Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies

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RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - ColoradoTree - 03-30-2019

Doubles going well so far:

1. Lampl/Yee tied 3-3
2. Arbuthnott/Gordon up 5-1
3. Lord/Madurawe up 5-2

Meanwhile, UCLA throttled Cal in doubles, winning 6-1 on 2 and 6-0 on 3 for the point.

And there’s the doubles point, with wins on 2 and 3! (Lampl/Yee were down 3-5, 0-30 when it was clinched, FYI.)

I can’t see the live stream on 4, but Higuchi is playing Willson on 5, and Choy is playing Branstine on 6, so as our top 3 is the same as yesterday, either Shin or Arbuthnott is taking the day off in singles.

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - ColoradoTree - 03-30-2019

It’s Arbuthnott that gets the day off, but Shin playing up a line isn’t going so well:

1. Gordon leads Ewing 3-2
2. Lord leads Kulikov 5-1
3. Lampl trails Valdes 4-1
4. Shin trails Neffa 3-0 (still no live stream, this is from a USC tweet several minutes ago)
5. Higuchi trails Willson 3-1
6. Choy trails Branstine 3-2

Arbuthnott being out leaves us with some unfortunate matchups, so let’s hope it’s nothing serious (I assume not, since she played doubles).

Lord takes her first set 6-2, but we’re in a battle everywhere else:

1. Gordon leads 5-3
2. Lord leads 6-2, 0-0
3. Lampl trails 3-5
4. Shin trails 2-3 (per USC tweet)
5. Higuchi trails 3-4 (on serve)
6. Choy trails 4-5 (on serve)

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - martyup - 03-30-2019

Where are we going to get that 4th point?

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - ColoradoTree - 03-30-2019

Stanford 1, USC 0

1. Gordon leads 6-3, 1-2
2. Lord leads 6-2, 4-2
3. Lampl trails 3-6, 4-1. Has she turned the corner?
4. Shin trails 3-6, 0-0 (per USC tweet)
5. Higuchi trails 3-6, 1-2 (down a break)
6. Choy trails 4-6, 1-3

It’s close, folks. It’s also a bizzaro Stanford lineup when we’re leading at the top 2 and trailing everywhere else.

(03-30-2019, 01:41 PM)martyup Wrote: Where are we going to get that 4th point?

Lampl, I’d guess. But Ewing is coming on strong, so Gordon winning is hardly a sure thing. Higuchi and Choy both look cooked.

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - oldalum - 03-30-2019

Lampl's up 4-1 in the second set; she often loses the first set then finds the range and cruises.
But Gordon's down an early break in the second set.
I wouldn't count out Higuchi, who is tireless, or Choy, but they need to do it.

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - ColoradoTree - 03-30-2019

Stanford 2, USC 0

1. Gordon leads 6-3, 2-4
2. Lord wins 6-2, 6-2
3. Lampl trails 3-6, 5-3
4. Shin trails 3-6, 0-0 (per USC tweet)
5. Higuchi trails 3-6, 2-3 (down a break)
6. Choy trails 4-6, 3-4 (on serve)

A bit dire at the moment....

Lampl takes her second set, but Shin is apparently down 4-1 in hers, so we’ll need 1 and 3 to come through, unless Choy or Higuchi can turn the tide....

Choy falls, and Higuchi and Shin are both down 5-3. But Gordon turned it around and is up 5-4! And Lampl is up 2-1 in her third! Fingers crossed!

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - ColoradoTree - 03-30-2019

Gordon wins, Shin and Higuchi both lose, and it’s 3-3 with Lampl last on court.

She trails 4-3 in the third.

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - oldalum - 03-30-2019

Lampl breaks at 4-5 to even the set! If she would restrain her desire to go for winners, she seems steadier than her opponent in long rallies.
I spoke too soon, now at 5-6 and needs to break again to get to the tiebreaker

Now in the tiebreaker!
And Lampl wins! Whew!

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - terry - 03-30-2019

(03-30-2019, 02:54 PM)oldalum Wrote: Lampl breaks at 4-5 to even the set! If she would restrain her desire to go for winners, she seems steadier than her opponent in long rallies.
I spoke too soon, now at 5-6 and needs to break again to get to the tiebreaker

Now in the tiebreaker!
And Lampl wins! Whew!

