02-20-2018, 10:41 AM
It's crazy how much of a difference the absence of one player can make in collegiate tennis, given its pairing system. I'm kind of surprised they don't do something more like women's golf, where the strategies are in part about the pairings. Is it the case that tennis players are more clearly better or worse than in golf, so it wouldn't be plausible to do this? Or just norms against it? Or something about actually playing against another player as opposed to hitting shots side by side against the course?
I'm not very familiar with either our current women's team or collegiate tennis more generally, but from ColoradoTree's super helpful and thorough explanations of our recent matches, it almost sounds like we'd be better off forfeiting at the 1 and playing our usual 2-5 lineup than shifting everybody up one spot? Is that right? It just seems silly because it turns what could be hard-fought contests for 6 of the 7 points into near blowouts all down the lineup, and that's merely a function of who gets positioned where.
I'm not very familiar with either our current women's team or collegiate tennis more generally, but from ColoradoTree's super helpful and thorough explanations of our recent matches, it almost sounds like we'd be better off forfeiting at the 1 and playing our usual 2-5 lineup than shifting everybody up one spot? Is that right? It just seems silly because it turns what could be hard-fought contests for 6 of the 7 points into near blowouts all down the lineup, and that's merely a function of who gets positioned where.