Houston League Tennis Blog

Lucy Kenyon Memorial Tournament

2012-02-07T08:30:00.002-06:00

There is a benefit tournament this weekend for the family of Lucy Kenyon. Lucy was a young (27?) chiropractor with a lot of connections to the local tennis community who passed away from colon cancer in January.

Here are the details.

HTA Named USTA National CTA of the Year

2012-01-17T10:03:00.000-06:00

Some may have seen this, but good recognition for the work put in by HTA from the national association.

Agree or disagree with policies put forth the staff does work hard for tennis in our community.

Congrats HTA!

WTT event in January

2011-12-27T16:08:00.004-06:00

The next WTT event will be held January 21st/22nd at the Copperfield Racquet & Health Club. On January 21st the 3.0 and 4.0 levels will participate and on January 22nd the 3.5 and 4.5 levels will participate. Winners of each group will have the opportunity to compete in Sectionals February 18-20 and winners from the event will participate in the National Championships in Indian Wells, CA in early November! In order to participate, just go to www.wtt.com and search for the Houston event under Recreational events. You may register as a player that needs to be placed on a team or get a team together yourself! The rules and details are on the website as well. You need a minimum of 2 males and 2 females to form a team. The format is as follows: one set of men's and women's doubles, one set of men's and women's singles and 2 courts of one set each of mixed doubles. You will play a total of three matches. For more information, you may contact me at lance@thelokengroup.com or 832.387.8248.
A direct link to the website is: http://www.wttrec.com/recleag/league_info.asp?s=764&t=1&l=4518&f=2028&shw=gi

Tennis Warehouse 50% off select items until Dec 23 5pm PST

2011-12-22T20:35:00.000-06:00

Tennis Warehouse 50% off select items until Dec 23 5pm PST

http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/c...p=TWWBCOUP

They reached 50k fans on facebook and wanted to give nice discounts on tennis gear. 50% off all listed prices. Would be a good deal for a racquet or shoes. Picked up Nike Air Court Ballistecs 3.3 for ~50 bucks. If you don't see the prices right away in your cart, try refreshing.

Tax in CA.

Free 2 day shipping for purchases over $75

http://img.tennis-warehouse.com/img/502.jpg

Repost from Fatwallet BTW

http://tinyurl.com/TW-Fatwallet

New Ratings Out Today

2011-11-28T06:33:00.002-06:00

According to TennisLink, the year-end ratings will be released today sometime before 5PM Eastern. As usual, I would expect a lot of movement from 4.0 to 4.5 but not too much movement in the other direction. Most local 4.5 players should be safe unless the USTA makes a conscious effort to bump a much higher percentage of 4.5 players this year.

Feel free to speculate/discuss. I won't be monitoring TennisLink continuously today, so if anyone hears that the new ratings are released, please hit me on twitter @HtownHacker.

Tennis Express Groupon through this weekend

2011-11-26T07:23:00.000-06:00

Might as well save some money as you are going to spend it there anyways...

Tennis Express Groupon

Happy Thanksgiving,
Chris

Rice Tournament

2011-11-14T16:11:00.002-06:00

There will be a one day tournament held at Rice University this Saturday. It looks like it's cheap and might be some good competition. See below for details.

Rice Tennis will host a USTA Campus Showdown on the Rice University Campus on November 19, 2011. This event is open to tennis players of all levels and ages. It will be a one day tournament with a separate men's and a women's draw.

Entry fee will be $5 for singles and $10 dollars for both singles and doubles payable on the day of the tournament.

Please contact Men's Assistant Coach Efe Ustundag at efe@rice.edu or Women's Assistant Coach Younes Limam at younes.limam@rice.edu to enter.

Join us for a great day of tennis on Rice Campus.

4.5 Nationals

2011-10-28T06:53:00.003-05:00

Joel Pickett's Dallas 4.5 team travels to Tuscon this weekend for Nationals. They've been placed in what appears to be a fairly tough flight. Traditional powers Northern California and Florida as well as a Seattle-based Pacific NW team (coached by Roger Mark?) will all be tough outs.

The Texas Section has been successful on the men's side at Nationasl this year, with runner-up finishes in both 5.0 and 4.0. As you probably know, this will probably result in some ratings inflation and significant "bump ups" throughout the state.

Ratings for the 2012 season will be published sometime in late November or early December.

Weekend Results

2011-10-03T06:20:00.002-05:00

It was the last busy tennis weekend of the year for many local players, as Mixed Sectionals and the Fall Fest filled the schedule on a beautiful tennis weekend.

There were some interesting results at the Fall Fest. First of all, kudos to Jason Cooney and Musa Salihu for taking the Men's 4.5 and 4.0 singles titles. Doubles winners were the teams of Roberto Narajos and Hung Nguyen in 4.5 and newcomers Alex Truong and Andrew Wu in 4.0. Winning the mixed were Hall/Hall and Vu/Houston.

Former 4.5 superstar Odion Dibua won the Open doubles. 4.0 rated George Hernandez toppled Quack Bui in the first round of the 4.5 and then was soundly beaten by Foad Ansari. Hersh Pise, playing on the Deucebags fall team, won the Open consolation.

Local mixed teams met with some success at Sectionals in Southlake. Monty Lindloff's 9.0 team won the title behind wins from Arnold/Breaux and Taylor/Corbin in the finals. SA imports Orlando Galvan and Cynthia Rice and Brett Bernstein/Melinda Montes were both undefeated as Robert Plummer's 10.0 mixed team also made it to Nationals. Michael Tran's 8.0 team didn't fare as well.

Wow

2011-09-25T16:55:00.002-05:00

What a great year it was, despite the disappointing finish. Some observations:

Roger Mark, de facto captain of the Seattle team that beat us in the finals, won his sixth National championship as a player and "coach". He has taken twenty teams to Nationals. As with most successful captains, he is a charming, gregarious and very likeable guy that players love to play for.

Having been associated with several Freeman teams now, this is the first time I felt we truly came together as a real team as opposed to a collection of pretty good tennis players who happened to play for the same team. It almost reminded me of the old Mob Squad days, minus the cheering. The players, wives, girlfriends and mothers all hung out with each other and truly supported each other. It makes League tennis much more enjoyable. However, as with many other Freeman teams, we were not all that vocal and were drowned out by the cheering of the Seattle team. Players can feed off the crowd and that could well make a difference in a match where we were just a couple of points away from a National Championship. Brad Beinart was awesome in support and had a nice doubles win as well.

Still, second place out of the literally thousands of 4.0 teams across the country is something to be proud of, and far exceeded my expectations at the beginning of the year.

One byproduct of the successes of the Houston 4.0 team and the Austin 5.0 team will be a ratings inflation in Texas next year. A rising tide floats all boats, and the high ratings of many of the players who went to Nationals will filter down to all local players. We'll see how Joel Pickett's 4.5 team will do in a month or so.

As always, thanks go out to Freeman, Red, Tuyen and everyone else who helped out with the Hurricane team this year. A job well done.

Nationals

2011-09-23T06:20:00.003-05:00

We have arrived in sunny Tuscon and play our first match this morning against the Intermountain team from Idaho, followed by a match against the Northern Section winner from Minnesota. Tomorrow we will face Florida and New England. There's really no way to tell at this point which of those teams will be the strongest, though I would guess Florida would be your best bet.

Some of us went out and scrimmaged with some of the guys from the Pacific Northwest team today, and I think we would do well against them in a real match. There's quite a big difference in the way the ball carries in the thin air here compared to the humid air of Houston.

I will try to update as much as possible.

USTA League Rules for 2013

2011-09-22T16:09:00.000-05:00

Here is the 411 on the league changes coming in 2013

This is a note from USTA Texas League Coordinator.

Link is to flyer from USTA on changes

I have some more information on the 2013 league restructure. I was in New York last week and there were a few new things that were approved for the restructure.

For the 18 & over division, the 5.0 level will now be 5.0+ which allows 2 players that are rated 5.5 to play on a team.

For the 40 & over division, the 4.5 level will now be 4.5 + which allows 2 players that are rated 5.0 to play on a team.

These players can play anywhere in the lineup. The reason they will be allowed to play anywhere in the lineup is that there is not a way for Tennislink to monitor which line they play and we did not want to put more work on coordinators and captains having to monitor this.

For the 70 & over we will continue to offer a sectional event for these players.

I've included some flyers for you. There is one for coordinators, one for facilities and the other is a general one for captains and players. Please feel free to send these out. In the next month we will let you know what time of year we will be holding the sectionals for each of these so you can start to plan locally. It is still early but the sooner we have it all planned out the smoother I think it will go.

Adult Sectionals

2011-09-06T07:20:00.002-05:00

The Beaumont Labor Day Open Tournament was cancelled due to the weather this past weekend. The year's biggest tournament, Texas Adult Sectionals, will be contested this coming weekend.

Some local players received high seedings based on their success over the past year. In 4.0 singles, Matt Drake is seeded first, but in my mind will be an underdog in his first match against league player Kevin Pimm. Carlos Quijano was awarded the second seed. Brian Goldberg, Herb Morton and John Griffin join top seed John Patch among the seeded players in Men's 4.5. Tim Green and David Guy are the two seeded players in 5.0. Guy will face Jason Gound in the first round.

Sectionals Results.

2011-08-14T18:25:00.006-05:00

I'm sure most of you know the winners. Congrats to Austin's Eric Strawbridge (who just a couple of years ago was starring at 4.5 Sectionals) and his Austin 5.0 team, Joel Pickett and his Dallas 4.5 team and Jason Freeman and his Houston 4.0 team.

There are just so many teams in 4.5 and 4.0 that putting a winning team together is truly a year-long (or even two years) process for a captain. I know Pickett and Freeman (and Arcaria, Somabut, Benzon and many others) put their hearts and souls and energy (365 days a year) into putting together a team that can win. This year it was Freeman who pushed all the right buttons. There's always some luck involved, but his lineups just seemed to work out perfectly each time. (Yes, Kern, Captain February disappeared this year) I just want to publicly thank him and all of the other people who helped me piggyback my way to Nationals after so many near misses in all of those trips to Sectionals. So, thanks to Freeman, Red, Tuyen Nguyen, Michael Tran, The Chancellor's 4.0 team who was so supportive of us, Cheryl, Diana and all of the others who selflessly helped us achieve our goal. We were able to use six different singles players throughout the weekend, and that singles depth really helped us have some key fresh legs as we got to Sunday.

Props go out to the Houston 5.0 team, who were able to come within a whisker of getting to Nationals. Aadrian Hasker was a beast all weekend long.

A disappointing year for the Houston 4.5 teams. After dominating the state for so long, Houston's 4.5 division is in a down cycle. Pickett's Dallas team was able to win with some significant contributions from a number of recent 4.0 players (Jean Nguyen, Hai Nguyen, Johan Mudsam and others), so one would have thought the door would be open for a Houston team to compete with them, but the Houston teams' rosters were just not strong enough. I expect that next year will be a different story.

Links to Results from Sectionals

2011-08-12T14:34:00.000-05:00

Got tired of dancing around tennislink this AM looking for results.

Looks like Htown (Winner, Wild and Noho) are doing well thus far.

http://tinyurl.com/TTA-Overall

From there you can drill down to the level of choice.

No preview this year

2011-08-08T06:26:00.004-05:00

Sorry, I've been bogged down with other things and don't have time to preview all of the levels and flights this year. My quick impressions on Houston's teams:

I think the 5.0 team will have its hands full with the Fort Worth and Dallas teams. Austin doesn't look that strong and Noho is a virtual walkover. I've played (and been crushed by) Dallas singles guy Chris Walker (James Blake's half brother) and am curious to see how Hasker will fare in the battle of lefties. I've seen Walker wear down in the heat, but Hasker looked gassed in the afternoon heat yesterday as well.

The Hurricane 4.5 team has certainly benefited from some very friendly flights this year. Their success at Sectionals depends greatly on the aforementioned young singles guys on the Corpus team. Many of the Corpus players (Barre, Whitehurst, Shandy, et al.) have been traveling to Dallas for Sectionals for a decade or so, and are competent players, but the eligibility of the youngsters will decide whether the team is a factor or not. The Canes may make it to Sunday, but they will be huge underdogs to go any further.

The Lakeside 4.5 team got stuck in a tough bracket. Dallas, San Antonio and the Valley fill out their flight. Will Hess and Bui play singles in each match? Lakeside has three lines that can compete with most teams and will be dangerous, but I just don't see them emerging from this tough pool.

The Chancellor's 4.0 team has been practicing very hard getting ready for the heat in Dallas. Bao Hangoc, Tuan Tran, Minh Hoang and Cuong Truong, among others, all braved the afternoon heat at Memorial Park for hours yesterday and seem accustomed to outdoor play. As you probably know, 4.0 Sectional pools are one team bigger than 4.5 flights, so a champion is required to play 6 matches in three days. Chancellor's has shown little depth in singles. Can Hoang and Truong play two singles matches each day and be at their best?

The Hurricane 4.0 team could have a similar problem. Singles depth should not be a factor for the 'Canes, as they have a number of quality singles players. The overall depth is a question mark, however. The team has a number of young players who (one would think) should not be affected by two matches a day in the heat.

For those headed to Dallas

2011-08-01T20:30:00.000-05:00

For those headed to Dallas for sectionals at any level I wish you well in playing that 4p match.

This was taken on 75 near Spring Creek after being in the car for 20mins.

Fluid up and hope you have 18 capable players on your roster.

Best of luck to all!

Weekend Wrapup

2011-07-18T06:27:00.002-05:00

Congrats to the Hurricane 4.5, Lakeside 4.5, Chancellor's 4.0 and Hurricane 4.0 teams, as all secured berths to Sectionals this weekend.

What stood out for me:

Ed Hess's dominance over Pete Taylor.

Tommy Connell. How old is that guy, anyway?

The other "old man" Ward Jannuzzi winning two singles matches in Sunday's heat to give the Hurricane 4.5 team a slot in the "easy" pool up in Dallas.

Kevin Lotz, who showed he could be competitive at a higher level.

The "David and Goliath" match between Minh Hoang and Musa Salihu.