Wow, that was tense! Great job by Lampl to hang in there and pull it out in the end.

Where's Arbuthnott? I think this would have been a more comfortable win with her playing.

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - martyup - 03-30-2019

WOW!!! What grit. That was too tight. Gut check to the Cardinal.

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - ColoradoTree - 03-30-2019

(03-30-2019, 03:10 PM)terry Wrote:
(03-30-2019, 02:54 PM)oldalum Wrote: Lampl breaks at 4-5 to even the set! If she would restrain her desire to go for winners, she seems steadier than her opponent in long rallies.
I spoke too soon, now at 5-6 and needs to break again to get to the tiebreaker

Now in the tiebreaker!
And Lampl wins! Whew!

Wow, that was tense! Great job by Lampl to hang in there and pull it out in the end.

Where's Arbuthnott? I think this would have been a more comfortable win with her playing.

She played doubles, so I assumed Lele just wanted to give her a little rest after a long match yesterday. But if this was anything other than an injury, pulling her sure backfired and wreaked havoc on the matchups the rest of the way down.

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - oldalum - 03-30-2019

I think Arbuthnott must have felt something in doubles; I doubt Lele would have taken the risk against USC just for some rest. As a result of Arbuthnott playing we lost the bottom 3 lines and had to win the top 3 to take the match--the reverse of our usual scheme. Glad our aces came through! The only "easy" match was Lord's.

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - ColoradoTree - 04-01-2019

Digesting the weekend now, and here are some overall thoughts:

1. Caroline Lampl, my goodness. She's been a bit overshadowed by Lord the last couple of years after playing a line above Lord their freshman year. And Lord rightly gets the glory for clinching the national championship last year. But she wouldn't have been in a position to clinch if Lampl hadn't dominated Vanderbilt's Christina Rosca (currently #13 in the country, then #44). Wiping the floor with Ayan Broomfield and then clinching with a third-set tiebreaker is a heck of a weekend.

2. Lord's weekend wasn't too shabby, either, staying in control of both matches, both against ranked opponents. Her ranking will see a nice little boost.

3. After a disappointing loss to Hart, I was really pumped to see Gordon respond by controlling her match against Salma Ewing. Ewing is a big time talent, and while you're going to have hiccups against bad matchups, it's nice to see Gordon translate her immense talent and sense for the game into big-time wins.

4. Arbuthnott's clincher against UCLA was vintage Arbuthnott, of course. Now that the USC match is in the books, I hope whatever held her out was nothing serious. We've got a couple of tough matches this weekend where we'll need to be at full strength.

5. Higuchi sure had a rough draw this weekend, facing two super tall big-hitting freshmen (UCLA's Johnson is 5'10", USC's Willson is 5'11"). We know that's her kryptonite, so I'm proud that she found a way to get a win against Johnson, and I'm relieved we had just enough elsewhere against USC to get over the top. (I wonder if we would've been better off taking Higuchi out of the lineup once Arbuthnott couldn't go, putting Madurawe at 5 and Choy at 6, since Madurawe has more of a powerful game than Higuchi does. Madurawe had a nice win over UCLA's Altick earlier this year at the Freeman Memorial Championships, so putting her at 5 against UCLA couldn't really have hurt us, either.)

6. We knew UCLA would be tough. And while I figured USC would be much better than last year, my goodness, I didn't expect them to be that much better. The signs have been there, of course--USC knocking off UCLA earlier this year, USC beating South Carolina--but I thought it would be another year before USC was truly in the mix for the Pac-12 title again. Well, they're here now. I'm just glad we survived our hardest road trip of the conference season (and thank goodness we get USC and UCLA at home next year).

7. We get Washington and WSU at home this weekend, and we don't yet know how good UW is. They kept it rolling this weekend, beating both Arizona schools, but their undefeated conference record is a little deceiving since they haven't yet played us, Cal, UCLA, or USC. I'll be really interested to see how the rest of the conference standings shake out over the next couple of weeks. UW and WSU were legitimately tough wins last year, and I'm glad we get them at home this year. (WSU, for its part, defeated Arizona easily but got blanked by ASU.)

