[ColoradoTree]

Glad you're back, Colorado Tree! And hopefully out women's team will bounce back this week too.  Looking at our stats sheets for this season, it looks like our two trouble spots are the 2 and 3 spots in doubles (11-7 record; 8-6 record) and the 3 spot in singles (10-8 record between Geller's 0-2, Houghton's 9-6, and Xu's 1-0).  Am I right in thinking Michaela Gordon's last minute decision not to come back may be the difference maker here? IIRC, she would have probably slotted in at the 3 (or either way, pushed Houghton to the 4), and was also one of our better doubles players.  If we regularly give up the doubles point and the 3 slot against good teams, that puts a lot of pressure up and down the rest of the lineup to get 4 of the other 5 singles points.

And one other thing I just noticed: Geller hasn't played since our Mar. 22 upset loss to UC Santa Barbara. I wonder if she was playing injured and finally threw in the towel on the season? She'd been cut from our singles lineup pretty quickly and had only been playing the 3 in doubles with Madurawe.

Geller had been playing doubles even after getting dropped from the singles lineup, so that suggests to me it wasn't an injury but a fitness/form issue (just seeing her play earlier this year, she looked a bit heavier than last year and a step slower--I wonder if she had an injury in the offseason that affected training). And even then, her doubles line (mostly pairing with Madurawe) wasn't having a lot of success, so I'm not surprised to see she's been dropped from doubles as well. Certainly could've been something nagging, of course--the kind of thing that isn't going to get worse but also isn't going to get better absent rest. 

And I think you mean #4 singles, but yes, it's been a brobdingnagian hole. Going into the season, I expected us to be darn near unbeatable at the 4-5-6 lines, and while we haven't been as good at 5 and 6 as I thought we'd be, 4 has been the biggest disappointment.

Gordon deciding not to come back has certainly been brobdingnagian in retrospect. We don't really know where she would've slotted into the lineup, but if she'd continued to play in the offseason and kept her form up, maybe 2? Just imagine this lineup:

1. Ma
2. Gordon
3. Yepifanova
4. Blake
5. Houghton/Geller
6. Xu

That's a deadly lineup. Doubles is probably a bit better--enough to get us some of the close doubles points we've dropped. But you could basically chalk up singles wins from the 3/4/6 lines in every match, and 1/2/5 would be expected to win most of the time. But really, even with the lineup we have, we should be better. Like I said before, we have the pieces. Always happy to have more pieces, and Gordon is a heckuva piece, but you look at the lineup on paper and this is a team that should be doing better.

And not to completely look ahead to next year, but next year is really the year where this freshman class should pay the most dividends before we lose Blake to graduation. It's the same lineup, except instead of Choy at 6, you put in Blokhina or Geller (and I would expect you'd see Xu climb to 4, pushing Houghton/Geller/Blokhina down). With another year under everyone's belts, I like that lineup a whole lot.

[ColoradoTree]

Glad you're back, Colorado Tree! And hopefully out women's team will bounce back this week too.  Looking at our stats sheets for this season, it looks like our two trouble spots are the 2 and 3 spots in doubles (11-7 record; 8-6 record) and the 3 spot in singles (10-8 record between Geller's 0-2, Houghton's 9-6, and Xu's 1-0).  Am I right in thinking Michaela Gordon's last minute decision not to come back may be the difference maker here? IIRC, she would have probably slotted in at the 3 (or either way, pushed Houghton to the 4), and was also one of our better doubles players.  If we regularly give up the doubles point and the 3 slot against good teams, that puts a lot of pressure up and down the rest of the lineup to get 4 of the other 5 singles points.

And one other thing I just noticed: Geller hasn't played since our Mar. 22 upset loss to UC Santa Barbara. I wonder if she was playing injured and finally threw in the towel on the season? She'd been cut from our singles lineup pretty quickly and had only been playing the 3 in doubles with Madurawe.

Geller had been playing doubles even after getting dropped from the singles lineup, so that suggests to me it wasn't an injury but a fitness/form issue (just seeing her play earlier this year, she looked a bit heavier than last year and a step slower--I wonder if she had an injury in the offseason that affected training). And even then, her doubles line (mostly pairing with Madurawe) wasn't having a lot of success, so I'm not surprised to see she's been dropped from doubles as well. Certainly could've been something nagging, of course--the kind of thing that isn't going to get worse but also isn't going to get better absent rest. 

And I think you mean #4 singles, but yes, it's been a brobdingnagian hole. Going into the season, I expected us to be darn near unbeatable at the 4-5-6 lines, and while we haven't been as good at 5 and 6 as I thought we'd be, 4 has been the biggest disappointment.

Gordon deciding not to come back has certainly been brobdingnagian in retrospect. We don't really know where she would've slotted into the lineup, but if she'd continued to play in the offseason and kept her form up, maybe 2? Just imagine this lineup:

1. Ma
2. Gordon
3. Yepifanova
4. Blake
5. Houghton/Geller
6. Xu

That's a deadly lineup. Doubles is probably a bit better--enough to get us some of the close doubles points we've dropped. But you could basically chalk up singles wins from the 3/4/6 lines in every match, and 1/2/5 would be expected to win most of the time. But really, even with the lineup we have, we should be better. Like I said before, we have the pieces. Always happy to have more pieces, and Gordon is a heckuva piece, but you look at the lineup on paper and this is a team that should be doing better.

And not to completely look ahead to next year, but next year is really the year where this freshman class should pay the most dividends before we lose Blake to graduation. It's the same lineup, except instead of Choy at 6, you put in Blokhina or Geller (and I would expect you'd see Xu climb to 4, pushing Houghton/Geller/Blokhina down). With another year under everyone's belts, I like that lineup a whole lot.