The Chancellor's 4.0 team, who breezed through the playoffs, winning 23 lines and dropping only two and avenging their losses to the 'Canes while using fewer "starters" in the final match.

Big Weekend

2011-07-15T07:09:00.002-05:00

Sorry for my recent Blog neglect.

Nothing earth shattering happened in last night's round of 4.0 playoffs. It will still, in all likelihood, come down to the Lakeside/Chancellor's and Hurricanes/Unicorns matchups on Sunday morning.

It's earlier, percentage-wise, in the 4.5 playoffs, so there is still a chance for a team who lost their first match to sneak into Dallas (at least in theory). However, it's probably a safe bet to say that the Blast/Lakeside and Hurricane/Black Sheep matches will both be for a trip to Sectionals. A close Hurricane win against the Black Sheep may still leave the door open for Copperfield on Sunday afternoon.

My picks: Lakeside and Hurricanes earn trips to Dallas.

Not too many surprises

2011-07-08T06:20:00.002-05:00

The 4.5 playoffs got underway last night. I suppose there was a mild upset as the Black Sheep took down Copperfield 3-2, but everything else went according to form.

I haven't seen the "box score", but I heard Arin Faggard played singles for Copperfield. That's a head scratcher, for me. Where were Patel and/or Martinez or even McMullen?

Also MIA were Muhala and Ellingsen as the Gypsies put up little resistance for the Blast, getting shut out. Another good win for Kiser/Giordanelli, who beat the veteran team of Regent/Li in three sets.

Perhaps NumbersGuy could tell me, and if I have a chance today I will do some research, but I would guess that the team that sweeps the singles win postseason matches close to 95 percent of the time (yeah, I know the Hurricane 4.5 exception a coupla' years ago). Greg Schmucker did his best to get the singles split, but Quack Bui was a little better and Lakeside prevailed.

A nice win for Roberto Narajos over Jason Cooney for the 4.5 Hurricanes. The number two singles spot is a question mark for the 'Canes, and Narajos may be an answer. He certainly has the talent, but I was unsure of his fitness level for singles. I'm sure Cooney made him hit a lot of balls...

The 4.0 matches were even less surprising. Chancellor's dominated, the Unicorns swept, the Hurricanes rolled and Lakeside cruised. It's looking like Sunday morning will feature two matches for all the marbles when Chancellor's/Lakeside and Hurricanes/Unicorns butt heads.

Kevin Lotz again dominated for the Unicorns. He may be the best 4.0 player in the city.

Sienna's Nicholas Lucidi was ruled ineligible and his win over Lakeside last week was reversed. He had already advanced in the postseason with a team from Baton Rouge and was thus not eligible to play for another playoff team, so last week's double bagel gets stricken from the record.

Playoffs Heat Up.

2011-07-06T08:07:00.004-05:00

Well, the playoffs finally get into full swing this week as both the 4.5 and 4.0 divisions have four matches scheduled for Thursday.

Is there a prohibitive favorite in 4.5 this year? I think not. Copperfield, Lakeside, the Hurricanes and the Blast are all considered the frontrunners by some knowledgable observers. None of these teams face each other this week, but all will be tested.

Lakeside takes on the Deucebags at home. It's hard to see the Dbags winning without splitting the singles, especially if Connell/Wright take the court. Quack Bui will be their target...can Nazario or Bishop (or Schmucker/Goldberg/Chavarria) take him down? I'll take Lakeside to win.

The Blast take on the Gypsies. Who will join Pete Taylor in the Blast singles lineup? Li/Regent seem to be the strongest doubles pairing on the two teams, but can the Gypsies eke out two more lines?

The Hurricanes take on Sugar Creek. Douds' guys were overlooked last year and shocked the 4.5 world. There's no Antoine Ford on the team this year, but the Hurricanes don't have any singles juggernauts themselves. I think the 'Canes take this one based on their doubles.

Finally, Copperfield hosts the Black Sheep. The Lobsters were once looked upon as heavy favorites, but there hasn't been an Adam Kent appearance since April. Shaan Patel may provide the margin of victory. As an aside, does anyone else feel that the USTA may have changed their "tolerance" level for three strikes this year? Yes, I know score managing has increased, but it seems to me there are some players out there who would have been DQ'd in previous years who have escaped in 2011. Perhaps Patel will be fine.

The 4.0 division also has four matchups this week. Some teams will be making their first appearances after having a bye last week, so we may find out a little more about some "unknown" teams.

One of those teams, The Good Guys, went undefeated this year and plays a tough Chancellor's squad that pulled off a sweep last week. Incidentally, Flight One appears a bit tougher to me, and it's possible that three teams could end up with one loss when all is said and done. The Good Guys are solid at four lines. Chancellor's Cuong Truong flirts with danger every week. Do Kiss or Mei have enough game to beat him?

Lakeside got their two "easy" matches upfront and shouldn't have too much trouble with Copperfield this week.

The Hurricanes travel out to Cinco Ranch to face a mystery team that has completely dominated their division during the regular season. Not many big names on the Cinco team, so we may find out a lot more about them this week.

Finally, The Unicorns take on an RPM team that surprised a lot of people last week, but probably doesn't have doubles depth to take three lines.

BTW, I got this from Anthony Tatu on the Austin Blog: Evan King is blogging about practicing with the U.S. Davis Cup team. I found it interesting.

Scattershots...

2011-07-01T06:42:00.002-05:00

Gypsies/Shwings results are interesting. I was surprised to see Rothe/Hall and Kim/Kim taken to the woodshed like that...

Where was Callaway???

The Hurricane 4.0 team is overrated. If Soda Heng doesn't cramp up, we might be talking about a huge "upset" last night...

I am curious to see just HOW MUCH tanking goes on in the remainder of the 5.0 season with nothing on the line. Will there be roster additions simply for tanking purposes???

Looks like Copperfield 4.5 swept out and took the division crown. Not surprising...

What IS surprising is that nobody told Shaan Patel about "score managing". Two double bagels? Yikes...

Lakeside 4.0 may find the playoffs just a BIT tougher than regular season matches in their easy division. Good job pulling out a win last night...

Minh Hoang was in the singles lineup last night. Glad his knee has healed. His presence in singles makes a huge difference for them...

Kevin Lotz played singles for Unicorns last night, shoring up what looked to be a weakness. Unicorns have emerged as the favorites to win their pool...

Anyone have any news on Clambakes-Big Bangers? I haven't done the math...are the Bangers still in the hunt???

Black Sheep won about 64 pct. of games last night. Will that sew up a spot???

4.0 Playoffs Start, 4.5 in Home Stretch

2011-06-29T07:23:00.002-05:00

Sorry I have been negligent this week. It's come down to crunch time. In 4.0, the first round of playoffs begin on Thursday, with some top teams in action hoping to avoid an upset. In 4.5 there are a few matches remaining that will decide who gets those last spots. Again, I'm not privy to the game count, so your guess is as good as mine as far as who is "in the lead".

There are four playoff matches in 4.0 this week: Lakeside/Sienna, Copperfield/Chancellors, Hurricanes/RPM and Unicorns/GTAC. All feature division winners against wild cards.

Lakeside, who skated through what appears to be an easy division almost unscathed, will face its first test of the year against a Sienna team that improved itself vastly as the season went along. A couple of key additions have turned them into a team that can be dangerous. I'm looking forward to a Lucidi/Etienne matchup.

By virtue of winning its division, Copperfield will get to host Chancellor's, though they remain an underdog according to Vegas. Has Minh Hoang's gimpy knee healed? Will they need to use him in singles against a Copperfield team that appears weak in that area? Can't see anyone on Copperfield taking out Cuong Truong. Tuan Tran is playing some good ball. I'll pick Chancellor's, but it may be a close one.

Can GTAC threaten the Unicorns? The Unicorns may have the best doubles lineup in the city, but has not proven itself in singles...yet. Sumit Arora has been MIA for GTAC since April. Can he and Curren sweep the singles and put a scare into the Unicorns?

Two beloved captains, Freeman and Soewito, square off in the last 4.0 battle. RPM has a solid doubles lineup and the Hurricanes have shown weakness in that area. Steven Herold has been virtually unbeatable for Freddy's crew and could help make this competitive, but it's hard to see RPM's singles hang with the Hurricanes.

In 4.5 No Way Out will have its hands full this week with Lakeside Country Club. A win is necessary, as a loss will see the Coaches take second place in that division. Will NWO gamble with Westen at line one or put him at two and try to take two of three doubles lines if he beats Quack?

Fresh off Alex Ellingsen's great comeback, the Gypsies continue their improbable run to a division title by traveling to play Ssshhhwings this week. With the Black Sheep beating up on the Phoenix this week, Rothe's guys may need a resounding win (or a last second DQ) in order to even be in playoff consideration.

Copperfield played a match last night and has another bottom feeder on Thursday. Two sweeps give them the division title and perhaps the top seed?

The Big Bangers take on the Clambakes. Are they in the running, games-wise? Will Facker and/or Cannon get protested this week? I wouldn't be surprised if it's too late, given the way these things work.

4.0 Playoff Picture (90/10)

2011-06-24T15:48:00.003-05:00

4.0 playoffs are almost settled, 9 out of 10 places are decided at least according to my math. Hopefully it matches HTA's math. HTA has posted on their website that it's games-won percentage that determines which four of the six second-place teams go to the playoffs.

One match remains to be played that has playoff implications, Cinco Ranch Comets vs. Mason Creek Stars, scheduled for tomorrow. The winner will finish 2nd in that flight. However if Comets win, their games-won percentage (currently 6th out of 6) won't be high enough to get them into the playoffs. If Mason Creek wins, it depends on their scores, as they're right on the knife edge. Either they'll go or WSTC Warriors will. Currently Mason Creek has won 52.61% of their games, Warriors 52.57%. That's what I call close. Likely they'd stay ahead of Warriors if they win the match, but not guaranteed. I'm sure both teams are stand-up guys so if I were Warriors I wouldn't bother to send a scout to observe... GTAC, MPTC-RPM, Chancellors, and Sienna look to be in the playoffs by my calculations.

Seedings are another matter. Nobody but HTA knows what the seeding criteria will be, and possibly they don't even know yet. Perhaps some judgment will factor in, as you'd hate to see (say) Hurricanes, Chancellors, and Lakeside all in the same playoff flight simply by virtue of dumb numbers. But if it's done by numbers, then no matter which statistic is used (match winning percentage, line winning percentage, whatever), Lakeside would be top seed followed by Cinco Ranch Wranglers. After that it would depend on which statistic is used. If it's percent of games won, and assuming the flight winners are seeded ahead of the 2nd-place teams, then Unicorns, Good Guys, Copperfield, and Hurricanes (the price paid for score management) would be 3rd through 6th seeds. If it's by any other statistic - well you can read the standings as easliy as I.

A new post

2011-06-24T09:06:00.002-05:00

Commenting has been fast and furious of late, so I'll start a new thread.

Did rain affect any matches yesterday?

Not too much of interest last night at LLTC, other than the constantly circling helicopter. I DID finally get to meet the Sandwich Blaster. He and Pete Rios were both on the grounds, but there was no sign of Babu. Still haven't managed to make the acquaintance of the World's Most Interesting Man. Perhaps during the playoffs.

Somebody made a statement to me that Hung Nguyen is the second best (behind Kudrick) singles player in 4.5 this year. Interesting. Word on the street is that he is playing at a much higher level than last year. It's too bad his team wasn't able to put it together enough to get into the postseason. It would have been interesting to see how he would have fared. Wish he had played Taylor instead of Medford in the last matchup.

Not Much Going On

2011-06-21T06:52:00.002-05:00

There's not much to focus on as the season winds down. One negative to the games percentage thing is that it's hard to know at a glance where a team stands in the playoff hunt. One thing is certain: to be eligible for wild card consideration a team must finish in second place. In 4.5 we still have some battles for second: Chancellor's/Sugar Creek, No Way Out/Katy Coaches and the three way logjam between Black Sheep, Gypsies and Ssshhhwings. One wild card slot is sewn up, presumably (Copperfield or Dbags). 4.5 Playoffs begin July 7th (4.0 on June 30th), so many important matches will not be played until next week.

I know I shouldn't have to say this, but please try to refrain from the personal, non-tennis-related attacks. I try to delete them as quickly as possible, but I am certainly not monitoring this blog 24/7. Hopefully Chris will be able to get some of the ones I miss.

Blog MVP voting for 2011 will begin soon. Rios, Babu and the Sandwich Blaster are the heavy favorites.

One more week

2011-06-17T07:00:00.002-05:00

We had a fun night out at LLTC last night. Chancellor's and The Hurricane 4.0 team matched up again. Both teams were loose, as most figured that the teams were playoff-bound, win or lose. Chancellor's is a likeable bunch and I'll be rooting for them in the playoffs.

As it turned out, we pulled out a 3-2 win. Again, it could have gone either way. Arata Yamaguchi squeaked out a win over crafty Cuong Truong to provide the margin of victory. There were multiple representatives from other playoff teams "scouting". I doubt they came away impressed, as there was some spotty tennis going on and the match didn't quite have playoff intensity.

In another 4.0 matchup where both teams should feel good about their playoff chances, The Good Guys took out RPM 3-2 last night at Memorial. Word on the street is that there were some impressive looking doubles teams in that matchup.

It looks as though the Sienna Aces and Pecan Grove played two matches yesterday. I am assuming that one of them was a continuation???? If that is the case, I have a question: How did Baton Rouge native and recently added Nicholas Lucidi get into both matches? I'm not making accusations...I haven't watched their roster closely enough to know when he was added, but it sure looks fishy. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

Lakeside 4.0 stumbled and lost its second line of the year last night.

The Deucebags got a walkover against the Ball Busters the other night. I believe the Busters defaulted two lines last night. Is it me, or have there been more unplayed lines in 4.5 this year than in years past?

The Blast took down Chancellor's 4.5 3-2. Nice win for Hung Nguyen over Greg Medford.