8. Other results around the country were mostly good for us. Texas beat both #30 Oklahoma and #9 Oklahoma State on the road, so they'll be knocking on the door of the Top 5 in tomorrow's updated rankings. Vanderbilt toughed out a 4-3 win on the road against #22 Kentucky. The win over LSU will continue to lose luster, though, as LSU dropped a tough match at home to Florida, 4-3, before getting swept by South Carolina. (South Carolina continues to be outstanding, beating both LSU and #12 Texas A&M on the road. That's a nice boost for USC and UCLA, at least, since both teams beat South Carolina, and in turn keeps our wins over UCLA and USC looking nice and shiny.)

9. Our best eight wins are now: #5 Vanderbilt, #6 Texas, #11 UCLA (away), #16 USC (away), #23 LSU, #35 Washington State, #38 Princeton, and #50 Arizona State. FYI, with the 10% bonus for road wins, beating UCLA and USC is like beating the #8 and #12 teams at home, respectively. The rankings go to counting the best 9 wins next week, but we'll hopefully be able to add another Top 15 win in Washington to the list.

Pac-12 Standings:

T1. #13 Washington (15-1, 5-0)
T1. #7 Stanford (14-1, 5-0)
T3. #11 UCLA (12-4, 4-1)
T3. #16 USC (13-3, 4-1)
T5. #15 Cal (9-5, 3-2)
T5. Colorado (10-8, 3-2)
7. #47 Utah (11-5, 2-3)*
8. #35 Washington State (17-5, 2-3)
9. #50 Arizona State (9-9, 3-5)
10. Arizona (9-10, 1-7)
11. Oregon (6-13, 0-8)

* Utah is 7th over WSU because of head-to-head record.

This weekend, the Washington schools visit the Bay Area, the L.A. schools host the mountain schools, the Arizona schools both host #43 Denver, and Oregon is (thankfully, I assume) idle. Oregon continues to have just 5 healthy players, and Sangwan is still not listed on the roster. I'm curious as to what the story is there.

After this weekend, we have a mountain road trip to play CU and Utah, and the week after that, we head to Berkeley for the regular-season finale. But there should be a lot of separation after this weekend.

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - ColoradoTree - 04-02-2019

FYI, here are the latest team and individual rankings, with teams and players we've played or are scheduled to play in the dual season listed as well:

Team rankings:

1. Georgia (L)
5. Stanford (up 2)
6. Vanderbilt (W, down 1)
7. Texas (W, down 1)
8. UCLA (W, up 3)
11. USC (W, up 5)
15. Washington (down 2)
19. Cal (down 4, not bad for going 0-2)
28. LSU (W, down 5)
36. WSU (W, down 1)
37. Princeton (W, up 1)
39. Utah (up 8)
44. Arizona State (W, up 6)

Note: Georgia and UNC are clearly above the rest (82.60 and 81.10 points), followed by another close group of 3 (South Carolina at 67.08, Duke at 64.70, and Stanford at 63.72). We're about 8 points ahead of Vanderbilt, who is about 2 points ahead of Texas, who is about 2.5 points ahead of UCLA. The relative wisdom of the ranking calculation is again apparent: UCLA and USC each beat a good team and lost to a great team and moved up, rather than down; Cal only dropped 4 spots despite going 0-2 because both of those losses were to higher-ranked teams.

Individual Rankings

Singles

1. Jokic (UGA)
4. Contreras (Vanderbilt)
10. Richardson (LSU)
14. Rosca (Vanderbilt)
17. B. Turati (Texas)
21. Bolton (UCLA)
22. Arbuthnott
24. Gonzalez (UGA)
35. Lord
36. Gordon
39. A. Turati (Texas)
40. Rosenqvist (Cal)
41. Hart (UCLA)
42. Hauger (Cal)
43. Ewing (USC)
46. Wolff (UGA)
52. Granic (Texas)
53. Golovin (LSU)
56. Meyer (Vanderbilt)
57. Bayerlova (WSU)
59. Lampl
62. Melounova (Hawaii)
63. Drummy (Vanderbilt)
74. Shin
83. Kozyreva (St. Mary's)
87. Kulikov (USC)
89. Carle (UGA)
93. Higuchi
95. Fung (UW)
97. Choy
98. Altick (UCLA)
100. John-Baptiste (ASU)
101. Kowalski (UGA)
110. Pothoff (Santa Clara)
111. Bright (Cal)
115. Smith (Vanderbilt)
120. Markovic (Texas)
122. Willson (USC)
123. Neffa (USC)

