Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas

Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - Printable Version

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RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - ColoradoTree - 02-22-2020

Stanford 1, Texas 0

1. #9 Gordon tied 2-2
2. #66 Arbuthnott tied 1-1
3. #111 Blake leads 2-1
4. #115 Shin trails 1-2
5. Choy leads 3-0
6. Higuchi trails 1-2

Stanford 1, Texas 0

1. #9 Gordon trails 2-4
2. #66 Arbuthnott tied 2-2
3. #111 Blake leads 4-2
4. #115 Shin tied 3-3
5. Choy leads 5-2
6. Higuchi leads 4-2

Stanford 1, Texas 0

1. #9 Gordon trails 3-6, 0-0
2. #66 Arbuthnott trails 2-4
3. #111 Blake leads 6-3, 0-0
4. #115 Shin trails 3-5
5. Choy leads 6-2, 2-0
6. Higuchi leads 5-4 (up a break)

First sets, in order: 5; 3; 1 (L);

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - ColoradoTree - 02-22-2020

Stanford 1, Texas 0

1. #9 Gordon trails 3-6, 1-0
2. #66 Arbuthnott trails 2-6, 0-0
3. #111 Blake leads 6-3, 2-0
4. #115 Shin trails 4-6, 0-0
5. Choy leads 6-2, 4-0
6. Higuchi leads 6-4, 0-0

First sets, in order: 5; 3; 1 (L); 2 (L); 6; 4(L)

We need three wins, and we got three first sets. Fingers crossed!

Stanford 2, Texas 0

1. #9 Gordon trails 3-6, 2-3
2. #66 Arbuthnott trails 2-6, 0-2
3. #111 Blake leads 6-3, 3-2
4. #115 Shin trails 4-6, 0-1
5. Choy wins 6-2, 6-0!
6. Higuchi leads 6-4, 1-1

Stanford 2, Texas 1

1. #9 Gordon loses 3-6, 2-6
2. #66 Arbuthnott trails 2-6, 1-3
3. #111 Blake leads 6-3, 5-3
4. #115 Shin trails 4-6, 1-3
6. Higuchi leads 6-4, 4-1

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - ColoradoTree - 02-22-2020

Stanford 3, Texas 1

2. #66 Arbuthnott trails 2-6, 1-4
3. #111 Blake wins 6-3, 6-3!
4. #115 Shin trails 4-6, 1-3
6. Higuchi leads 6-4, 4-1

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - oldalum - 02-22-2020

Happy to see Blake's win, which I called after watching two early games in that match. (need emoji here for patting self on back)
so now it's all down to 4 and 6; we need 1 win.
____________
Higuchi is serving for the match at 5-1!

____________ AND WINS!

CT called the match exactly: win the doubles point, 5 and 6, and either 1 or 3

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - ColoradoTree - 02-22-2020

It’s a 4-3 win after they play out 2 and 4, but that’s a fairer picture of the match anyway, so that’s all well and good.

Death, taxes, and Emma Higuchi on Court 6, folks. This is a big, big win that should result in a nice jump in the rankings next week. We may not be the best team this year, but this win shows we’re still plenty dangerous.

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - ColoradoTree - 02-22-2020

We won this match because Niluka Madurawe replaced Janice Shin in the doubles lineup. A small thing. Doubles lineups are often seen as afterthoughts. But Shin has been struggling, and Madurawe (in what she knew would be her only tennis of the day) was fired up. That narrow, 7-5 win got us a point that we absolutely needed.

Then a sophomore who barely played last year delivered a big win.

Then a freshman.

Then our #6, who has seen player after player climb over her in the lineup the last few years, but who keeps plugging away.

Depth sure matters, folks. We don’t win today if we’re not seven deep.

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - Hulk01 - 02-23-2020

Could not have been closer.

In doubles, Stanford won the total win-losses, 16-14
In singles, Stanford won 49 games, Texas won 48.
65-62.

Yes, re depth: We lost at #1 and #2 singles but won five of the other seven matches.

PS; If you are even only a sort-of golf fan, I strongly recommend the Anne Walker podcast.
Several minutes into it, I tried to imagine an opposing coach who could out-recruit her.
If you listen to it, it's likely to make you feel proud.

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - oldalum - 02-23-2020

(02-23-2020, 07:50 AM)Hulk01 Wrote: If you are even only a sort-of golf fan, I strongly recommend the Anne Walker podcast.