Notes on this Week

2011-06-15T06:57:00.002-05:00

The season is winding down. Keep on eye on rosters this week as teams try to add players in time to get them eligible for the playoffs. For instance, the Sienna Aces have added Nicholas Lucidi, who has been tearing up the Baton Rouge league. Also the Copperfield 4.5 team added Shaan Patel, former superchamp and star at Cy Falls High School under coach Joiner.

There are quite a few matches with playoff implications this week as several wild card spots are probably still in play. I'm guessing that only two people have actually done all of the math to calculate the games won percentages, so at this point most people are making educated guesses as to where teams actually stand.

In 4.0 the previously discussed matchup between Chancellor's and the Hurricanes takes place at LLTC on Thursday. Both teams appear to have a good shot at grabbing a wild card spot, but as I said, at this point we just don't know. Also, the Good Guys and RPM vie for supremacy in division II, playing the first of two matches within the next week. If the Good Guys dominate the two matchups, RPM could potentially drop out of the playoffs. Lastly, the CR Comets and Mason Creek square off for second place and consideration for a wildcard slot.

In 4.5 the Black Sheep and Ssshhhwings play for the second time in the last few days. Their match scheduled for 6/13 has not had its scores reported. Does anyone have any news on that one? The playoff situation in that division is, quite frankly, a mess. There has been no resolution to the disputed match between Shwing and Katy HS, but I suspect it will be finished up on the court.

The Hurricanne 4.5 team takes on the Big Bangers, who are still mathematically alive. Also, JCC Blast take on Chancellor's. The Blast have basically sewn up the division title, though technically they still could collapse. Chancellor's has been a disappointment but still may qualify for the playoffs. They have Sweetwater in the final week, so they can certainly fatten up their game percentage should they still be in the hunt.

I have a hypothetical question. Let's say that I knew about five or six players who had illegally self-rated. Having them disqualified may have some impact on the playoffs and could actually help some of my friends make it when they otherwise wouldn't. Should I snitch?

Congrats are in order..

2011-06-10T07:33:00.002-05:00

Congrats to Lakeside 5.0, JCC-Blast, the Deucebags and Lakeside 4.5, all of whom had a nice night last night for one reason or another. At some point or another this season, I've underestimated all of them.

Greg Schmucker had a nice win last night over Ricardo Martinez. Renish Halani has been impressive in his 4.5 matches and should be tough in the 4.0 playoffs. Jaison John and Shibu Ninan with an impressive debut for the Sienna Aces last night. Will the Aces be a playoff factor?

One byproduct of the "games" element used in wild card calculations may be some teams giving their all up until the final bell sounds. Katy Coaches had a bad loss last night...but are they still "in it" for a wild card? I haven't done the game calculations, but I would think they still have a shot.

6/9 Matches

2011-06-07T06:53:00.004-05:00

The 5.0 matches (that count) conclude Thursday with a Sectionals berth on the line. Lakeside has a lead but has left the door slightly ajar, and I'm sure Willowfork will put their best lineup out there Thursday in an attempt to win by a nose at the finish line. I will be interested to see what kind of lineup David Toney is able to muster as the Met travels to Willowfork. We've already seen that some Met players are reluctant to travel, and the team has very little incentive to win. As previously noted, WF can not drop a set and must hold the Met to fewer than 31 games if my calculations are correct. With just three lines contested in 5.0, the games number is well within reach. I give Willowfork a decent chance to sneak into Sectionals.

In 4.5, there are several good ones this Week. The Blast come in 5-0 (they've not yet reported the results of their walkover (Sweetwater) last week), but still have not clinched anything. They've dropped only 5 lines, so they should be in good shape in the event of a three way tie, but can sew things up this week with a win. I saw Pete Taylor hitting in the 102 degree heat on Sunday afternoon and he looked in fine form. Erik Kiser and Mike Giordanelli have given the Blast a reliable doubles line, and may be the key to this week's match.

As noted, Copperfield and the Deucebags will contest round two this week. Copperfield dominated the first battle. They'll have to put a dent in Copperfield's singles. Newcomer Alejandro Nazario was a disappointment in his first outing, so the D-bags may be in for some rough sledding against Kudrick and company. Both teams look to be in good shape for the playoffs, however.

The Katy Coaches must mount their best effort of the year. It's again do-or-die for Burford's crew as they take on Lakeside. Lakeside has gotten little attention this year. The perception is that they lost Hai Vu and Greg Zachary from a middle of the pack playoff team (13 lines won, 12 lost) and haven't added a really significant player to replace them. Thus, there's little buzz around the team, but they could surprise.

Finally, you're gonna' laugh, but the Big Bangers vs. Clambakes is actually a match with possible playoff implications. The Bangers lost to GTAC (allegedly) last week, so it may actually be the Clambakes who bear watching for the playoffs. They've already played the Hurricanes twice, so a sweep of the remaining matches may get them in. The Clambakes have perhaps one or two legitimate 4.5 playoff caliber players, but can put themselves in the hunt with a win this week. Do the Clambakes have anyone who can beat Alleverdian? Will Mitchell or Shermer be in the Bangers lineup? I'll take the Bangers 4-1.

Finally, 4.0 is a dead zone this week. There are a few matches with some wildcard implications, but nothing remotely interesting.

Results discussion

2011-06-03T08:28:00.002-05:00

I understand there may have been some controversy out at Taylor High School last night. This is third-hand information, so the information may be faulty.

I believe that the Shwings singles player was serving at 4-5 in the second, down a set (?) when the lights went out. The overall match score was 2-2 at the time. Now, there has been a lot of discussion on here that the home team would have to forfeit in this situation, and my understanding is that Peter Rothe pressed the Taylor team for a forfeit.

I really have no idea what the actual rule is in this situation (it may be time to do some homework!!!), but it seems unfair to me that the home team should have to forfeit. We would run into situations, with our public facilities controlling the lights, where teams stalled, took bathroom breaks, etc. in order to earn a cheesy win. On the other hand, I do see the merit in a visiting captain feeling that the home team has a responsibility to provide courts after his team has made a fairly lengthy drive to play.

Discuss.

Katy Coaches beat NWO 4-1 last night. Great job by the two-handed forehand of Chris Lubrano in beating previously undefeated Maximiliano Westen. Trip Norkus was a DNP for the Coaches, but apparently they didn't need him.

Copperfield 4.0 blanked GTAC to take over first place in their division. Nice win for Loken's crew.

As has been mentioned, the big match in 5.0 went Lakeside's way. Laurence Sombito came up big in Aadrian Hasker's absence.

This Week's Headliners

2011-05-31T14:24:00.004-05:00

Here's a look at what's on the docket for this Thursday (it's Tuesday already!):

Probably the biggest match of the week comes in the 5.0 division, with Lakeside taking on undefeated Willowfork. Lakeside will reportedly be without Aadrian Hasker, so the question of who will replace him in the singles lineup is an important one. Laurence Sombito? Greg Jones? Your guess is as good as mine.

In 4.5 there are a few matches with playoff implications. According to tennislink, the Big Bangers and GTAC have two matches scheduled (finishing one up, I assume), so that may shed a lot of light on who is the potential wild card team from that division.

Also, the Katy Coaches continue to hang on by a thread, and will have to beat early-season surprise No Way Out to stay in the hunt. I'll go with Karl's guys to win this week.

Finally, Ssshhhwings and the Taylor HS Gypsies square off. Will John Kim be in the singles lineup? Is he better than his first outing might indicate? Will rookie of the year candidate Juan Muhala bounce back this week? I think Rothe's guys will take it.

Lastly, in 4.0 GTAC takes on Lance Loken's Copperfield team. I won't be surprised to see some interesting developments in this one.

Playoff Picture.

2011-05-27T07:55:00.003-05:00

It's dead at work today. Can you tell? There are still a few events which could dramatically change things, but here is how the playoff picture looks right now. I expect a little drama before all is said and done, however.

Obviously in 5.0 Willow Fork has become the favorite with Sugar Creek's win last night. They've got a big one with Lakeside next week, and rumor has it that Hasker may be out of town. Willow Fork is in the driver's seat. The interesting question is: will there be a second 5.0 team from Houston at Sectionals this year? In 2009 there were two 5.0 wild card teams at Sectionals, in 2008 there was one, and there were none last year. It's a longshot.

As you probably know, the 4.5 playoff qualifiers will be the five division winners and three wildcards. I think that Copperfield, the Hurricanes, the Deucebags and JCC-Blast are pretty much automatics at this point, leaving four spots. I expect Lakeside to win their division, so let's make it five. Can NWO or the Coaches put up a good enough record to get a bid? A similar situation exists with Taylor HS, Shwing, and the Black Sheep. There just aren't enough scrubs in those two divisions to ensure the second place team of a playoff berth. In fact, if Freddy's RPM squad turns out to be even remotely competent, they can fatten up on the dregs of that division to sneak into the postseason, perhaps at the expense of teams like Black Sheep or the Coaches. Chancellor's ugly loss last night makes it unlikely, but still possible, that a second team will come from the Blast's division. Sugar Creek or Chancellor's will probably have to beat the Blast to make it in.

In 4.0, there are still a few question marks, but much of the playoff picture is clear already. Similar to 4.5, the six division winners and 4 wildcards will qualify. For now, it looks like CR Comets, Lakeside, Unicorns, Hurricanes, Chancellors, The Good Guys, RPM and GTAC all have things almost locked down. Copperfield, Mason Creek, Sienna Aces and Westside Warrior appear to be fighting for the final two slots.

Last night's matches

2011-05-27T06:16:00.004-05:00

The big news, for me, was that Sugar Creek's 5.0 team beat Lakeside. We have a multi-horse race in 5.0...it appears to be the most interesting and exciting division this year. I don't have details on the match, but did hear that Bharath Gururaj beat Aadrian Hasker 7-5, 7-5. Sean Straley and Antoine Ford won the doubles line for Sugar Creek.

I digress, but it really makes me wonder how that NOHO 4.5 team from last year didn't even make it out of pool play at Sectionals. In Femi Thomas and Bharath they had two super tough singles guys. Add in doubles players like Odion, Matt Sumrall, Jason Kern, Red Benzon, John Burrmann, Jacob Vernon and others (not to mention benchwarmer HtownHacker!) and it's really got me scratching my head.

Anyway, I'm not too up on all the news from last night, but did hear that Sugar Creek's 4.5 team was having their way with Chancellor's, who had a surprising lineup. The only result I heard from that one was Hung Nguyen squeaking past Jason Cooney in singles. It wouldn't shock me if Sugar Creek finished the season 6-2 and in the playoff hunt. They will have to get by JCC on 6/9 at home.

Jose Orozco continues to impress in singles, destroying Aaron Layman. He's been overlooked, but needs to be mentioned when talking about the top 4.5 singles players.

It's possible Javier Chavarria is the Deucebags best singles player. He's had some good practice results lately and definitely has the fitness level to handle the heat of city playoffs.

In 4.0, the news is that Chancellor's added a new guy, Edgar Dean, who is reportedly very good. Bao Hangoc continued to roll along. I don't think Chancellor's has put out their best lineup yet, but when they do, they very well may be the team to beat.

May 26th Matches

2011-05-24T07:02:00.002-05:00

It's time for a new post.

There are a few interesting matches on the slate this week. Starting in 4.5, Lakeside takes on surprising No Way Out in a battle of unbeatens in division I. LCC survived a scare last week against pesky Lakeside Estates, with Ed Hess falling to Jose Luis Munoz Orozco (longest name in the league???). Lakeside hasn't seemed to be hitting on all cylinders thus far. Their MVP's to this point may be 4.0 alumni Jim Wooten and Eddie Perdomo, who provided the winning margin against Lakeside Estates after tripping up Norkus and Weaver in week one.

Another early season surprise is the team from Taylor HS. They can deal a crippling blow to perennial playoff qualifiers Westside Black Sheep this week. The Black Sheep survived Cinco Ranch last week despite, quite frankly, a very weak lineup. The will need all of their horses this week. Juan Muhala is definitely in the hunt for the 4.5 Summer League Rookie of the year award and has added some meat to the top of the lineup for Taylor HS.

Chancellor's also takes on Sugar Creek, who will need to go on a late season run to be a factor this year.

In 5.0 Lakeside takes on the surprising Sugar Creek team fresh off its upset of the Met last week. Sugar Creek probably enters the match with a 3-1 record and have snuck into the hunt for a berth to Dallas. Aadrian Hasker has been money for Lakeside, though he showed some vulnerability against Neil Carpenter last week.

In 4.0, the much-discussed Unicorns take on the Sienna Aces, who come in with a 3-1 record. The first match between these two teams was fairly one-sided, and it's hard to see Sienna causing many problems. The Unicorns appear to have two elite 4.0 doubles tandems in Yang/Arellano and Galvez/Ahmad. Will Russell be their ace singles guy to carry them to playoff success, or have they got other hidden talents?

Finally, out in Cinco Ranch, the division leading Wranglers take on the 3-1 Comets. Patrick Newton and Benjamin Hughes have been solid for the Wranglers.

Yawn...

2011-05-18T06:52:00.003-05:00

Is there anything interesting going on this week? I don't think so. I was gonna' do a preview, but couldn't find anything to write about. Is it playoff time yet???

Maybe something interesting will happen in a make-up match...

Last night's matches

2011-05-13T11:58:00.002-05:00

I was a part of a very good match last night between Chancellor's 4.0 and the Hurricanes. The quality was fairly high for 4.0 and 4 of the 5 matches went to third set tie breakers. The only thing preventing it from being a great regular season match was an absence of true intensity. I went in prepared to dislike Chancellor's, having heard some snide comments on here, but have rarely come across a team as nice as they were, with Jeremy Ang and captain Joseph Mai at the head of the list. I truly hope the two of us make it to Sectionals, but we both have a lot of work ahead of us.

As for the match, the much-anticipated matchup between Danny Vu and Minh Hoang lived up to its billing. Not too many cheap points, and a lot of long rallies. The diminutive Hoang was very crafty and not afraid to come into the net, where he displayed some great hands. In the end, it was a match of attrition, as Minh had to retire with cramps (indoors at Chancellor's...you can imagine how grueling the points were) at 2-2 in the third set breaker. It looked very similar to the matches these two used to play over a decade ago.