Note: Stanford's 7 ranked players is still the most in the country, ahead of Georgia and Vanderbilt with 5 each. UNC only has four players ranked, but they're way up there (#6, #7, #12, and #29).

Doubles

3. John-Baptiste/Hattingh (ASU)
7. Andrews/Broomfield (UCLA)
10. Golovin/Richardson (LSU)
11. Bolton/Hart (UCLA)
13. Mraz/Rosenqvist (Cal)
14. Kulikov/Valdes (USC)
15. Lampl/Yee
25. Arbuthnott/Gordon
28. Bright/Dunk (Cal)
30. Smith/Contreras (Vanderbilt)
32. Yee/Madurawe
35. Andrinopolous/Malinen (CU)
36. Lord/Madurawe
38. Fung/Zupancic (UW)
43. Kozyreva/Abdelouahid (St. Mary's)
48. Contreras/Dvorak (Vanderbilt)
49. Altick/Miller (UCLA)
55. Christofi/Wolff (UGA)
61. Alicea/Hampton (ASU)
62. Hart/Broomfield (UCLA)
64. A. Turati/Poluta (Texas)
68. Stloukalova/Mraz (Cal)
75. Sato/Mylonas (WSU)
76. Drummy/Rosca (Vanderbilt)
80. Mulville/Kahfiani (Oregon)
85. Branstine/Jaeger (USC)
86. Turati/Turati (Texas)
87. Wilson/Thomas (Arizona)

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - ColoradoTree - 04-02-2019

Next week's rankings (to come out April 9) are the first to take 9 wins into account. So, if we beat UW and WSU at home (and we better), here's what our best 9 wins would be for next week's rankings:

#6 Vanderbilt
#7 Texas
#8 UCLA (away, so worth between #5 and #6)
#11 USC (away, so worth about #8)
#15 UW
#28 LSU
#36 WSU (ITA)
#36 WSU (regular season)
#37 Princeton

As a reminder, it's your best 9 wins that count for the pre-NCAA rankings, so if we win out, we'd be adding #19 Cal (away) to that list (displacing Princeton). If we assume USC and UCLA both beat UW (I think they're better), UW also loses to Cal (since it's in Berkeley and the teams are close), and USC beats UCLA (USC hosts the match that counts and already beat UCLA in Westwood in a match that didn't), we'd be looking at the following seedings for the Pac-12 tournament: (1) Stanford, (2) USC, (3) UCLA, (4) Cal, and (5) Washington. If seeds hold, we'd add a second win over one of Cal/Washington and USC/UCLA. That would give us a best 9 wins at the end of the regular season of:

#6 Vanderbilt
#7 Texas
#8 UCLA (away, reg. season)
#11 USC (away, reg. season)
#11 USC (Pac-12s)
#15 UW
#19 Cal (away, reg. season)
#19 Cal (Pac-12s)
#28 LSU

That's a top 3 or 4 resume. Even if we lose the Pac-12 championship match to UCLA or USC, however, we'd trade #11 for #36 WSU, which would still keep us right around where we are. And we have the head-to-head wins over both Vanderbilt and Texas, so if we're ranked in a clump with them at the end of the year, as seems likely, we'd get the best seed of that group if the NCAA sticks with its usual procedures. And if the results happen like I'd expect, USC could be ranked ahead of UCLA anyway, and Cal would be higher than UW (and higher than #19).

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - terry - 04-02-2019

(04-02-2019, 12:00 PM)ColoradoTree Wrote: That's a top 3 or 4 resume. Even if we lose the Pac-12 championship match to UCLA or USC, however, we'd trade #11 for #36 WSU, which would still keep us right around where we are. And we have the head-to-head wins over both Vanderbilt and Texas, so if we're ranked in a clump with them at the end of the year, as seems likely, we'd get the best seed of that group if the NCAA sticks with its usual procedures.

