[ColoradoTree]

Thank you ColoradoTree. The CardBoard's outage made me miss your in-depth analyses even more, especially after such a big win against a top team like Texas.

Anything specific you are seeing from Yepifanova that is the cause of her slump? I only saw bits and pieces when they played the ITA Indoors a couple weekends ago.

You know, I haven't watched her matches all that closely, so I really can't say for sure. She had an absolutely outstanding ITA Indoors (which was just a couple of weeks ago), and before this last weekend, the only loss she'd taken this spring was a very close three-setter (7-6 in the third) to then-#26 Kupres of A&M, so certainly nothing to complain about there. She struggled a little bit at the end of the fall season, dropping a match to Cal's Hannah Viller Moeller that I don't think she should lose, and then getting upset in the hidden dual at Hawaii. But fall season is another beast entirely, and I tend to shrug off weird results there if the dual season starts well otherwise, which it absolutely had for Yepifanova.

So, a couple ways of looking at this. On one hand, it's just two losses. Just one bad weekend! She's still a player capable of knocking off just about anyone in the country. She missed the match against UOP, and perhaps that was because she'd pushed a little too hard in her win against then-#5 Kajuru of Oklahoma State, so this past weekend could be that we're just seeing a tired/sore Yepifanova rather than something more worrisome. And why even mention that loss to Viller Moeller when she was clearly in some great form that week, as she knocked off Ma in three sets the next round? Sometimes players get hot. 

And then there's the pessimistic view. She seems ensconced at the #3 spot after holding down #1 for much of last year, so there's some reduced expectations already baked into the season. And it's not so much that she lost to UT's Rapolu, it's that she got annihilated. Plus, rather than bouncing back after a poor performance against UT like Xu did, she continued to struggle against someone she should beat. 

(A quick aside: Xu's loss to Texas was also disappointing, but I loved her response. While Xu can struggle against players that, while not quite on her level, aren't all that far off, she also has the ability to consistently and quickly beat players that are a step further down. I still think Xu's place in the lineup is far from secure, and if she doesn't start dominating at #6, then she might find herself out of the lineup, but at least she responded well.)

I'm much more inclined to the former right now. I think she'll figure it out just fine. I still think she's our second-best player, but I've always thought that, even when she was playing ahead of Ma and Blake. We've got a nice final tune-up against St. Mary's this weekend before the final Pac-12 season gets started in the desert against ASU and Arizona the following weekend, so let's wait and see. ASU is #37 and Arizona is #42, so they're nice tests.

And we'll talk more about this next week, but ASU is legitimately dangerous despite a middling record. They've scheduled hard, with 4-0 losses to both Oklahoma State and Ohio State on their resume already, plus a 4-1 loss to San Diego (that was about to be 4-2 with the final match even in the third, so it could've drawn closer). But those scorelines don't tell the whole story, as the doubles point against Oklahoma State had tiebreakers on all three courts, and ASU either led or was going the distance in the other three courts. So, if doubles goes the other way, that could've easily been a 4-3 match either way. And ASU's 4-0 loss to Ohio State was in Columbus, but they just beat Ohio State 4-1 in Tempe (though the other two singles matches were tight in the third set, so closer than the scoreline indicates). So that match in Tempe next weekend is certainly not one to take lightly. But with 2 matches against Ohio State and 1 each against San Diego, Oklahoma State, and UC Davis, that's 5 matches we can look to for comps on potentially what to expect. 

As for Arizona, the only comp we have is Maryland, who we beat 4-0 behind a dominant doubles showing and easy wins from 3, 4, and 5, with Xu a game away from making it 5-0 at 6, while Ma had won her first set 6-2 but was on serve in the second against Liu, and Blake had lost her first set 7-5 to Miranda but was on serve in her second. Meanwhile, Arizona beat them 4-2, also winning doubles handily and getting easy wins on Courts 1 and 6, losing on 2 and 4, and with Court 3 looking pretty tight. Another one we can't look past, but on paper, they don't appear to be quite as dangerous as ASU.