Line one doubles went the Hurricanes way, but Chancellor's pulled out #2 doubles and slicer/dicer Cuong Phuoc Truong again outlasted another opponent at line 2 singles. It all came down to line 3 doubles, where Alex Montes turned on the heat at 5-5 in the third set breaker and strung together several stinging shots to earn his team a 3-2 win.

In the big 4.5 match between JCC Blast and Chancellor's 4.5, apparently there was some controversy regarding the lineups. Not being in attendance, I won't touch on who was at fault or give any specifics...I'll leave that to the commenters. Obviously, the most impressive result was Pete Taylor's shellacking of Dat Bui. Bui has received a lot of praise in these parts but has yet to truly prove he's a top 4.5 league singles player. Almost equally surprising was Medford's loss in doubles to 4.0 bumpup Tom Le and Charles Nguyen. A little bird told me earlier in the year "Medford's mobility is significantly worse than it used to be." I scoffed, but now that he seems to be relegated only to doubles and is showing some vulnerability there I wonder if I should have listened more closely.

This week

2011-05-10T13:08:00.003-05:00

For those of you sick of seeing the names "Chancellor's" and "Rios" in this space too often, bear with me, as they are central to this week's big matches.

Chancellor's is featured in both of this week's headliners: in 4.5 they travel to JCC to play the Blast, who are looking like a surefire playoff team after last week's easy win over Sugar Creek. I was interested to see that JCC used Taylor and Rios in singles last week and pushed Medford to doubles...I had assumed that Medford and Taylor would be the singles mainstays. Who will Chancellor's use in singles? James Dat Bui? Huy Nguyen? Hung Nguyen? I'm picking Chancellor's in a tight one.

Chancellor's 4.0 juggernaut faces Rios' other team, the 4.0 Hurricanes, indoors on Thursday. The two teams are undefeated and between them have dropped just one line along the way. I hope Minh Hoang is able to make it for Chancellor's...I remember what an exciting player he was back in the late nineties and am curious to see how his game has held up over the years. Former Met member and Chancellor's newcomer Bao Hangoc has been very impressive this year as well.

Anything else interesting this week? Nothing that really caught my eye, other than perhaps Willow Fork v. Sugar Creek in the 5.0 division. Speaking of 5.0, are the Black Sheep just pathetic or are they laying down? They've won 12 total games thus far.

T.W.I.T. Notes

2011-05-03T07:24:00.003-05:00

After last week's snoozer, we have some decent matchups this week.

There's not much of interest in 5.0, but 4.5 has several key battles that will help to shape the playoff landscape. Lakeside finally gets their season underway against last year's surprise team, the Katy Coaches. Karl Burford's squad has already hit an unexpected bump in the road and with NWO sitting at 2-0, it's almost a must-win for the coaches. Norkus and Weaver did not team up last week...have the coaches gone to a different doubles battle plan this season? The lost two of the three doubles lines against No Way Out...

It's already been discussed in the comments, but Copperfield and the Deucebags is another meaningful early season match. On paper, Copperfield may have the strongest team in the city. Of course, we all know the old cliché about matches not being played on paper... This match is at Lee Leclear. Will Copperfield's big guns make the trip out there for a Thursday night road match? Would Kelly and McMullan or Martinez be enough to give Copperfield a chance to sweep the singles?

There are presumably three good teams in 4.5 division V. Two of them meet this week as Sugar Creek and the JCC Blast clash at JCC. Jason Cooney has been playing well for Sugar Creek. The Titans lost to Chancellor's 4-1, so every line is crucial for them. If Simon Jim plays, perhaps he and Cooney play singles and John Day can be used in doubles. Can Jim and Cooney split the singles against Taylor and Medford? Can JCC take a line of doubles? It'll be interesting to see how captains Warren and Douds position their forces for this one.

As a general question, I'm wondering how good John Kim is in singles. Ssshhhwings may make a move this year after a few years of slowly sliding backwards. If Kim is good, and I suspect he may be, then he and Callaway may supplement a decent doubles lineup nicely.

The 4.0 division doesn't quite have the same drama this week, but there are a couple of matches to keep an eye on. In the hinterlands, undefeateds Mason Creek and CR-Wranglers do battle. I know nothing about either of these teams...they could easily sneak up on someone come playoff time.

None of the heavyweights (Chancellor's, Hurricanes, Unicorns, Good Guys) appear to have anything to worry about this week. It should be smooth sailing for all of them.

Notes

2011-04-29T07:36:00.000-05:00

My observations from last night:

Biggest match of the night was the 5.0 match between Lakeside and the Met, won by Lakeside. Aadrian Hasker has continued to step up his game over the last few years and has now straight setted Robert Bickmore and Arun Nanjappa in the season's first two weeks. Equally interesting is the fact that if Lakeside wins the 5.0 division, it very well could affect the 4.5 division, as Greg Jones is a member of both the Lakeside 5.0 and Hurricane 4.5 teams.

Of minor interest, GTAC's 4.0 team beat Lance Loken's Copperfield squad 3-2. Will Sumit Arora avoid the dreaded three strikes this season? Probably...but it definitely will bear watching.

Also, my friend and former teammate Tuan Tran signed up for the Chancellor's 4.0 team. He's a talented player and if he can bring his Mob Squad intensity to the 4.0 level, the Chancellor's team will be better for it. They have assembled a dangerous roster.

I think 4.0 is shaping up with 4 (or 5) teams a level above the rest: Chancellor's, Hurricanes, Lakeside, Unicorns and (perhaps) the Good Guys. The Unicorns have a fun group of guys and appear ready to waltz into the playoffs, perhaps without really being tested.

This Week's Slate

2011-04-28T07:55:00.003-05:00

Is there a single decent 4.5 matchup this week? What's the headliner? Katy Coaches vs. No Way Out?

In 5.0, David Toney's Met team gets their season underway, facing a Lakeside team which won its first match impressively.

There are a few possible good 4.0 matchups: Copperfield Shock & Awe vs. undefeated GTAC, Lakeside vs. unbeaten WSTC Spin Doctors and Hurricanes 4.0 vs. HFTC Straight Sets.

QUIIIIICK 4.0 Predictions...

2011-04-20T13:25:00.002-05:00

4.0 is boring. To be honest, 4.5 seems boring this year too. Here are my picks.

Div I

I'll pick Copperfield Shock and Awe. To be honest many of the 4.0 rosters are a mystery to me, as the turnover in 4.0 has been especially high over the past couple of years. I'm going to stick with the team/captains that have had success.

Div II

The Good Guys. I really think this team will be good. They have several guys who must have barely escaped being bumped. They'll be dangerous in the playoffs.

Div III

I have absolutely no clue. I'll guess Cinco Ranch North Aces.

Div IV

Lakeside. Danny Vu has gotten a lot of pub, but Lakeside has a guy who's equally strong. Rodney Kubicek, who has often done well in the Open division of the tough Oilman's tournament, went 4-0 in city playoffs and also undefeated at sectionals. His only loss was a late season probable tank job. How did he stay 4.0??? One bad match at Senior Nationals can trump everything else... Lakeside will have one line secured. Can they get 2 more in the playoffs?

Div V

The only division with two (alleged) heavyweights. Yeah, I'm Mr. Negative, but I do think Chancellor's will take it. They have a lot of returning talent and have mixed in some new blood. Quite honestly, after Vu the Hurricanes roster doesn't wow anyone.

Div VI

I'm not buying all of the Unicorn naysayers (possibly team members). I played great when I was on steroids, so I wouldn't write off Phillip Yang. Hahaha. I check the rosters often, and Lakeside, Chancellor's and the Unicorns are my first stops. They all scare me. (as do the Good Guys)

That said, The Sienna Aces have amassed a lot of talent and could take this division if I'm overrating the Unicorns. They play in week one. Huge matchup with playoff implications. I hope both teams are able to bring out their best lineups.

4.5 League Preview

2011-04-19T08:15:00.002-05:00

As I'm sure everyone is aware, the League season begins Thursday. There are 5 4.5 divisions with the top 3 non-division-winners qualifying for the citywide championships. Here's a quick look at the five divisions:

Div I

Clearly, Lakeside remains the favorite in this division. Their roster has not undergone a great deal of turnover from last year, but they did lose Hai Vu and Greg Zachary to 5.0. They have added a couple of players but no true "difference makers".

The Katy Coaches look to be the only competitive team in this division, with the same key roster elements as last year with the addition of Chris Lubrano. They have a chance to win the division but should at least be in the hunt for a Wild Card spot.

The other teams should be also-rans.

Div II

Based on recent history, the Black Sheep should be considered favorites. Every year Tommy Ristau adds a stud or two to his roster. Where are they this year? They've lost Pio Davila and Fonseca and Morgan have not yet signed up. The team looks weaker on paper but I'm sure they'll still be tough. Hal Hale will help.

An aside: Where is the new blood in 4.5 this year??? Am I just uninformed or are there very few new impact players out there? Clue me in.

Ssshhhhwings will be the same type team. A little older, a little greyer, and rumor has it they've lost Giordanelli. It seems like they've been slightly regressing year after year.

Are the Gypsies interesting? Are they a threat? I don't see it, though they have some firepower in Muhala and Li/Regent, if Phong is able to play a full schedule.

Div III

Another lopsided division. Are the Hurricanes the favorites to win citywides? It's not a slam dunk, by any means. How much will Greg Jones play? Is Borkop healthy? Has Phoummarath lost a step? If two of those three play at full strength, this team will be hard to beat in singles. Baer/Jones have been tough in doubles. Foster is hitting the shit out of the ball in practice, but will it translate? Jannuzzi is crafty. The pieces are there, and with Benzon/Freeman running the show an impact addition is always possible/probable.

Ummm...who else is there to talk about in this division? Is Armen Allahverdian the best non-Hurricane in the division?

Div IV

Hmmm...an interesting division. To me, Copperfield looks to be the class of the division. How will they manage their roster of 20 players? Will Kudrick be able to devote much time to Thursday night matches? They've got options if he doesn't. Anderson Kelly is a nice add. McMullan and Martinez can play some singles. The Kents are dangerous. What will the doubles lineup look like in the big matches?

I can't see the Deucebags contending. Goldberg, Schlensker, Chavarria, Bishop, and Morales are all possible number two singles guys. Where's the number one? Tran has become a top doubles guy, and the Dugas brothers have some nice wins, but I don't see the firepower necessary to challenge Copperfield.

The Jedi Knights are exactly what they have been lately. A bunch of older guys who can play some good doubles. Very Shwing-like. Can they take enough lines or steal a win from the Dugasbags to prevent them from getting a wildcard?

Div V

Another fun division with three intriguing teams. As usual, Sugar Creek's roster is not complete, so we will have to speculate that they'll be similar to last year, minus Antoine Ford, a big loss. Word on the street is that Simon Jim is playing some good ball right now. He'll need to, because there is some singles firepower in this division.

Chancellor's will be a fun team to watch. James Dat Bui, Hung Nguyen and Huy Nguyen are all solid singles options. Has Bui elevated his game to the elite 4.5 level? The doubles seems slightly weak on this team. A bunch of ex-4.0 guys who will have to earn their stripes against the big boys. They're capable. Lan Nguyen looks like a player and will help out immensely.

Finally, the JCC Blast will be a threat. Pete Taylor has converted to a two-handed backhand and I hear that his practice results have been good. Has Greg Medford lost a step...you'd be surprised how many different opinions I've heard. Who will be a solid doubles line for this team? There's not much proven 4.5 doubles success and that may come back to haunt this team.

"The Coke"

2011-04-18T10:06:00.003-05:00

As noted, the Draws are out. For what it's worth, here are my picks after a cursory glance at the draws:

M 4.0S George Hernandez

M 4.5S Steven Atherton

M 5.0S Tim Green

M 4.0D DeLaPaz/Le

M 4.5D Johnson/Swanson

M 5.0D Dibua/Dibua

Didn't want to go crazy, but I picked a couple of "upsets" for fun.

New Post

2011-04-15T12:32:00.002-05:00

Sorry, I've been busy. The season has snuck up on me (is this the first time the season has ever started BEFORE the "Coke"????) and I will try to do a preview in the next couple of days (after doing my taxes, of course).

Haven't seen too much that's piqued my interest, other than the fact that the "Unicorns" 4.0 team could be a major player. I had several "recruiting targets" in the offseason, and struck out on a lot of them. Some of them are showing up on other teams and it will be interesting to see if my judgment of their worth is proven correct or incorrect.

Anyway, I digress...this was mainly a new post so that people could see the comments. Carry on.

Davis Cup Tickets On Sale 5-April @ 10a

2011-04-01T07:20:00.000-05:00

Thought most folks know this already but here are the specifics on tickets sales for the Davis Cup.

USTA Members will have exclusive access to tickets for the 2011 U.S. vs. Spain Davis Cup quarterfinal in Austin starting April 5 at 10 a.m. CDT until April 6 at 11:59 p.m. CDT with the general public on-sale beginning Friday, April 8.

Here is a seating map that breaks down the pricing tiers

Happy Hunting for tickets, here is the pricing scheme for the series of Fri, Sat, Sun.

Level 1 - Lower Bowl ($500)
Level 2 - Lower Bowl ($390)
Level 3 - Lower Bowl ($270)
Level 4 - Upper Bowl ($140)
Level 5 - Upper Bowl ($90)

This post was inspired by the Austin Tennis Blog BTW.

4.0 Divisions Are Out

2011-04-01T07:07:00.005-05:00

It looks as though the 3.5 and 4.0 divisions have been decided. As I understand it, League Committee president Freddy Soewito and Lakeside legend Mike Spoor lent their helping hands in trying to assure that the divisions were geographically and competitively balanced.

There are six divisions, five of which have six teams and one has 5, as an effort was made to have almost every team have a ten match schedule. As I understand it, the six division winners and the four wild cards (teams with the best records) will qualify for citywides. I was not part of the process, so I may be in error on some of the details.

My only gripe is a minor (and selfish) one. In 4.0, there are five perennial powers in my opinion. Hurricanes, Lakeside, Chancellor's, Sienna Overhitters and Copperfield Shock and Awe (they're debatable I suppose). Two of those teams were placed in the same division.