So you don't think the NCAA will find a way to seed Stanford #12 or #15 again? :-)

RE: Women's Tennis: Bruins, Trojans, and some bonus Aggies - ColoradoTree - 04-03-2019

Ha! Nope, as long as things play out roughly like they should, we'll be comfortably in the Top 8 and we'll be in line to host a super regional as long as seeds hold in the tournament. We played the schedule game better this year, we were healthy all year, and it means we're in better shape overall. We're cutting it close, of course, but it looks like Lele balanced it just right between scheduling enough tough matches and allowing for enough rest. In my mind, here's what made the difference in ranking from last year to this year:

1. We were healthy. Lord being hurt last year was brutal, because it came during our toughest non-conference stretch, against teams that would finish #2, #5, and #8 in the final pre-NCAA rankings. If she's healthy and we win two of those, we're seeded several spots higher (though we still wouldn't have been top 8 last year because of my next point). We scheduled lightly, like always, so we desperately needed wins out of those matches, and we didn't get them.

2. The Pac-12 was better this year. In the final pre-NCAA rankings last year, #14 UCLA was highest, followed by us at #15, #33 Oregon, #37 Arizona State, #43 UW, #44 WSU, and #50 USC. That's it. This year, it's #5 us, #8 UCLA, #11 USC, #15 UW, #19 Cal, #36 WSU, #39 Utah, and #44 Arizona State. That's just a sea change (5 Top 20 teams compared to 2), and beating those teams keeps us near the top.

I don't actually think playing National Indoors mattered that much for us, though it gave us two good ranked wins (and necessarily kept some other team from getting those wins). If we'd skipped National Indoors and instead kept Pepperdine and Florida on the schedule (and beaten them), we'd be roughly in the same position, replacing a win over #7 Texas with a win over #9 Pepperdine and a win over #28 LSU with a win over #23 Florida, though we wouldn't have played that second match vs. #36 Washington State, so the ranking would have dipped a bit lower than its nadir of #7 this year (before ultimately returning to the same place as we no longer needed to count either WSU win). I'm glad we played National Indoors given the history of having to play some NCAA matches indoors the last few years, and because the upside far outweighs the downside, but it was kind of a wash, rankings-wise.

If you compare our best 9 pre-NCAA wins last year to our best 9 pre-NCAA wins this year if we win out, it's pretty clear why we ended up where we did:

Last year: #14 UCLA, #14 UCLA (Pac-12s), #33 Oregon, #37 Arizona State, #43 UW, #43 UW (Pac-12s), #44 WSU, #44 WSU (Pac-12s), and #50 USC, against three losses (to #2 Vanderbilt, #5 Texas, and #8 Florida). That was 45.77 and worth 15th place. (For reference, you get 46 points for beating the #36 team, so this is sort of like saying our average countable win was #36.)

This year: #6 Vanderbilt, #7 Texas, #8 UCLA (away), #11 USC (Pac-12s), #11 USC (away), #15 UW, #19 Cal (away), #19 Cal (Pac-12s), and #28 LSU, against one loss (to #1 Georgia). That would be 74.066, which would have been 3rd last year and which would be 3rd right now this year. (That's an average countable win around #11/#12.) If that Texas match hadn't been rained out, we replace #28 with another #7, and you'd be even higher (77.47), though it would still be 3rd both last year and this year right now (albeit a lot closer).

Again, I don't agree that the NCAA committee follows the ITA rankings so slavishly in seeding teams, but they do, and we didn't put a resume together last year that was indicative of how good we really were. There should be more discretion--right now, it's only when there's a head-to-head result in a neighboring seed line that warrants switching those lines. But we've had better injury luck and a better conference this year, and that's made all the difference. (My concern is that you can't count on a certain level of conference quality every year, so you should build in more of a buffer in the non-conference schedule in case Cal and USC struggle like they did last year, though you can't blame Lele's scheduling for the Texas match getting rained out. Lele wants her team healthy and rested for May, though, and it's hard to quibble with results.)