[ColoradoTree]

Thank you ColoradoTree. The CardBoard's outage made me miss your in-depth analyses even more, especially after such a big win against a top team like Texas.

Anything specific you are seeing from Yepifanova that is the cause of her slump? I only saw bits and pieces when they played the ITA Indoors a couple weekends ago.

You know, I haven't watched her matches all that closely, so I really can't say for sure. She had an absolutely outstanding ITA Indoors (which was just a couple of weeks ago), and before this last weekend, the only loss she'd taken this spring was a very close three-setter (7-6 in the third) to then-#26 Kupres of A&M, so certainly nothing to complain about there. She struggled a little bit at the end of the fall season, dropping a match to Cal's Hannah Viller Moeller that I don't think she should lose, and then getting upset in the hidden dual at Hawaii. But fall season is another beast entirely, and I tend to shrug off weird results there if the dual season starts well otherwise, which it absolutely had for Yepifanova.

So, a couple ways of looking at this. On one hand, it's just two losses. Just one bad weekend! She's still a player capable of knocking off just about anyone in the country. She missed the match against UOP, and perhaps that was because she'd pushed a little too hard in her win against then-#5 Kajuru of Oklahoma State, so this past weekend could be that we're just seeing a tired/sore Yepifanova rather than something more worrisome. And why even mention that loss to Viller Moeller when she was clearly in some great form that week, as she knocked off Ma in three sets the next round? Sometimes players get hot. 

And then there's the pessimistic view. She seems ensconced at the #3 spot after holding down #1 for much of last year, so there's some reduced expectations already baked into the season. And it's not so much that she lost to UT's Rapolu, it's that she got annihilated. Plus, rather than bouncing back after a poor performance against UT like Xu did, she continued to struggle against someone she should beat. 

(A quick aside: Xu's loss to Texas was also disappointing, but I loved her response. While Xu can struggle against players that, while not quite on her level, aren't all that far off, she also has the ability to consistently and quickly beat players that are a step further down. I still think Xu's place in the lineup is far from secure, and if she doesn't start dominating at #6, then she might find herself out of the lineup, but at least she responded well.)

I'm much more inclined to the former right now. I think she'll figure it out just fine. I still think she's our second-best player, but I've always thought that, even when she was playing ahead of Ma and Blake. We've got a nice final tune-up against St. Mary's this weekend before the final Pac-12 season gets started in the desert against ASU and Arizona the following weekend, so let's wait and see. ASU is #37 and Arizona is #42, so they're nice tests.

And we'll talk more about this next week, but ASU is legitimately dangerous despite a middling record. They've scheduled hard, with 4-0 losses to both Oklahoma State and Ohio State on their resume already, plus a 4-1 loss to San Diego (that was about to be 4-2 with the final match even in the third, so it could've drawn closer). But those scorelines don't tell the whole story, as the doubles point against Oklahoma State had tiebreakers on all three courts, and ASU either led or was going the distance in the other three courts. So, if doubles goes the other way, that could've easily been a 4-3 match either way. And ASU's 4-0 loss to Ohio State was in Columbus, but they just beat Ohio State 4-1 in Tempe (though the other two singles matches were tight in the third set, so closer than the scoreline indicates). So that match in Tempe next weekend is certainly not one to take lightly. But with 2 matches against Ohio State and 1 each against San Diego, Oklahoma State, and UC Davis, that's 5 matches we can look to for comps on potentially what to expect. 

As for Arizona, the only comp we have is Maryland, who we beat 4-0 behind a dominant doubles showing and easy wins from 3, 4, and 5, with Xu a game away from making it 5-0 at 6, while Ma had won her first set 6-2 but was on serve in the second against Liu, and Blake had lost her first set 7-5 to Miranda but was on serve in her second. Meanwhile, Arizona beat them 4-2, also winning doubles handily and getting easy wins on Courts 1 and 6, losing on 2 and 4, and with Court 3 looking pretty tight. Another one we can't look past, but on paper, they don't appear to be quite as dangerous as ASU.