I second that emotion. I'm an un-knowledgeable golf fan, but it was terrific, and mostly about elite college sports, just with golf as the topic. And I also learned how impressive a golfer she was, and how she discovered her passion in life early. And in the interest of promoting thread drift (this thread is pretty much over anyway):

I thought she was very circumspect about the subject of the LPGA giving qualifier spots to top collegiate players, probably because she is still part of the group trying to get the LPGA to change. But no need for us to be as tactful, it is critically damaging to Stanford and the Pac-12. This year it cost us the best chance at a national championship that we've probably ever had when assessed at the start of the conference season. Imagine the reaction if the NBA held an early draft each year and poached 10 or 15 of the best college basketball players just before conference play started. Does getting a few college players on tour 5 months earlier than they would have started significantly promote the LPGA brand? Really? Couldn't some accommodation be made, maybe they get to play the last half of the LPGA season and the first half of the next before their one-year tour exemption ends and their results assessed to see if they get another one? I don't know anything about it, but it seems like a solvable problem.

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - ColoradoTree - 02-24-2020

Just to close this out, I updated my "dual season games won-lost" spreadsheet, and here's where each player stands overall (note: this is for all matches at any singles line, so Arbuthnott's 85-67 total is made up of her 12-5 total at #1 and her 73-62 total at #2, for example)

In order of primary singles line:

1. Gordon, 64-62, 50.79%
2. Arbuthnott, 85-67, 55.92%
3. Blake, 96-61, 61.15%
4. Shin, 71-73, 49.31%
5. Choy, 98-43, 69.5%
6. Higuchi, 91-49, 60.91%
7. Madurawe, 12-2, 85.71%

Best to worst:

1. Madurawe, 12-2, 85.71%
2. Choy, 98-43, 69.5%
3. Blake, 96-61, 61.15%
4. Higuchi, 91-49, 60.91%
5. Arbuthnott, 85-67, 55.92%
6. Gordon, 64-62, 50.79%
7. Shin, 71-73, 49.31%

Average result:
Note: the idea here is what those games won-lost numbers equate to for an average match.

Gordon: Winning a third-set tiebreaker
Arbuthnott: 7-5, 7-6
Blake: 6-4, 6-4
Shin: Losing a third-set tiebreaker
Choy: 6-3, 6-2
Higuchi: 6-4, 6-4
Madurawe: 6-1, 6-1 (the score of the only dual match she's had)

Based on the results so far, I think it's reasonable to say that our questions about Arbuthnott at the #2 line have largely been resolved. She's played pretty well overall, notwithstanding this most recent drubbing by the #2 player in the country. You're supposed to get drubbed by the #2 player in the country.

In short, Arbuthnott is solid for us and is more likely to lose than Lord was last year, but she's not as much of a liability as I'd feared. On the other hand, Shin hasn't resolved any doubts at all. She can beat lesser players but is often overmatched.

Meanwhile, Angelica Blake has been outstanding at #3, and Sara Choy and Emma Higuchi have been nearly unstoppable on the last two courts. The way Choy has been playing, it's hard not to see her passing Shin next year in the lineup. (Theoretically: 1 - Gordon; 2 - Blake; 3 - Choy; 4 - Houghton; 5 - Shin; 6 - Madurawe)

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - ColoradoTree - 02-24-2020

FYI, no matches scheduled this week. Next up is St. Mary's at home this coming Tuesday, followed by a big weekend with USC and UCLA coming to town. The schedule lists a $25,000 ITF tournament (so, a pretty low-level professional tournament) this week in Rancho Santa Fe, CA, but I checked the draws, and while Cal's Haley Giavara is playing in it, I don't see any Stanford players on there. So, I'll post the new team rankings when they come out (should be tomorrow sometime), but that'll be it for the week otherwise.

FYI, this week's rankings will count 5 wins (plus all losses), so Stanford will be counting a road win over #3 Texas and two other ranked wins (#11 Georgia Tech and #16 Michigan) in addition to two unranked wins and the one loss to UCLA. It'll be 5 wins through the rankings after USC/UCLA, so if Stanford can win both of those matches, they'll have as good an early resume as anyone. That'll fade as Stanford's schedule weakens in the rest of March, though.

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - martyup - 02-24-2020

Why not move Shin down?

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - ColoradoTree - 02-25-2020

(02-24-2020, 03:11 PM)martyup Wrote: Why not move Shin down?

That's the question. If I'm Lele, I swap Choy and Shin in the lineup right now. As it is, Choy is a dominant force at #5 and would be less dominant at #4, one assumes, but I think we'd have a better shot at 4 than we do right now. It's like gerrymandering. We've got a coin flip (at best) at 4 and a 90% chance of a win at 5. If we get, say, a 70% chance of a win at both 4 and 5 as a result of the change, is that worth it? Probably?

