[ColoradoTree]

Takeaways from this tournament:

* Michaela Gordon has it.  She played dominant tennis the entire tournament, getting pressed in only one set (today's first set).  She sure looks like our #2.  It doesn't mean she will be--Higuchi beat Carolines Doyle and Lampl in last year's Northwest Regionals but still played #6, while Doyle ended up at #1 and Lampl played #4--and this is just one tournament.  But she has the physical tools to dominate. 
* Emily Arbuthnott has taken a big step.  She had a good offseason, winning an ITF title in both singles and doubles, and participating on Great Britain's team for the University Games.  On a team where the 2-5 spots look relatively unsettled, she made a great case for herself here. 
* Melissa Lord is going to be just fine.  Looked terrific in stretches, and even when she was pressed (by Oregon's Sangwan, most notably, who has taken a big step herself), she dug deep and was able to put matches away, at least before she met Arbuthnott, who was playing with her hair on fire.
* Janice Shin has some great fight in her, and a short memory.  She dropped a 6-0 second set to 2-seed Alyssa Tobita (ranked #48), and could have easily folded, but gutted out a win and then won her next match in a third-set tiebreaker, before running into the Michaela Gordon buzz saw. 
* Emma Higuchi, our most dependable singles player last year, can struggle when she plays more powerful players.  That bit her here, where she cruised through her first two matches by 6,1, 6-0 and 6-0, 6-0 scores before she ran up against ןɐɔ's Anna Bright, who is a big hitter.  Then, in a consolation match, she lost to another big-hitting ןɐɔ freshman, 5'11" Vivian Glozman. 
* Caroline Lampl had an off day, losing to Gonzaga's Nevada Apollo (who played #1 for her team much of last season), but took some of that frustration out by winning both of her matches in the consolation bracket, including shaking off a first set loss vs. ןɐɔ's Glozman to win the second 6-2 and then win the supertiebreak for the match. 
* Kimberly Yee can't catch a break.  The former blue chip recruit from Las Vegas, now a junior, has struggled to break into the lineup, though she acquitted herself reasonably well at the #6 singles spot her freshman year.  But she was passed over by both Higuchi and Arbuthnott last year, leaving her the odd woman out.  With two spots opening up after Doyle and Davidson graduated, I'd hoped that she would grab one of them and not let herself be supplanted by two freshman yet again.  This was a big opportunity to prove herself, and after rolling in her first round match, she had to withdraw with an injury in her second round match, which meant she and Higuchi were out of the doubles tournament as well.

On the doubles side of things, it's not at all clear that the pairings in this tournament--Lampl/Lord, Arbuthnott/Gordon, and Higuchi/Yee--are the ones we'll see in the spring.  At last year's Northwest Regionals, Lampl and Yee teamed up and made it to the final, narrowly losing a third-set supertiebreak to ןɐɔ's Popovic/Hauger, but Yee only played two doubles matches in the dual season.  Given the current format of a quick doubles point before the singles play starts, it seems that Lele's preference is to get her singles players warmed up as part of that doubles, so the pairs in the spring will likely come from those six singles players.  And the fact that Arbuthnott/Gordon pushed the eventual doubles champions, Oregon's Sangwan/Tobita, to a supertiebreak, suggests that they've developed a bit of chemistry together.  If so, no reason to split them up. 

[ColoradoTree]

Takeaways from this tournament:

* Michaela Gordon has it.  She played dominant tennis the entire tournament, getting pressed in only one set (today's first set).  She sure looks like our #2.  It doesn't mean she will be--Higuchi beat Carolines Doyle and Lampl in last year's Northwest Regionals but still played #6, while Doyle ended up at #1 and Lampl played #4--and this is just one tournament.  But she has the physical tools to dominate. 
* Emily Arbuthnott has taken a big step.  She had a good offseason, winning an ITF title in both singles and doubles, and participating on Great Britain's team for the University Games.  On a team where the 2-5 spots look relatively unsettled, she made a great case for herself here. 
* Melissa Lord is going to be just fine.  Looked terrific in stretches, and even when she was pressed (by Oregon's Sangwan, most notably, who has taken a big step herself), she dug deep and was able to put matches away, at least before she met Arbuthnott, who was playing with her hair on fire.
* Janice Shin has some great fight in her, and a short memory.  She dropped a 6-0 second set to 2-seed Alyssa Tobita (ranked #48), and could have easily folded, but gutted out a win and then won her next match in a third-set tiebreaker, before running into the Michaela Gordon buzz saw. 
* Emma Higuchi, our most dependable singles player last year, can struggle when she plays more powerful players.  That bit her here, where she cruised through her first two matches by 6,1, 6-0 and 6-0, 6-0 scores before she ran up against ןɐɔ's Anna Bright, who is a big hitter.  Then, in a consolation match, she lost to another big-hitting ןɐɔ freshman, 5'11" Vivian Glozman. 
* Caroline Lampl had an off day, losing to Gonzaga's Nevada Apollo (who played #1 for her team much of last season), but took some of that frustration out by winning both of her matches in the consolation bracket, including shaking off a first set loss vs. ןɐɔ's Glozman to win the second 6-2 and then win the supertiebreak for the match. 
* Kimberly Yee can't catch a break.  The former blue chip recruit from Las Vegas, now a junior, has struggled to break into the lineup, though she acquitted herself reasonably well at the #6 singles spot her freshman year.  But she was passed over by both Higuchi and Arbuthnott last year, leaving her the odd woman out.  With two spots opening up after Doyle and Davidson graduated, I'd hoped that she would grab one of them and not let herself be supplanted by two freshman yet again.  This was a big opportunity to prove herself, and after rolling in her first round match, she had to withdraw with an injury in her second round match, which meant she and Higuchi were out of the doubles tournament as well.

On the doubles side of things, it's not at all clear that the pairings in this tournament--Lampl/Lord, Arbuthnott/Gordon, and Higuchi/Yee--are the ones we'll see in the spring.  At last year's Northwest Regionals, Lampl and Yee teamed up and made it to the final, narrowly losing a third-set supertiebreak to ןɐɔ's Popovic/Hauger, but Yee only played two doubles matches in the dual season.  Given the current format of a quick doubles point before the singles play starts, it seems that Lele's preference is to get her singles players warmed up as part of that doubles, so the pairs in the spring will likely come from those six singles players.  And the fact that Arbuthnott/Gordon pushed the eventual doubles champions, Oregon's Sangwan/Tobita, to a supertiebreak, suggests that they've developed a bit of chemistry together.  If so, no reason to split them up.