[ColoradoTree]

Thanks for resurrecting the tennis thread.  Can you give us casual fans a summary of where we were when things got cancelled and where we looked to be headed this coming year?  My recollection was that we were reloading in 2020, though UNC(?) was such a deep team that they would have to be considered the favorites.  Am I remembering things right?

BC

That's about right. It sure looked like we would surrender the Pac-12 title to UCLA and that UNC was just too good. That UNC team was primed to break through because it had three seniors in the top 4, so they'd really built toward last year. Well, now they've got this year, too. 

And when we say reloading, it's only in the sense of "I don't think we're quite on the same level as the favorites for the NCAA title, but we're still probably a top 5 team." But UNC certainly felt a cut above the rest last year, and I don't know why this year would be different. 

As for UCLA, they beat us 4-0 at National Indoors last year and 4-1 at our place before the season was called. They crushed us at doubles in both matches because it's such a point of emphasis for them, and they usually take the doubles point from us even in years where we've got a bigger edge in singles. But here's how we lined up last year (class years as of last year):

1. Michaela Gordon (Jr.) vs. Elysia Bolton (So.) (split the first two sets in the first match, hadn't started the third yet; Gordon led 4-1 in the third in the second match)
2. Emily Arbuthnott (Sr.) vs. Abigail Forbes (Fr.) (Forbes won 6-2, 6-0 in the first match and 6-1, 7-6 in the second)
3. Angelica Blake (Fr.) vs. Jada Hart (R-Sr.) (Hart won the first match 6-2, 6-1, but Blake took the second 6-0, 6-4)
4. Janice Shin (Jr.) vs. Abi Altick (Jr.) (Altick led the first match 6-4, 3-2, and she won the second 6-3, 6-1)
5. Sara Choy (So.) vs. Annette Goulak (Jr.) (both matches were close--in the first, Choy lost a tiebreaker in the first set but was up a break in the second, and in the second, Goulak won 7-6, 6-4)
6. Emma Higuchi (Sr.) vs. Sasha Vagramov (Fr.) (Vagramov won the first 6-3, 6-3, but in the second match, Higuchi led 2-1 in the third set when it was called). 

I think it's likely that this top 3 is the top 3 we see this year, though if I had my druthers, we'd see Arbuthnott shift down to the #3 line. But if this top half stays the same, we have one match that's basically a toss-up (#1), one where we have little chance of winning (#2), and one where I like our chances given the respective age and likelihood of year-over-year improvement (#3).  

For the back half of the lineup, it's hard to predict what ours looks like, but Lele is choosing between Higuchi, Shin, Choy, Madurawe, Houghton, and Geller for three spots. As much as Higuchi has done for this team (we should build a statue to her outside the #6 court), Houghton and Geller are elite recruits in a way that the rest of the players on that list aren't, and I think we're best served by our most talented players playing. For me, that means Houghton and Geller in some order at 4 and 5, with Shin playing 6. Shin's form dipped last year, and I think she could be an overwhelming force at 6 while she hit her ceiling last year playing 4. This means disappointment for our juniors, who are left out of the mix, as well as Higuchi, but perhaps 5 and 6 become rotating spots in order to give a number of players match experience to guard against injury. 

But anyway, back to UCLA. UCLA's back half will mostly be the same, with perhaps incoming transfer Vivian Wolff at 4. That's tough, but with the addition of Houghton and Geller, I like our back half of the lineup a lot better than I did last year. We're still not at UNC's level, but I'd be surprised by lopsided scorelines against UCLA. In other words, I like the promise of this team more than the promise of last year's team. If you recall, last year we bemoaned the fact that we had a 1, a couple of 3s, and a bunch of 5s on our team. But now I think we have more top-half-of-the-lineup-caliber players than we have spots in the top half of the lineup, which is a good problem to have.

[ColoradoTree]

Thanks for resurrecting the tennis thread.  Can you give us casual fans a summary of where we were when things got cancelled and where we looked to be headed this coming year?  My recollection was that we were reloading in 2020, though UNC(?) was such a deep team that they would have to be considered the favorites.  Am I remembering things right?

BC

That's about right. It sure looked like we would surrender the Pac-12 title to UCLA and that UNC was just too good. That UNC team was primed to break through because it had three seniors in the top 4, so they'd really built toward last year. Well, now they've got this year, too. 

And when we say reloading, it's only in the sense of "I don't think we're quite on the same level as the favorites for the NCAA title, but we're still probably a top 5 team." But UNC certainly felt a cut above the rest last year, and I don't know why this year would be different. 

As for UCLA, they beat us 4-0 at National Indoors last year and 4-1 at our place before the season was called. They crushed us at doubles in both matches because it's such a point of emphasis for them, and they usually take the doubles point from us even in years where we've got a bigger edge in singles. But here's how we lined up last year (class years as of last year):

1. Michaela Gordon (Jr.) vs. Elysia Bolton (So.) (split the first two sets in the first match, hadn't started the third yet; Gordon led 4-1 in the third in the second match)
2. Emily Arbuthnott (Sr.) vs. Abigail Forbes (Fr.) (Forbes won 6-2, 6-0 in the first match and 6-1, 7-6 in the second)
3. Angelica Blake (Fr.) vs. Jada Hart (R-Sr.) (Hart won the first match 6-2, 6-1, but Blake took the second 6-0, 6-4)
4. Janice Shin (Jr.) vs. Abi Altick (Jr.) (Altick led the first match 6-4, 3-2, and she won the second 6-3, 6-1)
5. Sara Choy (So.) vs. Annette Goulak (Jr.) (both matches were close--in the first, Choy lost a tiebreaker in the first set but was up a break in the second, and in the second, Goulak won 7-6, 6-4)
6. Emma Higuchi (Sr.) vs. Sasha Vagramov (Fr.) (Vagramov won the first 6-3, 6-3, but in the second match, Higuchi led 2-1 in the third set when it was called). 

I think it's likely that this top 3 is the top 3 we see this year, though if I had my druthers, we'd see Arbuthnott shift down to the #3 line. But if this top half stays the same, we have one match that's basically a toss-up (#1), one where we have little chance of winning (#2), and one where I like our chances given the respective age and likelihood of year-over-year improvement (#3).  

For the back half of the lineup, it's hard to predict what ours looks like, but Lele is choosing between Higuchi, Shin, Choy, Madurawe, Houghton, and Geller for three spots. As much as Higuchi has done for this team (we should build a statue to her outside the #6 court), Houghton and Geller are elite recruits in a way that the rest of the players on that list aren't, and I think we're best served by our most talented players playing. For me, that means Houghton and Geller in some order at 4 and 5, with Shin playing 6. Shin's form dipped last year, and I think she could be an overwhelming force at 6 while she hit her ceiling last year playing 4. This means disappointment for our juniors, who are left out of the mix, as well as Higuchi, but perhaps 5 and 6 become rotating spots in order to give a number of players match experience to guard against injury. 

But anyway, back to UCLA. UCLA's back half will mostly be the same, with perhaps incoming transfer Vivian Wolff at 4. That's tough, but with the addition of Houghton and Geller, I like our back half of the lineup a lot better than I did last year. We're still not at UNC's level, but I'd be surprised by lopsided scorelines against UCLA. In other words, I like the promise of this team more than the promise of last year's team. If you recall, last year we bemoaned the fact that we had a 1, a couple of 3s, and a bunch of 5s on our team. But now I think we have more top-half-of-the-lineup-caliber players than we have spots in the top half of the lineup, which is a good problem to have.