My sleeper team for this year is the Good Guys (assuming Helvenson, Sherbondy, Mei and Guerrini all sign up). Keep an eye on them, somehow they avoided being decimated by bump-ups despite having some success last year.

"Summer League" Signups have begun

2011-03-10T09:57:00.002-06:00

It's too early yet to figure out who will be the teams to beat. I've heard numerous rumors of how things might shake out, but will reserve judgment until things are official.

There are a few things of note thus far. It looks like Jochen Moser will be putting together a 5.0 team. I don't expect them to compete for a Sectionals berth, but it will be nice to have a new team out there. In 4.5 JCC will be fielding two teams this year. The team captained by Joe Warren has designs on being a factor, and may well be one. My old teammate Pete Taylor is already on their roster, and I expect Greg Medford will also be playing, giving them a potentially strong one-two singles punch. If their doubles lineup ends up looking like I expect it will, there will be some holes in the lineup, but they WILL be dangerous.

If Benzon/Freeman don't put together a serious 4.5 team, then things will again be wide open this year.

Nothing exciting is happening in 4.0 thus far.

Weekend Update

2011-02-21T07:43:00.003-06:00

Congratulations are in order for the Fort Worth Tri-Level team, as they won a squeaker over Jason Freeman's Houston team by pulling out a 10-8 third set breaker in the 4.0 line. Legendary captain Bob Somabut came up big ON the court this time, and spanked a backhand winner on match point to seal the deal.

Fort Worth will be headed to Indian Wells to compete at Tri-Level nationals, playing aside Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova and the rest of the stellar field in the beautiful Coachella Valley. Best of luck to Joel Pickett's crew. He was a class act throughout the weekend.

It was a good weekend for some of my fellow Metropolitan Racquet Club members in the major zone held in San Antonio this weekend. Rob Collins, who was seeded sixth, took home the Open Singles crown, beating Adrian Valdez along the way and not dropping a set. Top seeded Matt Drake took home the 4.0 crown and his first major zone.

The Houston area had a good showing overall. John Patch took the 4.5 singles and Tim Green won another 5.0 singles major zone, though the field had only five participants. Hats off to Cy-Ridge alumni Jason Owsley and Tommy Do, who reached the semis in the 4.0 doubles. Do also made it to the semis of the singles.

San Antonio Major Zone and Tri-Level

2011-02-15T09:46:00.002-06:00

The HEB Major Zone will be played this weekend in San Antonio. Local players are top-seeded in the 4.0 division (Matt Drake) and 5.0 division (Tim Green). There seems to be a dearth of 4.5 Houstonians playing tournaments this year. Jon Griffin is seeded third, but there are few other locals of note in the draw.

Also this weekend is the Tri-Level Sectionals being held in Kingwood. Jason Freeman again has a powerful team which will face tough competition with San Antonio, SETX and Dallas in their flight.

Discuss.

HTA Board

2011-01-20T09:02:00.003-06:00

The HTA had its first Board meeting last night and I was in attendance (embarrassingly, I showed up ten minutes late after the meeting had already started). There were probably 40 or 50 people present at the meeting with representatives from seemingly all segments of the local tennis population. There were several league players on the board...off the top of my head I remember: Michael Martinez, Marcus Robinson, Lance Loken, David Frels, Peter Talosig, and Freddy Soewito. I'm sure I left some league people out. The meeting itself was pretty mundane, basically an introduction and then an approval of the budget for the year.

For those of you who don't know, the HTA has a new office in the USPTA building located on BriarPark. They have just recently finished moving in the new office furniture which was generously donated by Shell at the urging of one of our active members. Incidentally, the HTA is in need of a refrigerator for the office if anyone would like to contribute. Please contact Cheryl or me if you are able to help. Any donation would be tax deductible.

Also, just as an FYI, even though I am currently a member of the board it doesn't mean that I will be a shill for the HTA. I will continue to voice my opinions regardless of whether they conflict with HTA policies. That being said, we all have our biases, and mine are positive towards HTA. I've been playing league for 15 years or so and to be honest, have had dealings mainly with only two people at HTA: Cheryl and Diana Wengler. My experiences with both have been very positive, and thus I have had a positive impression of HTA.

Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox. It's a fairly slow time of the year for tennis, though things are starting to move with HTA leagues and Tri-Level either underway or on the immediate horizon.

Tri-Level Event

2010-12-28T17:38:00.005-06:00

It’s time for Tri-Level!
 Date: Jan. 29-30, 2011
 Location: Lost Forest Racquet Club
 Men and Women form separate teams. Select from two levels of play: 4.5/4.0/3.5 or 4.0/3.5/3.0. Players may only play on one team. Players must be 18 years or older by December 31, 2011. Players must play one match to be eligible to advance to sectionals.
 Format: Three lines of doubles. Max 12 players per team. At the 4.5/4.0/3.5 level, line 1, 2 and 3 will consist of two 4.5s, two 4.0s and two 3.5s, respectively. At the 4.0/3.5/3.0 level, line 1, 2 and 3 will consist of two 4.0s, two 3.5s and two 3.0s, respectively.
 Regular scoring will be used with a 3rd set Coman match tiebreak
 Cost: $26 per person
 Important Note: The 4.5/4.0/3.5 level teams cannot have self rated players. All players must have 2010 Year End computer ratings. The 4.0/3.5/3.0 teams can have self rated players.
 Deadline to request a team number and have a majority of your team signed up is January 15th.
 Sectionals: February 18th-20th at Kingwood Country Club.
 Nationals for the 4.5/4.0/3.5 level will be at Indian Wells, Ca during the BNP Paribas Open Tournament March 17th-20th. There is no National event for the 4.0/3.5/3.0 level.
 All players must be an HTA member.
Contact Catherine Blevins at htaleauges@houstontennis.org for more information and to attain a team number.

HTA Fall Results

2010-12-16T08:55:00.003-06:00

Yeah, I know, the season was played just for practice, and the results didn't count for ratings, but I'm sure the competitive juices were flowing when the Fall playoffs took place recently.

In 4.5+ doubles, Allen Teague's Old School team took the title by beating Katy 3-1. Katy won at line one, with Phong Regent and newcomer (4.5 rated) Juan Muhala beating Ben Whitsett and Neil Carpenter. Muhala may be one to watch.

The 4.0 doubles finals are scheduled for tonight. Copperfield's Shock and Awe, which features some pretty good 4.5 players in Letan and Rawls, will take on JCC in the finals. As you may know, a couple of 4.5 players are permitted to play, but must play at lines 1 and 2. (assuming my memory of HTA league rules is correct)

Katy Mason Creek won the 4.5 singles league behind Neil Carpenter, Monty Lindloff and Ky Kim. Margarito Arias will lead Sienna against Excalibur in the 4.0 singles finals.

HTA Christmas Party

2010-12-09T07:27:00.004-06:00

I made my first-ever trip to the HTA Christmas Party last night, which was held at Cheryl's lovely home and was a lot of fun.

I ran into league veteran (and now 5.0) Allen Teague as he elbowed me away from the buffet table. Anyway, he told me about a new league he is trying to put together which may be of interest to many of you. As you may know, there is a senior (50+) league which is held late in the summer and consists of three lines of doubles. Last year Jimmy Kilshaw's 4.5 team and Mike Spoor's 4.0 team both qualified for Nationals.

Allen has proposed a similar league for 40+ year old players and has been working out the details with the higher-ups in Austin. While there is currently no national championship held in this event, the hope is that it will take hold in Texas and perhaps eventually grow to that level. Right now the plan is for this to be a pilot program, and will probably initially start at the men's 4.5 and perhaps 4.0 levels.

Allen would like to know how much interest there is and would love for potential captains to contact him. I may have had a few too many egg nogs last night, so some of the details may have eluded me. Please contact Allen if you're interested in captaining. Unfortunately I neglected to get his phone number and/or email address, so hopefully he or someone else will provide it, or you can consult the membership directory at http://www.houstontennis.org

'Twas The Night Before Ratings...

2010-11-28T09:37:00.002-06:00

Yes, ratings are scheduled to be released tomorrow. There's been no indication that the USTA is planning a dramatic ratings shift again this year, but people are closely watching the 4.5 division to see if much of its membership is pushed up to 5.0.

If the USTA decides not to make further adjustments this year, expect to see many local 5.0 players moved back down next year. The quality of play locally in 4.5 was down a notch last year, but next year could see a deep 4.5 talent pool in Houston, making for an exciting season.

Feel free to speculate on bumpups and bumpdowns...we'll keep an eye out for official announcemnt of the new ratings.

2010-11-09T08:16:00.002-06:00

DECEMBER 4th (3.0 and 4.0 levels)

DECEMBER 5th (3.5 and 4.5 levels)

Copperfield Racquet & Health Club

Summary of Rules

Teams consist of a minimum of 2 females and 2 males with a maximum of 10 total. The top 2 males and females on your team must AVERAGE the level you are participating in. (i.e. 3.0 + 4.0 = 3.5 level)

Matches: 6 set format

Women and men's doubles

Women's and men's singles

Two sets of mixed doubles

Scoring: A match consists of six no-ad sets. Each no-ad set is won by the first team to reach six games. A nine-point tiebreaker will be played at five games all in any set. After both mixed double sets are finished and scores are recorded and totaled:

A. If the leading team won set number six, the match is over.

B. If the trailing team won set number six, the match continues into overtime until the leading team wins one game or until the score is tied. If a tie occurs, a Super tiebreaker will be played to determine the winner!

Substitutions: At any point, a team can substitute a player (same gender) into a set!

Coaching is allowed and we encourage team members to stand along the court and CHEER their team! (just like Davis Cup)

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Lance P. Loken

lance@lanceloken.com

(832) 387-8248

Recently, we had 4 teams from the Houston area travel to Indian Wells, CA for the National Championships!!! 3.5, 4.0, 4.5 and Corporate 4.5 were levels that were represented.

Masters Discussion

2010-10-28T09:19:00.003-05:00

The Texas Adult Masters tournament is approaching, with play set to begin on November 5th.

Several Houston area men's players have qualified in singles.

In the 4.0 division, the Houston area will be represented by Matt Drake and Kris Knutson, who have been placed in the same grouping. There are four players in each of two groups ("red" and "white") and the winner of each group advances to the finals.

In 4.5, half of the field comes from the Houston area. John Griffin and David Guy are in one bracket, and Herb Morton and Chris Sandblom are in the other.

In 5.0 play, Tim Green, Omon Dibua and Reggie Black all qualified, with Dibua and Black set to play in the round robin portion.

Doubles qualifiers in 4.0: John Shivers and Brian Dennis.

Doubles qualifiers in 4.5: David Hall, Peter Rothe, Red Benzon, David Guy, Brian Goldberg, Herb Morton and Robert Wood.

There is no 5.0 doubles event.

Upcoming LeMaster Husband Wife Tennis Tourney

2010-10-14T23:28:00.015-05:00

Hey Folks,

Heads up for those who play more than just men's league and women's league.

The 53rd annual LeMaster Husband/Wife Tennis tourney is coming up Nov 19-21 at GTAC.

Please see link here for tournament website.

Tennslink registration is here, or printable mail in application is here.

You do not have to be a USTA member to play in this event, it is a non-sanctioned event that has levels from 3.0 to open. So drag your spouse, tenniswife or tennishusband out to play - Cheryl and I will be checking marriage certificates!

There is a dinner on Friday with a cash bar. Play typically starts on Friday and runs through Sunday.

If you have any questions hit me up at chris@lemastertennis.com

HTA Board

2010-10-14T10:45:00.002-05:00

Harold Graham has asked that I post this on the blog. It would be nice if we got a lot of league representation on the board, I think.

Call for Nominations for the HTA Board of Directors - The HTA Board and its officers are asking for the submission of names of candidates for nomination to the HTA Board of Directors for the coming year, 2011. We are looking for those that are energetic and enthusiastic, bringing varied skills to the Association with a willingness to work to improve who we are and what we do as a community based, volunteer driven organization, reflecting our community as a whole. If you or someone you know would like to be considered for serving on the board, please email that person's name and contact information to htanominations@houstontennis.org by November 1, 2010. Should you have any questions, please direct them to htanominations@houstontennis.org. Thank you.

YE09 Bump-Ups: How Did They Do?

2010-10-11T13:51:00.003-05:00

At year-end 2009, there was lots of controversy as the USTA decided to bump some 30% of 3.5 players up to 4.0 (19% in Houston), and a 17% of 4.0s up to 4.5 (11% in Houston). The 4.5 ranks were relatively untouched (7% nationwide, 3% in Houston). People screamed about how they wouldn’t be “competitive” at their new level. I thought I’d look at the data to see how they actually fared, focusing on the USTA summer league as I believe it’s a more reliable dataset in terms of players playing to their capabilities.

First let’s look at the 4.5 level. There were 66 matches in the Summer USTA league where a YE09-bump-up-from-4.0 competed against a player who was already a 4.5 last year (or a doubles pair of bump-ups competed against a doubles pair of legacy 4.5s). The bump-ups won only 17% of those matches. There were also 30 matches in which current 4.0s chose to compete against current 4.5s, and the 4.0s’ winning percentage is very similar at 20%. The three-percentage-point difference I consider to be within the noise of the data.

What those figures suggest to me is that in the 4.5 division, neither an existing 4.0 nor a YE09-bump-up-from-4.0 is particularly competitive with a legacy 4.5. Everyone has his own definition of “competitive”, and I’m not sure I can even give you a number for mine, but I think it’s greater than 17-20%. I also find it interesting that the 4.0s who choose to compete against 4.5s are in general every bit as good as those poor souls who were bumped up.

Why did the 4.0-to-4.5 bump-ups fare so poorly against legacy 4.5s? One contributor has to be the fact that so few 4.5s were bumped up to 5.0 at YE09. This theory can be partially tested by looking at statistics from the 4.0 division (see below), where many of the best 4.0s did get moved up and out. I’d be interested to hear other theories.

