they went undefeated in by far the more difficult flight.  They went 10-0 against the Rossouw squads and were two third set tiebreakers away from going 15-0 for the entire weekend.  While the JCC match looked close at first blush, SpringPark won the first three lines in straight forward fashion and only lost the remaining two matches in third sets.  Westmeyer was as good as advertised for SpringPark going 3-0 at #1 singles with ease.  Honorable mention goes to Shawn Foster with JCC/Reiman who also went 3-0 in singles for JCC.  Not easy for these old guys to do over two days.  SpringPark has a nice squad and it will be interesting to see how they fare at sectionals come September.

At 4.0, Huffines/Clark wins this level with a basically new team.  After starting with a 3-2 win over McKinney, they seemed to get better as they went, finishing with a 5-0 sweep over second place Greenhill/Kayser.  This isn’t last year’s team but they do look to have a lot of depth at singles which will help at sectionals in the San Antonio heat.

It’s back to SpringPark for 8.0 55s, where the Blesi team topped Greenhill/Kayser in the final 2-1.  In the only real drama of the weekend, Number 1 doubles was the difference with Giller/Rajani pulling out a third set tiebreaker to advance.

 

Congrats to SpringPark on a strong 40/55 season overall.

This had to be a little hard on the 55s squads, many of whom were playing 40s on Friday and Saturday to then have to turn around and play 55s on Sunday.  Somebody probably needs a nap today.

Now bring on the 18s season!