[ColoradoTree]

Exactly right. It’s the combination of Xu’s talent and her playing at #6 against lesser players. In the past, she’s dominated lesser players, but over the past couple months, she’s had a bewildering inability to just come out and stomp on them. 

Many teams have an ace or a couple of great players, but most teams get significantly weaker as you move down the lineup. I wouldn’t be mad if Xu’s results came in a Pac-12 season where she played at 3 and 4. But she’s playing at 6, and she’s still struggling. And sure, this match was on Court 4, but it was against UMass, with players who wouldn’t crack the lineup of the vast majority of teams we’ve played this year. I mean, Emma Sun handled her match without any difficulty! And Xu is about ten times better than Sun. So it’s not a talent question, but a mentality and decision-making question. 

I wonder if we’d be seeing her in sharper form if Lele had benched her for longer stretches this season in favor of Yu, if only to shock her into better form.

Traditionally, it’s our depth that wins us titles, as our top 3 face the other teams’ best but our bottom 3 overwhelm weaker opponents. And on paper, we have that kind of absurd depth. But it hasn’t translated. Xu should be first off court in most of these matches, but we’re relying more on Blake and Ma and Yepifanova. (And yes, there’s some blame for Blokhina and Hui, particularly Blokhina, to share here. But Xu stands out.)

[ColoradoTree]

Exactly right. It’s the combination of Xu’s talent and her playing at #6 against lesser players. In the past, she’s dominated lesser players, but over the past couple months, she’s had a bewildering inability to just come out and stomp on them. 

Many teams have an ace or a couple of great players, but most teams get significantly weaker as you move down the lineup. I wouldn’t be mad if Xu’s results came in a Pac-12 season where she played at 3 and 4. But she’s playing at 6, and she’s still struggling. And sure, this match was on Court 4, but it was against UMass, with players who wouldn’t crack the lineup of the vast majority of teams we’ve played this year. I mean, Emma Sun handled her match without any difficulty! And Xu is about ten times better than Sun. So it’s not a talent question, but a mentality and decision-making question. 

I wonder if we’d be seeing her in sharper form if Lele had benched her for longer stretches this season in favor of Yu, if only to shock her into better form.

Traditionally, it’s our depth that wins us titles, as our top 3 face the other teams’ best but our bottom 3 overwhelm weaker opponents. And on paper, we have that kind of absurd depth. But it hasn’t translated. Xu should be first off court in most of these matches, but we’re relying more on Blake and Ma and Yepifanova. (And yes, there’s some blame for Blokhina and Hui, particularly Blokhina, to share here. But Xu stands out.)