Now let’s look at the 4.0 level. In the Summer USTA league there were 72 matches where a YE09-bump-up-from-3.5 competed against a legacy 4.0 (or a doubles pair of bump-ups competed against a doubles pair of legacy 4.0s). The bump-ups won a surprising (to me) 40% of those matches. There were 109 matches where current 3.5s chose to compete against current 4.0s, with the current 3.5 winning 22% of the time.

What these figures suggest to me is that, for YE09 promotions from 3.5 to 4.0, the USTA pretty much bumped up the right guys. A 40% winning percentage sure feels competitive to me. A 22% winning percentage does not, so I’d conclude that on average those 3.5s who didn’t get bumped up, shouldn’t have been bumped up. Of course there are individual exceptions in both directions.

So what does this all mean? Not a lot, really. The YE09 bump-up episode is all water under the bridge now, as evidenced by the fact that I no longer hear people talking (or moaning) about it much. But I found the numbers interesting nonetheless. We’ll see what kind of “corrections” occur when YE10 ratings are out.

Grunting Analysis

2010-10-05T09:17:00.000-05:00

Interesting read on the effects of grunting and how it impacts tennis.

I think the cutting edge teams will start employing "effective grunt training sessions" for their players for next season to have that edge.

Here is an teaser from the article:

There is a growing chorus of critics who complain that many of the top-ranked professional tennis players who grunt when they hit the ball gain an unfair advantage because the sound of the grunt interferes with their opponent's game. However, there is no scientific evidence to support this claim.

We explored this potential detrimental effect of grunting by presenting videos of a tennis player hitting a ball to either side of a tennis court; the shot either did, or did not, contain a brief sound that occurred at the same time as contact. The participants' task was to respond as quickly as possible, indicating whether the ball was being hit to the left- or right-side of the court. The results were unequivocal: The presence of an extraneous sound interfered with a participants' performance, making their responses both slower and less accurate.

Nationals

2010-10-05T08:19:00.002-05:00

The Men's 5.0 team from Fort Worth went 2-1 at Nationals last weekend, but didn't win enough lines to get out of pool play.

Men's 4.5 Nationals will start Friday. Rusty Branch's Dallas team is in a Flight with Norcal, Southwest and Pacific Northwest. They start out with Norcal, which is usually the strongest of those three sections.

The 4.0 team from Lubbock is in a tough pool with Middle States, Mid-Atlantic, Norcal and Midwest. Play in the 4.0 division begins on 10/22.

Ratings of local players are dependent on how well or poorly Texas players fare at Nationals. A rising tide lifts all boats, so to speak.

Senior Sectionals - Nationals, Finally

2010-09-20T05:09:00.005-05:00

Sectionals had not been kind to the Houston teams this year. It had been a rare shutout (sue me, but I don’t count Combo or Tri-Level), even for Freeman, Benzon, and Hollis (taking her customary year off). Until this past weekend that is, at Senior Sectionals in Tyler. Both 4.5 teams and the men’s 4.0 team took the titles and are headed to Nationals in Palm Springs (Rancho Mirage) in October. Congratulations to all, and thanks for salvaging a bit of Houston pride!

The men’s 4.5 team, captained by Jimmy Kilshaw, won the title on lines, after finishing with an identical 3-1 record to NETX, to whom they lost 2-1 in the head-to-head match. Say what you like about the old geezers, but it was high-quality tennis. Maybe not quite up there with Adult Sectionals, but every bit as good as city playoffs. There’s something gratifying about seeing a 50-something guy who can still bounce backhand overheads over the fence. Tom Courson, Mark Willingham, and Louie Aro all went 3-0. Juan Lopez was a remarkable 4-0.

The 4.5 women, captained by Rox Ann Schanzenbach, didn’t drop a match in pool play, nor did they drop a set in defeating Dallas in the final. Carol St. Clair was the big gun, playing all five matches and going 4-0 (not counting a retired match) without losing so much as a set. Sue Bramlette and Mary Morgan were close behind at 4-1.

The 4.0 men, captained by Ron Fisher and Mike Spoor and featuring two members of the Texas Tennis Hall of Fame (Fisher and Paul Christian), beat an extremely tough and balanced Austin team 3-0 in the final, winning all three lines in third-set tiebreakers. In pool play they beat defending national champion Fort Worth 2-1, with the lone loss a retired match once the victory was clinched. Nick Stephens and Tim Purcell went 4-0, and might have been joined in that record by Jim Wooten and Steve Smith had it not been for retired matches.

Which brings us to the subject of third-set tiebreakers – as always, it comes down to these. The 4.5 men were 6-1. The 4.5 women were 2-1. The 4.0 men were 6-0. This is what wins matches at this level. Hating them is self-defeating. Practice them – these teams do.

Sectionals this week

2010-09-07T07:12:00.003-05:00

The year's most important tournament is being held this weekend in San Antonio as players vie for the top eight and inclusion in the Masters Championship.

Numerous Houstonians are seeded, including the top two seeds in the 5.0 division: Tim Green and Omon Dibua. Jason Gound and Greg Medford are two intriguing floaters in the draw.

In 4.5, Ed McCool is the top seed, with David Guy #4, Herb Morton at #6, Brian Goldberg #11 and Greg Schmucker coming in as the twelfth seed. Mario Gloria and Daniel Cambon are two of the more dangerous floaters in the draw.

Matt Drake heads the list of Houston area players seeded in the 4.0 draw, coming in at #4. Kris Knutson, fresh off another tournament victory in Beaumont this past weekend, is #5 and considered the favorite by many. Israel Bacon got the ninth seed, Carlos Quijano is tenth and Gregory Brown is number 13. Former Cy-Ridge Ram standout Tommy Do makes his 4.0 debut as well.

In Case you Missed the fight.....

2010-09-03T10:51:00.001-05:00

In case you missed the fight in the match last night, here you go.

Fast forward to about 1 minute for the money shot.

In case ya' haven't seen it...

2010-08-31T08:20:00.000-05:00

Someone mentioned this shot in a comment:

WTT National Qualifier THIS WEEKEND!

2010-08-24T09:48:00.003-05:00

The WTT National Qualifier is this weekend at the Copperfield Racquet & Health Club. Winners from the local events all over the United States qualified to participate in this weekend's event. Come out and see some great tennis! Play begins on Friday at 5 pm. It then resumes on Saturday and Sunday mornings at 8 am and continues throughout the day until 8 pm. Levels participating include the 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5 levels.
Our next local event will be December 4th & 5th, 2010.

Looking backward, Looking forward

2010-08-02T07:18:00.003-05:00

First of all, congratulations to the Fort Worth 5.0, Dallas 4.5 and Lubbock 4.0 teams as well as to everyone else who had a successful season. Different teams do and should define success differently. The Lubbock 4.0 team may not feel successful unless they win Nationals whereas the two Houston 4.5 teams should feel satisfied with qualifying for Sectionals. They reached their ceiling.

It was a disappointing weekend for the NOHO 4.5 team. Victory was in their grasp but they just couldn't hold onto it. Someone speculated that they just didn't want it enough...didn't practice hard enough and didn't have the burning desire because they'd had such recent success. There may be some merit to that. I'm secretly happy for Miller and Branch as they did it with all computer rated players (with a total of only maybe two who got there via tanking). I would suspect that NOHO will lose Thomas and Gururaj and probably retain mostly everyone else. Rest assured Red and Jason will find capable replacements and may get some bumpdowns as well. To their credit, Red and Freeman chose not to put their two stud singles players out there to tank in the meaningless final match. (If Bharath were going to tank the final match, it would have been in much more glorious fashion than a three set loss.)

With the exception of the Noho 4.5 team, I think we all knew coming in that the local (Hou/Noho) 4.5/5.0 scene was at its lowest level in recent memory this year. The records in Dallas bear that out: a combined record of 3-14!!!! What that will mean for local players is very few bump-ups in 4.5/5.0 (and perhaps more bumpdowns) as the ratings filter back down to Houston at the end of the year.

I think the local 4.0 teams were both among the best teams up there, but clearly Lubbock was a level above the rest. I figured Coleman and Schaunaman would be the best one-two punch but was surprised how good their doubles play was. I was a bit surprised that the Hurricane 4.0 team was taken out by San Angelo, but the doubles proved to be not strong enough. Whitney and Scott might have helped.

The 4.0 teams will lose more talent to bump-ups than 4.5 power teams do. If I were a betting man, I'd say that Freeman, Spoor, Nguyen and Lu will all be vying for Sectionals and/or Nationals again next year. Ristau, Ash, Rothe, Tran, Douds and some of the other competitive Houston 4.5 captains will have to up their games and step up recruiting if Houston is again going to be competitive at Sectionals. I'd love to see another aggressive 4.5 captain join the mix, and maybe challenge the Benzon/Freeman dominance. There is plenty of undiscovered talent out there...

Friday

2010-07-28T12:42:00.004-05:00

That other 4.5 thread was getting so long that I thought people could move the discussion here if needed.

Here's a look at Friday's schedule for local teams:

5.0

10 AM Hou v. Ft. Worth (Northwood)
230 PM Hou v. Austin (Northwood)

4.5

230 PM Hou Freeman v. Abilene (Greenhill)
230 PM NOHO v. Valley (LB Houston)
4 PM Hou Douds v. Austin Wild (Greenhill)

4.0

7 AM Hou Freeman v. Valley (Greenhill)
830 AM Hou Spoor v. Lubbock (LB Houston)
10 AM Hou Freeman v. Wild Ft. Worth (Greenhill)
10 AM NOHO v. Dallas Wild (LB Houston)
1130 AM Hou Spoor v. SE Tx (LB Houston)
1 PM NOHO v. NE Tx (LB Houston)

Toney and Spoor start out with tough ones right off the bat...

A glimpse at 4.0 Sectionals.

2010-07-22T07:11:00.003-05:00

I'm actually somewhat curious to see what the level of play will be this year in 4.0. Let's face it, in all divisions the quality had increased a bunch since I started playing many years ago. Last season the top 30 percent of 4.0's were moved up, leaving a HUGE talent void, especially on the top teams. Hardcore captains were forced to beat the bushes for unrated players. In Houston, we saw some previously middle of the road teams qualify for the playoffs by virtue of retaining all of their players and beating up on the weakened field. The question for me is: Did the elite teams/captains manage to recruit well enough for Sectionals to have a similar level of play to previous seasons? I think the Lakeside and Hurricane teams are on the same plane as always...will other cities' teams be able to keep up?

Flight 1
Corpus
San Angelo
Valley
Wild Ft. Worth
Hurricanes

I'll be the first to admit I don't know squat about most of these teams, so I'll try to keep this short(ish).

Corpus squeaked out a win in a competitive league. Their top player David Nash went 3 sets with Jannuzzi in a seniors tournament but was handled fairly easily by McMullan. Daniel Rybak played line 1 doubles every week and won all his matches.

San Angelo played in a non-competitive league so it's tough to get a read on them. They've gotten credit from some commenters as being a dark horse. The Valley seems to have a decent team but shouldn't be a threat to Houston. The Wild Fort Worth team actually won their regular season but was handled easily in the city finals. Michael Moore had a nice season at 1 singles. I don't see this team as being a threat.

The Hurricanes should waltz through this group, giving them a chance to keep players fresh and getting all of their players some action.

Flight 2
Wild Austin
San Antonio
Fort Worth
Waco
Abilene

Wild Austin used Vlad Chub at 1 singles and Chris Lewis at 2 in the finals of their playoffs. My memory is fading...is Chris Lewis a big serving guy who used to play 4.5 or am I confusing him with someone else? Lewis is a self-rate who hasn't lost yet, including an easy win over Will Chism.

San Antonio's Blossom Smash waltzed through their playoffs, dropping only one line. Rodrigo Sabag was really tough playing singles, with a win over Carl Bain on his resume. Isai Martinez looks to be even tougher. (he beat Bain oh and oh...maybe a win over Bain is nothing to write home about?) This team looks really tough.

Fort Worth's team looks tough too...this is a tough flight. Jay Bigam is a flat hitter with old school grips, but has had success at the 4.5 level in the past. Chris Whipple has also been dominant in singles. Their doubles look solid.

Waco and Abilene don't have much data to draw from. Waco's Erich Schwarze is a 4.5 dropdown who was dominant the last time he went to 4.0 Sectionals.

Flight 3
Austin
Wild Dallas
NETX
NOHO
Midland

Austin had its "ringer", John Dwyer, DQ'd after their city playoffs, which will really hurt its strength. David Bateman will have to carry a lot of the load in singles. A lot of their doubles guys (Gow, Boyett, Fontes, et al.) have been around for years and may now be upper echelon 4.0's with the huge amount of bump ups.

Brian Morrison's Dallas runners-up had to make it through the Qualifying Tournament and their citywide championships to get here. Oleg Yaremenko is their top singles guy. He played 4.5 back in 2003-04 and then re-entered last year as a 3.5. He appears to be rounding into form, but has had mixed results. Chris Bergeron is a quality player who had a disappointing city playoffs. I think he'll bounce back.

Our NOHO representatives should not be overlooked. Paul Abokhair sat out last year and thus was spared the 4.0 purge. His record is exceptional over the last several years. Troy Quast anchors the singles lineup.

Your guess on Midland is as good as mine.

Flight 4
Dallas
Amarillo
Lubbock
Wild Houston
SETX

We've already spoken about this group a bit so I'll keep it brief.

For me, this group is about the top two singles guys: Carey and Huynh in Dallas, Coleman and Schaunaman for Lubbock, Wooten and Larrazolo/Ruiz for Lakeside.

Amarillo lost its top player to a DQ, which should take them out of the running.

Is SE Texas' Doug Mellen committed to Freeman or to Beaumont? Jeff Pham could be a factor in singles.

Lakesides Rodney Kubicek has had some nice results in the Oilman's tournament's top division over the years, and he and John Mitchener were solid in citywides. Maybe I'm being a homer, but wishful thinking is telling me Houston will squeak past Lubbock 3-2. Wooten will have to serve his way past one of the two Lubbock singles studs for that to happen, however. Larrazolo is fit and quick, but his style may be draining in the Dallas heat.