New ITA team rankings are out, and Stanford jumps 6 spots to #6 behind that great road win over Texas. (Texas only drops one spot, to #4, so that will continue to be a great win.) Here's the new top 25 as well as other teams on our schedule in the top 50:

1. UNC
2. Florida State
3. N.C. State
4. Texas (W)
5. Ohio State
6. Stanford
7. Duke
8. UCLA (L)
9. Georgia
10. Georgia Tech (W)
11. Princeton
12. Wake Forest
13. Virginia
14. Oklahoma State
15. Notre Dame
16. Michigan (W)
17. Pepperdine
18. Miami
19. Baylor
20. Vanderbilt
21. Columbia
22. Wisconsin
23. Tennessee
24. Ole Miss
25. UCF
26. Arizona State
28. Washington
31. USC
43. Washington State (W)
45. Utah

Cal drops out of the rankings entirely behind a dreadful weekend in Southern California (a 7-0 loss to UCLA that was far closer than the final score suggests (five very close singles matches, including three 3-setters) and a 5-0 loss to Pepperdine that was going to be 6-1 or 7-0 if rain hadn't cut it short (and that one was every bit the drubbing the scoreline suggests)). Cal's early-season schedule was basically a gamble on making it to Indoor Nationals and then doing OK there, but instead they lost to UVA. Yes, they have a good win over Kansas, but that's the only win. Just four matches played at this point in the season is brutal. They'll get matches in, but if they want to get their rankings back up, they need good wins, and I don't think they're going to run through the Pac-12 schedule the way they're playing. I still think UCLA is #1 in the Pac-12, but I figured Cal would be #3. They're not playing like it.

USC lost at San Diego, too. Yikes. That's not a terrible team (Solymar Colling is a star, as she showed when upsetting Gordon as a freshman last year), but still. USC's depth should've overwhelmed the Toreros.

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - oldalum - 02-25-2020

What jumps out to me in this week's team standings (apart from the deliciously complete absence of Cal and the almost-as-sweet absence of Florida) is that 8 out of the top 15 teams are from the ACC, including the top 3. Wow! Pac-12 has only 2! What is going on, and why is the ACC beating out the West Coast so badly? We ought to own tennis.

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - BostonCard - 02-26-2020

Why did UCLA drop?

BC

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - oldalum - 02-26-2020

They only went down one from the week before, and the only match they played was against Cal which was no help in the ratings for UCLA. We went ahead of them with the win against Texas, which dropped them by one slot.

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - ColoradoTree - 02-26-2020

(02-26-2020, 07:36 AM)oldalum Wrote: They only went down one from the week before, and the only match they played was against Cal which was no help in the ratings for UCLA. We went ahead of them with the win against Texas, which dropped them by one slot.

Yeah. Plus, UCLA's win over us counted for this week's rankings as a win over the #12 team (worth 73 points). Next week, it'll count as a win over the #6 team (worth 88 points). Same win, same team, but worth different points as teams rise and fall in the rankings over the course of the year.

Right now, the ITA is counting 5 wins and any losses a team may have. UCLA's Kick-Off Weekend schedule was pretty weak, like ours, so they don't get much value from those wins (Minnesota and Loyola). They got the weakest team in the field at Indoor Nationals, too (Illinois, now unranked), so that win isn't giving them anything. So, their resume this week is wins over then-#12 Stanford, #2 Florida State, and three unranked wins against the loss to #1 UNC. Hardly a bad loss, and the FSU win is a brobdingnagian boost, but their average score is weighed down by counting three unranked wins. They'll tick up as the season goes on and they get better wins to take the place of the ones they're forced to count now.

As for the ACC, I think some of it is the fact that there are relatively few top-tier programs in California (so there are only, say, 8 spots available at Stanford, Cal, UCLA, or USC in a given year) and the combination of academic quality and a good athletic history at some of those ACC schools (I'm thinking Duke, UNC, Georgia Tech, Wake, and UVA, in particular). Stanford still stands atop the pack, for sure. If we want a player and she can get in (and isn't going pro), we're extremely likely to land her. But you're right that USC, UCLA, and Cal should be right there with us each year. Of course, if you're a blue chip CA prospect in a year where Stanford isn't taking anyone, UCLA prefers a couple different players, and USC or Cal stunk the year before, would you rather stay in state at one of those schools or go to, say, Atlanta and play for Georgia Tech or go play for a team with its own great tradition that is better right now? Viewed from a conference perspective, if there isn't a spot for you at the top 4 CA schools, would you rather play in warmer climes in the ACC/SEC or go to Eugene or Seattle? Or stay in the conference in Tucson or Tempe? I mean, I'd probably pick UVA, Duke, or Georgia Tech in that scenario, too. Where those schools rank against, say, Pepperdine, USD, St. Mary's, and other schools is up for debate, too.

