04-26-2018, 08:57 AM
A quick note on Washington: their lineup against Colorado was slightly different than it was against us: #5 singles player Kenadi Hance was out of the lineup, so #6 Katarina Kopcalic was bumped up to #5, and walk-on senior Angela Li (who joined the team this year after being on the track team beforehand) entered the lineup at #6. This also affected the doubles lineups, moving previous #3 pair Fung/Kopcalic to #2, with Li pairing with Prokopuik at the #3 spot.
In short, this means:
(1) Winning the doubles point should be considerably easier today
(2) Shin will have a different matchup at #5. She didn't have much trouble with Hance a few weeks ago in Seattle, but Kopcalic really tested Higuchi at Court 6, so while Hance is theoretically "better" than Kopcalic, it's not clear whether the matchup might prove a bit tougher for Shin, too.
(3) Higuchi should steamroll Li.
It doesn't change my prediction much--we should win the doubles point more easily, and I still expect straightforward singles wins at #4 and #6--but I wouldn't be surprised if Shin struggles a bit, meaning the 4th point might come from Lampl or Lord. But their lineup is weakened, so that makes a Stanford win somewhat more likely.
In other action yesterday, USC took care of Arizona 4-1 (I'm honestly shocked USC lost a match to a team this bad), and Oregon blanked Utah 4-0. So, here are the quarterfinal matchups:
(1) Stanford vs. (8) Washington (2:00pm)
(4) Cal vs. (5) Washington State (10:30am)
(3) Arizona State vs. (6) USC (10:30am)
(2) UCLA vs. (7) Oregon (2:00pm)
In short, this means:
(1) Winning the doubles point should be considerably easier today
(2) Shin will have a different matchup at #5. She didn't have much trouble with Hance a few weeks ago in Seattle, but Kopcalic really tested Higuchi at Court 6, so while Hance is theoretically "better" than Kopcalic, it's not clear whether the matchup might prove a bit tougher for Shin, too.
(3) Higuchi should steamroll Li.
It doesn't change my prediction much--we should win the doubles point more easily, and I still expect straightforward singles wins at #4 and #6--but I wouldn't be surprised if Shin struggles a bit, meaning the 4th point might come from Lampl or Lord. But their lineup is weakened, so that makes a Stanford win somewhat more likely.
In other action yesterday, USC took care of Arizona 4-1 (I'm honestly shocked USC lost a match to a team this bad), and Oregon blanked Utah 4-0. So, here are the quarterfinal matchups:
(1) Stanford vs. (8) Washington (2:00pm)
(4) Cal vs. (5) Washington State (10:30am)
(3) Arizona State vs. (6) USC (10:30am)
(2) UCLA vs. (7) Oregon (2:00pm)