4.5 Sectionals: A quick look

2010-07-21T09:55:00.005-05:00

Here's a quick look at 4.5 Sectionals, assuming all rosters stay as is and that all the heavyweights make the trip:

Flight 1 Teams
Austin
NETX
Wild San Antonio
Ft. Worth

To me, the Austin league was not as strong at the top this year as in past years, though it was extremely deep. Anthony Tatu has become one of the premier captains in the state, annually producing competitive teams. His team this year doesn't seem to have the overwhelming singles strength necessary. In his biggest match this year, he used Caskey and Acosta, but expect Atherton to get a lot of action in Dallas. Bucco and Tatu will probably man one doubles spot, and Chris McDaniel and longtime Austin fixture Alan Williams have been untouchable thus far this year. Still, this team doesn't seem to have the strength to dominate and will have to squeak out its victories.

Alann Torres' San Antonio squad has got to be considered the favorite in this flight. Estevan San Miguel is a quality singles player. Sundy Muniz and Stephan Poole have dominated the 4.5 tournament doubles circuit. Daniel Cambon has a really nice game and he and Matt Mungia will be tough to beat. Who plays #2 singles for them? Spencer Read has played in their big matches. Chance Morgan is eligible. Jonathan Hartwell plays Open tournaments but I know nothing about him. Torres, Vasquez and Galvan will all see action as well.

I don't know much/anything about the Fort Worth team this year. I notice that they have a really solid singles player in David Rascoe (he handled Sectionals regular Rob Hurley rather routinely). Adam Mackie has also been solid in singles for them. John Singleton splits time between 5.0 and 4.5, usually playing line 1 doubles and almost always winning. Ditto Jason Moore. George Rodriguez is a tall guy with a pretty nice game who beat me pretty routinely in the Combo a few years ago, but that's about all the first hand knowledge I have of this team. Perhaps someone can chime in with some more info.

Chris Leach brings his Tyler team back to Dallas for its annual trip. Unfortunately, I don't see them having much/any chance to do any damage this year.

Flight 2 Teams
Houston
Lubbock
Waco
Wild Austin

Regular readers and locals know all about the Titans. It's certainly not the most talented team Ken Douds has ever had. Antoine Ford will have to continue his hot streak. Simon Jim is a solid number 2. John Day must revert to his regular season form for this team to do well, and Douds, Marco and the rest must ride their hot streak.

Lubbock has just 9 bodies on their roster. Mel McRee, who led his 4.0 team to Nationals in '08, will try to draw on his Sectionals experience. Wilson Wicks also has Nationals experience, at the 4.5 level, where he went 4-0 with Mike Davis' Austin Wild squad in 2007. Michael Hastings is a self-rate who's been playing singles.

Waco doesn't appear to be very strong. They have a bunch of bump-ups from some of Bill Sanders high quality 4.0 team. James Westbrook was really tough in 4.0 singles, but will struggle in the upper division. Luedtke and Rivera will be a tough doubles line, and both are capable of playing singles. Waco added two late imports from Dallas in Jean Nguyen (another guy I lost to in the combo a few years ago...I sense a pattern developing) and Johan Mudsam, both of whom were high level 4.0 players in the last couple of years.

Aptly named Austin Wild fills out the flight. Most of you know of the losses captain Davis has suffered due to disqualification this year, but his roster was deep enough to remain a factor. I would probably still rate his team the favorite in this bracket. He's got a bunch of guys with Sectionals and/or Nationals experience on this team. Tim Klitch is among the best doubles guys at 4.5. Former Houstonian Kevin Lemke is a talented singles guy if he's been playing regularly. Joshua Torrez may be the key...last year he had an up and down season but rounded into form at Sectionals with big singles wins over Hilderbrand and David B. Scott Sevin will also see some singles action. Fred Schlotterback and Patrick Seidensticker have had a lot of Sectionals success in the past as well.

Flight 3 Teams
Dallas
Wild Houston
Abilene
SETX

Rusty Branch has a juggernaut this year. He was not even remotely tested in Dallas. Rusty is on the sidelines this season, but the cupboard is far from bare. 5.0 drop down Mike Kelly (he's been playing league at LEAST since '97) will be tough to beat in singles or doubles. Eugene Davis hasn't missed a beat since moving up from 4.0, dominating over the last two years. Brandon Underwood was a top-flight junior and looks impressive in his youtube videos. Dustin Viktorin can play some singles. The names go on and on: Slezak/Williams, Kiron/Huffman, Cole Frink, Rafael Ledezma (another Kelly-like 5.0 bumpdown) There are several quality players I haven't even named. Luckily for other teams, they don't give extra points for depth.

Obviously, Freeman's Hurricane II squad will have its hands full with Dallas. Sarosh Ahmed and Robert Plummer will be truly tested up there. Regent/Li have tons of Sectionals experience, and the rest of the team has had success up there, but mostly at the 4.0 level. Second place in the flight is doable, however.

Abilene is always a team to keep your eye on. Trance Rosenquist and Adam Cherry are quality holdovers from past teams. Kurt Wasmer was 2-0 in doubles at Sectionals last year, as was Brian Rainwater. Erich Bein is an intriguing add...went to state with Abilene High and is listed as a 3 star recruit on tennisrecruiting.net. Lost to local junior stud Jose Martinez (who is very impressive to watch) by a 5 and 4 score. Has a win over Robin Chou, who was a cause celebre on the Austin blog earlier this year. I haven't checked his junior ranking to see if he's truly eligible as I'm just going through the rosters right now.

The Southeast Texas team will be a non-factor.

Flight 4 Teams
Amarillo
NOHO
Valley
San Antonio

This group has been much-discussed already.

Amarillo has a few nice players, but is stuck in the wrong group. George Jennings was solid in singles at Sectionals last year, beating Brent James and losing only to Hasker. Shannon Burdett has been on a team that went to Nationals, but that was in the last century. He's still capable, however. Luis Zavala was 3-0 at Sectionals last year in doubles.

The NOHO team is comprised of most of the Houston area 4.5 heavy hitters. Benzon and Freeman have assembled some talented players, headed by mystery superstar Greg Dwyer. Okay, that was a joke. Seriously, as a member of the team and co-captain I'm not gonna' analyze this team...y'all know who's who already.

The Valley has an intriguing roster and is not a team that should be taken lightly. Frank Vos has an almost spotless record going back to 2004. I believe he may have lost only one match in that period of time, but has not been truly tested at Texas Sectionals. (he did go to Sectionals in Oregon I believe) Kareem Abdullah played a season here in Houston and by the end of the year was playing extremely high level tennis. I believe he played collegiately at UT-Pan Am if memory serves. Ivan Leal has at least been a finalist in the 4.5 division of the Coke (can't remember if he's won it) and has been a quality player for quite some time. Crisanto Ramirez plays/played for Division III power Trinity. I think Derek Sandoval played Juco tennis.

As has been mentioned before, Mike Miller's San Antonio team has a wealth of talent. Glenn Barton may be in the Ward Jannuzzi age bracket, but he's still extremely dangerous and I would expect he'll play singles in the big matches and get rested when possible. As someone mentioned, there are seven teaching pros on this team, so there's not going to be a weak spot in the lineup. Eric White, Mark Hilderbrand and John Trautmann can all play singles as well. As can Alejandro Sanchez. Ewing, Anderson, Miller, Arringdale and several others could be in the lineup at any time. This is another really deep team with a ton of options. Also, there's not a self-rate in the bunch, which is nice to see in this day and age.

A Tale of Two Citywides

2010-07-19T07:13:00.003-05:00

Complete and total parity in the 4.5 division. Out of all reported matches, only one was not a 3-2 score. Literally a few points here and there could have resulted in a complete reversal of the standings. The 4.0 division, on the other hand, was the complete opposite, as three teams (Hurricanes, Lakeside and Sienna) proved to be on a completely different plane from the rest of the division.

Two guys who've taken a lot of ribbing on the blog this year came up big: Ken Douds and Ward Jannuzzi. Jannuzzi's wins are but a footnote as his team was unable to overcome the absence of Borkop. I will say he's been telling me for a year that he would beat Sarosh (in fact, he and Pumma may have bet on it?)...and he backed it up beautifully.

Coming into the 2010 playoffs, there was little reason to think we would "remember the titans". Ken Douds 2009 team went 4-5 in the regular season. Subtracted from that team were Sean Straley, Jason Cooney and Luis Fernandez. Added...John Griffin. How do they go from sub .500 to city champs? Well, it helped that the competition was down a peg or two.

Clearly Antoine Ford was the MVP of the playoffs. As I've noted before, last year he had to play Omon, Odion and Aadrian, losing to all three in the third set breaker. While there were some quality players in the playoffs this year, none were of that caliber, and Antoine's game has probably raised a notch this season.

I'm happy for Ken Douds. Every year he puts together a quality team. He does his best each offseason to improve his roster...a few years back he did his best to scoop up some of my old Mob Squad teammates to strengthen his chances. It's nice to see him get up to Dallas with a team comprised completely of "his guys". Good luck to him and everyone (Toney, Freeman, Spoor) who did a great job getting their teams to Dallas.

Last night and This Weekend

2010-07-16T07:20:00.002-05:00

The 4.0 picture continues to clear up. Lakeside continues to delay posting their scores, but I have little doubt that they've won. Division I will come down to the finale between Lakeside and Sienna. Can Sienna's Troy Gor and Donnie Rochelle at least split the singles with Wooten and Larrazolo? I can't see them splitting singles AND taking two doubles lines, especially with the DQ of Pfeiffer. Advantage Lakeside.

The Hurricanes waltzed past another overmatched opponent last night, blanking SAP, all in straight sets. Chancellor's squeaked past the Phoenix and play the Hurricanes at 12:30 on Saturday. Louis Lu wisely worked his roster in the offseason again this year, but lost Timothy Nguyen during the HTA season and Thai Chung this summer. Not having those two may make the difference in the match with the 'Canes. I'm curious to see how Cuong Truong (and Danh Mai) fares against whichever stud the 'Canes use in singles.

4.0 is definitely the warmup act to the exciting 4.5 playoffs this weekend. There are 9 matches scheduled this weekend, and right now every one of them has the potential to be meaningful. A loss by the D-bags to the Black Sheep on Saturday will render their final two matches meaningless. It will be interesting to see the lineups that they trot out there if that should happen. Every line could be meaningful for some teams with the logjam in the standings.

Nobody's talking about Ken Douds' team, but they've got two solid singles guys in Jim and Ford (they've won 3 of 4 so far) and an unspectacular but capable group of doubles players. The loss of John Burrmann has hurt but not crippled this team. They start out the weekend with Lakeside. Lakeside has shown some weakness with their doubles depth without Connell and Wright, dropping line 3 in both playoff matches. Ed Hess has been as impressive as anyone (other than perhaps Davila) thus far. I've heard that (official? unofficial?) protests of Hess' 4.5 status have proven fruitless. Have Vu and Zachary become the top doubles tandem in the city?

The other Saturday battle is between the two Hurricane teams. While I talk to Freeman quite frequently, I have no idea what's going on in his head on this one. It would be a difficult position for any captain to be in. Ideally I'm sure he'd love to see both teams qualify for Sectionals. I'm sure he'd also love to get some players into the lineup while also sending a message to each team that he is putting his all into getting them to Dallas and not favoring either team.

I won't go through every matchup on Sunday...it's impossible to say at this point which ones will be crucial...too many permutations. Suffice it to say, however, that Sunday afternoon may make for the most exciting city playoff finishes in recent memory.

Midyears

2010-07-15T10:45:00.000-05:00

Here

Upcoming

2010-07-12T13:19:00.003-05:00

As has been mentioned, the big match between The Black Sheep and the Hurricanes III will be held Tuesday night at Westside. Can anyone on the 'Canes roster take down Davila? If not, they will be forced to take three of the remaining four lines, a tall task against Tommy Ristau's crew. Neither team seems to have a big edge in the doubles, so the match figures to be competitive. The winner, at 2-0, will have a huge leg up on the rest of the field. The loser will be bunched among many.

I have had no word on when the remainder of the Deucebags-Lakeside match will be played. Lakeside has an edge in that one, and the loser will be 0-2 and needing to win their final three matches to have even a remote chance.

One match was finished in 4.0 this weekend. SAP was a bit lucky in beating the Cinco Ranch Comets 3-2. Cinco's line 3 doubles team of Rolph and Akpedeye were ahead 6-4, 3-3 when they were forced to retire. SAP's top doubles team of Farmer/Lopez were placed in singles but both fell to Patil and Kurki. The Daniels brothers continued their strong play for SAP in doubles.

Numerous 4.0 makeup matches remain to be played and results should come trickling in before a full slate of matches on Thursday. Lakeside will handle the Acers on Wednesday and still must get in their other match with the CR Aces as well as their Thursday nighter with the Nights. At this point, anything other than Lakeside or Sienna versus the Hurricanes on Sunday afternoon would shock me. Sienna and Lakeside will play on Sunday morning.

Lebron!!!

2010-07-09T07:01:00.003-05:00

Why the title? I didn't wanna' be the only guy on the entire internet NOT to have mentioned Lebron (and yeah, I WAS at home watching him instead of heading out to the courts).

The match between Lakeside and Westside was big, not quite Lebron big, but it will go a long way towards deciding who will win citywides. Westside took a huge step towards Dallas by winning 3-2. Any Pio Davila doubters should finally be silenced as he absolutely trounced Quack Bui 6-2, 6-0. Lakeside was without Glenn Wright and Tommy Connell, which probably made the difference. Peter Hansen and Milos Dimitrijevic pulled out a third set breaker to give the Black Sheep the edge. With Houston getting a wild card, one loss is far from fatal for Lakeside. Two losses MIGHT even be able to get a team to Dallas if everything breaks right.

A good night for the Hurricanes as they pulled out two 3-2 wins in the 4.5 playoffs. The Hurricanes II - Deucebags match came down to the end. David Guy was the top singles guy on the first team I ever played on, way back in 1997. Thirteen years later, he's still playing the same level of tennis, and still grinding out clutch wins. You look at his results every year and you see losses in HTA matches to people like Chris Sandblom, David Romero, Alex Ellingsen et al. and wonder why he ends up playing singles at Sectionals...and winning. He did it again last night, pulling out a three setter against Hung Nguyen of the Deucebags to give the 'Canes a 3-2 win.