Stanford is also a national and international (at times) recruiter, so even though we're very open to California players (of our 8 current scholarship players, 5 (Higuchi, Gordon, Choy, Madurawe, and Mossmer) are Californians), we're not limited to them (Blake is from Florida, Shin is from Texas, and Arbuthnott is from the UK). Of the 11 players on USC's roster, 8 are from California. But just 4 of 9 on UCLA's roster are. And on the 10 on Cal's roster? Just two Californians. Some of that is UCLA's national reach, too, but if you're a California prospect, you have to know pretty early on that you need to cast a wide net in recruiting.

FYI, there are 6 Californian girls among the blue chip HS seniors this year. 1 seems likely to go pro (Volynets), 1 is coming to Stanford (Houghton), and the other four are scattered (Harvard, Vanderbilt, Texas, and Illinois). Interestingly, of the 22 commitments so far among those blue chip seniors, only three are going to a school in their home state, with Houghton being one of them. (And of those 22 commitments, 6 are going to the ACC (2 to UNC), 3 to the Big 12, 3 to the SEC (2 to Tennessee), 3 to the Big Ten (2 to Michigan), 3 to the Ivy League (2 to Harvard), 2 to the WCC, and just 2 to the Pac-12 (Stanford and UCLA). That doesn't mean Stanford's recruiting this year is weak, as we have a top 5 recruit in Houghton and one of the top internationals in Geller, or even UCLA's (they only lose Hart from this year's roster), but it does mean the rest of the conference's recruiting is weak this year. (Both Cal and USC made big splashes last year, though, and just like any sport, tennis players want to see a quick path to the top. Last year, 6 blue chips signed with the Pac-12--2 each to Stanford and UCLA, and 1 each to Cal and USC--while the ACC also had 6, the SEC had 4, the Big Ten 3, the Ivies 3, and the Big 12 just 2.)

RE: Women's Tennis: Weekend in Texas - ColoradoTree - 03-03-2020

New ITA rankings are out, and Stanford dropped from 6th to 9th. Why, you ask? Well, we didn't play anyone this past weekend, so other teams had an opportunity to add a good countable win for rankings purposes. Why didn't we have anyone scheduled? That's a better question. This year's schedule is as light as I've ever seen from this team, so either we had some tentative scheduling agreements that fell apart, there were some miscommunications, or Lele decided this team needed a lighter schedule to be fresh for NCAAs and that she was gambling on sweeping through the Pac-12 again to ensure home playoff dates through the first three rounds.

Anyway, here's the new top 25, as well as the teams on our schedule in the top 50:

1. UNC
2. Ohio State (+3)
3. UCLA (+5) (L)
4. FSU (-2)
5. N.C. State (-2)
6. Texas (-2) (W, away)
7. Georgia (+2)
8. Georgia Tech (+2) (W)
9. Stanford (-3)
10. UVA (+3)
11. Duke (-4)
12. Oklahoma State (+2)
13. Princeton (-2)
14. Wake Forest (-2)
15. Michigan (+1) (W)
16. Pepperdine (+1)
17. Vanderbilt (+3)
18. UCF (+7)
19. Arizona State (+7)
20. Miami (-2)
21. Wisconsin (+1)
22. South Carolina (+8)
23. Syracuse (+21)
24. Notre Dame (-9)
25. LSU (+11)
30. Washington (-2)
37. USC (-6)
39. Washington State (+4) (W)
44. Utah (+1)
T50. UCSB (up from NR)

Cal continues to be unranked, and USC's fall continues. Around the Pac-12, here's what we saw last weekend while Stanford was idle:

* UCLA beat USC 5-2 on USC's courts and then followed it up with a 4-3 home win over Pepperdine. A great weekend for the Bruins.
* After losing to UCLA, USC beat Loyola Marymount 4-2. Looks like USC has some key injuries, which might explain why that scoreline was as close as it was.
* Oregon beat Fresno State 4-3 to move to 7-5 on the year (they've beaten some bad teams and lost to both good and bad teams; Oregon is still bad)
* Arizona beat San Francisco and Montana to get to 7-5 on the year.
* ASU lost 4-3 to a good Texas Tech team in Tempe and followed it up with a sweep over overmatched Cal Poly.
* UW was also idle
* WSU lost 4-3 at San Diego and then beat UCSB 4-2 on USD's courts.
* Colorado lost 6-1 to Denver and then beat Minnesota 4-1.
* Utah beat BYU and Boise State. Shrug.
* Cal beat San Diego State 7-0. Shrug.

In short, nothing changed my view of the conference that it's UCLA at the top, then Stanford, and then a gap, and then a muddled mess of USC, Cal, ASU, UW, WSU, and maybe Utah.