The topic du jour, as usual, seemed to be Alain Tran's lineup, as he and Trey Dugas were on the sidelines. I have never talked to Alain about it, but I just think he has a different philosophy from everyone else. I think he has confidence in all of the players on his team and feels they can all win and all deserve a chance to play. It's not like back in little league, where you were required to throw the fat kid with the coke bottle glasses out in right field for two innings a game. Alain truly believes his guys should be out there. Khang Quach and Bobby Trinh rewarded Tran's confidence by beating Chec/Hunckler.

The story for Freeman's teams were the 4.0 bumpups. Many of my old teammates acquitted themselves well last night. Tam "Pippen" Phan and Aaron Greene won at line 1 for the Hurricanes II. The Hurricanes III got all of their wins from Freeman 4.0 alums in their 3-2 win over Westheimer Indoors. Sarosh Ahmed continued his streak at #1 singles, Chambert/Grego (SAP 4.0 alum) took out Day and Marco in straight sets and Foster/Morris won at line 3.

One would have to say that the odds are now in favor of one of Freeman's teams advancing to Sectionals. Thankfully, the two teams are not playing each other at the end of the playoffs...both teams will have incentive when they play each other.

Nothing too exciting happened in the 4.0 ranks. There was a minor upset in 4.0 as the Nights took out the first place Acers 3-2, taking all three third set breakers. Prahlad Enuganti pulled out a clutch three setter against Dan Le to give the Nights the edge. The Acers were missing top doubles player Don Obenrader.

Chancellor's won fairly easily over the first place CR Comets. On paper I suppose this was an upset. Cuong Truong won the big battle at number one singles against Mal Patil in a battle of unbeatens after dropping the first set 6-1. Danh Mai again was solid in singles for the Ace Kings. (Big Slicks?)

The 4.0 Hurricanes romped past Westside Phoenix 5-0, as expected. I don't see a roadblock for that team in their flight.

HCC

2010-07-06T15:09:00.002-05:00

The Houston Citywide Championships are a bit of a mess at this point. In hindsight, it was a big mistake not having a gap between the regular season and the start of the playoffs in order to complete makeup matches.

In 4.0, we're about a week and a half removed from the end of the regular season, and we still don't know who all of the playoff teams are. Teams with matches scheduled for this Thursday may still not know who they are supposed to be playing.

4.5 is a little less messy, as the Deucebags and Coaches did a better job of completing their match than did some of the 4.0 teams. I'm a bit out of the loop on things since I'm not participating this year and Tennis Link is not updated, but hopefully people will post results of any make-up matches that are taking place.

The 4.5 schedule for this Thursday IS set, however:

Lakeside v. Black Sheep
Hurricanes II v. Deucebags
Hurricanes III v. Westheimer Indoors

Most observers have pegged Lakeside and the Black Sheep as the two teams to beat. If they live up to their billing (and if Houston doesn't receive a wild card), this could be the most important match of the postseason.

Off Topic Questions. I'm bored today.

2010-06-30T10:34:00.003-05:00

Is Federer finished? Will he ever win another GS? Six straight years of semis or better at the majors and now two misses consecutively...

If you're a Vegas oddsmaker, who do you install as the favorite at the US Open right now? Murray and Djokovic good on hard courts, but have struggled some this year. It's Nadal's weakest surface. Fed showing signs of decline. Berdych a semi-finalist on clay and grass already this year. Soderling may be the world's third best player right now...

Rafael Nadal will retire with _____ grand slam titles? Am I insane to think he will pass Sampras given how hard his style of play is on his body?

Thursday in 4.0

2010-06-29T11:17:00.001-05:00

The 4.0 schedule for Thursday is still very much up in the air, with the Acers, Phoenix, SAP and Double Trouble still vying for the top two spots in Division II. The Acers resumed their last regular season match last night only to again be postponed by rain. Line two singles of the Acers match had split sets last Thursday, but the Good Guys player left town and won't be returning until Wednesday or Thursday according to what I've heard. No word on whether he will be forced to retire given the impending playoffs. I'm sure everyone has their own opinions on how that should be handled.

The two matches that are set feature Division III vs. Division V. D5 Champ Sienna takes on the Cinco Ranch Aces, led by superstar Boris Barrios. Barrios has played nothing but doubles thus far, where he's been virtually untouchable. Would Captain Springmann consider moving him into singles to secure a line and take out one of Sienna's top dawgs? Mohan Sankrit, Donnie Rochelle and Troy Gor appear to be Donn Nguyen's top singles guys.

The other Cinco Ranch team, the Comets, take on second place Chancellor's. Chancellor's has been bit by the DQ bug, but newcomer Cuong Truong has had a lot of close matches and has been safe despite his 7-0 singles record. Johnny Nguyen and Jeremy Ang are 7-2 playing mainly line one doubles. The Comets have dropped only 8 lines all year. Mal Patil is 8-0 at number one singles. Jason Munoz mans the other singles spot and is 6-1 on the season. It will be interesting to see how the two teams who basically dominated division 3 stack up against perennial powers Sienna and Chancellor's.

Thursday in 4.5

2010-06-29T07:11:00.003-05:00

As you know, the 2010 Citywide Championships are scheduled to start Thursday. With rain in the forecast over the next few days, court shortages at Memorial Park and makeups still to be completed, staying on schedule is questionable. If the D-Bags/Coaches match is completed Wednesday night (not to mention many of the other makeups still to be completed), things could get interesting. Todd Reid told me that league results are run through the computer on a daily basis and he receives an email if any player receives his third strike. I'm sure you can see the potential problems, depending on when the scores are reported, results run, etc. Anyway, I'm one of those people who sees potential problems where they probably don't exist...

Let's get to the matchups. Lakeside has wrapped up Division I and at this point could potentially play the Deucebags, GTAC or the Coaches. Only the Deucebags were able to take more than one line from Lakeside during the regular season. Rumor has it that Lakeside will be missing one or more of their key players during the playoffs, which will definitely leave an opening for the second place team. None of the potential Thursday opponents seem to have the overall depth of Lakeside, but the Deucebags have the two solid singles players to potentially make things interesting with Lakeside should they get past the Coaches.

The Hurricanes II team will apparently be facing the Titans. The 'Canes Emmett McCool is perhaps the most underrated singles player in the league. David Guy or Raymond Martinez would seem to be the logical choice at the other singles spot. Simon Jim and Antoine Ford (side note: I'm making a broad assumption that players are committing to their Houston teams ahead of NOHO without any knowledge to the contrary) might be SLIGHTLY weaker, but a split of the singles would seem to be the most likely outcome. Lombardi/Bishop may be the Hurricanes top team. John Burrmann's results this year have not been as impressive as in the past. He and John Day are not a lock. This match is too close to call.

Lastly, Black Sheep face Hurricanes III. I've got them as tri-favorites along with Lakeside. (Not exactly going out on a limb, am I?) Gururaj v. Davila? Ahmed v. Fonseca? (or Alzate or Lacy or Morgan or...) Davila tops my "most intriguing players" list. I just don't know HOW good he is. Does anyone?

Tommy Ristau has so many options with his lineup that I can't even speculate what he'll put out there. I suspect Freeman will have the veteran duo of Li/Regent in the lineup. They appear to be playing as well as ever. Late-season additions Plummer and Dupelchin have also been impressive as has 4.0 bump Sebastien Chambert.

The Matches That Matter

2010-06-22T13:03:00.004-05:00

Another regular season will soon be in the books. Several teams still have their playoff fates up in the air and will surely be pulling out all the stops in the year's final week.

There are two huge matches in 4.5. In this season more than any other a team that "squeaks into" the playoffs is fully capable of winning a berth at Sectionals.

In 4.5 Division I, the surprising Katy Coaches enter their last match controlling their own destiny in their match-up with the Deucebags. Pre-season pundits had the Coaches pegged as one of the division's bottom feeders, but many of their players have dramatically improved their performances from the prior season. The doubles team of Norkus/Weaver is 5-0 on the year. The Deucebags' lineups have varied, but it's hard to see the duo of Trey Dugas and Alain Tran on the sidelines, as they've been very impressive thus far. Expect the experienced team of Huffman and Ballesteros to be in the lineup as well. Former 5.0 Aaron Layman saw his first action of the season for the Coaches against JCC and has the talent to match up with any of the D-Bags.

The 'Bags singles players of Borkop and Nguyen would seem to be a level above anything the Coaches can throw out there, though I do think Cooper could beat them on a given day. Playing Layman in singles would be an interesting gamble for the Coaches...I don't know how fit or match tough he is at this point and he was mediocre in his singles efforts last season.

As noted, GTAC can still sneak into the playoff under the right circumstances. Perhaps strategically, Captain Tran has delayed reporting the score of last week's match with Lakeside Estates. The National regulations specify that the Section is responsible for the time limit in reporting scores. I seem to recall that at one time we captains were required to post the score within three days of a match's completion, but I can find no such rule now.

The division III winner-take-all battle between the Lobsters and Titans is equally compelling. This one is a rematch, with Ken Douds' crew taking the first one 3-2. A case could be made that Douds had his top lineup in that match: Ford and Jim in singles and Burrmann/Day, Hiemstra/Herr and Marco/Douds in doubles. Copperfield used Salinas and David Kent in singles as they were missing Martinez and McMullan and yet still extended the Titans to a third set breaker in each line they dropped (1S, 1D and 2S).

The match is being played at Copperfield. Major league baseball teams have won 54.7% of their home games since 2005. NBA and NFL numbers are most assuredly higher. I wonder what the figures are for our local USTA league. Stat Guy? In a matchup this tight, it might just make a difference.

In 4.0 Division II the Acers vs. Good Guys is the match that matters. West Side is NOT going to lose to Wilchester, so SAP and Double Trouble are totally reliant on the Good Guys. The Good Guys are 2-5, but have had hard luck and in fact have won about half of their lines and extended SAP, Double Trouble and West Side to 3-2. The reason that they're dangerous is that they have a couple of guys who are top notch 4.0's. Andy Sherbondy is 5-1 on the season and has been a rock at line 2 singles. If the Acers use their (in my opinion) best lineup, he would match up with Dan Le, who is a very competent 4.0. If the Acers put top singles player David Romero in doubles and move Le to line one singles, Sherbondy would be favored over anyone else. The Good Guys other star, Srdjan Blum, generally pairs with Andrew Helvenston at line one. The pair is undefeated on the year, and Sherbondy's only loss in singles was to disqualified Jason Allen. Don Obenrader and Marcus Robinson have been solid in doubles for the Acers this year, though there's been little pattern to the Acers' top doubles pairings.

4.0 Division IV still has 3 teams vying for second place, but no dramatic head-to-head matchups in the season's final week. One very mediocre team will qualify for the playoffs and will be fodder for Lakeside and others in the Citywide Championships.

I like drama.

2010-06-18T07:27:00.003-05:00

It looks like there are gonna' be some meaningful matches in the season's final week.

SAP played its best match of the season in crushing the first place Phoenix 5-0 last night. With the Acers' 4-1 win (finally using top player David Romero in singles) they sit atop the standings at 6-1, 25-10. Phoenix are 6-1, 24-11, SAP 5-2, 24-11. If Double Trouble swept Wilchester last night they'd be 5-2, 23-12. The Phoenix have only a makeup with 0-6 Wilchester remaining. An Acers stumble against the Good Guys could leave the door open for next week's SAP/Double Trouble winner.

The Hurricanes III beat Copperfield 4-1 last night. Sarosh Ahmed won the battle of Hurricane 4.0 alums at #1 singles, beating Ricardo Martinez 4 and 4. Interestingly, Captain Letan has not paired himself with longtime partner Bryan Robins since week two. Since then, Letan is 1-3 and Robins is 1-2. Together they'd gone 8-3 in regular season matches going back to 2006.

Assuming Copperfield posts a win in their makeup match with Lost Forest, both they and Wesheimer Indoors will be 5-2 and their final meeting on Thursday will be winner-take-all.

Finally, the Ball Busters took three third set tiebreakers in doubles last night to sweep Chancellor's. With matches still remaining to be made up and/or posted from last night, the Deucebags are 5-1, BallBusters 5-2 and Katy Coaches 4-2 heading into the final matchup between the Coaches and D-Bags. James Weaver and Trip Norkus paired up for another victory last night as the Coaches snuck past Ssshhhwings. Beau McBeth manned the number one singles spot for the Coaches, sneaking past 4.0 rated Kyle Webb in the third set.

The second place spot in the Hurricanes' 4.0 division is still up in the air as well.

Breaking news...

2010-06-15T12:17:00.003-05:00

I have to admit I kinda' expected this one...Jason Allen of SAP was disqualified today after winning his first four matches. Also disqualified this week was the Ace Makers' Prasanth Boyareddigari. They join Thai Chung and Prasanth's teammate Kevin Cunningham on the sidelines. The 4.0 ranks have been hit hard by disqualification this year while the 5.0 division and 4.5 division (with its former Davis Cupper Willy Lock) has remained unscathed.

Allen's disqualification has serious playoff ramifications. SAP had squeaked past the Acers 3-2 in week one, and therefore has moved behind the Acers in the fight for the coveted second playoff spot. As previously noted, SAP plays the Phoenix this week, and faces a huge uphill battle in its quest to sweep without its top player.

The Acers have an easy match this week and a somewhat tricky final match. They could potentially clinch this week with the right combination of outcomes. The Acers would be a much more dangerous playoff team had Oscar Larrazolo not been wisely plucked by veteran Lakeside Captain Mike Spoor.

As an interesting sidenote...Alain Tran is looking a lot wiser for holding out Peter Borkop from the last few matches in light of all of the 4.0 disqualifications. It will be interesting to see what he'll do if he faces a "must win" match against the Katy Coaches in the season finale.

Two weeks left.

2010-06-15T07:34:00.002-05:00

The season is winding down, and most teams will have their final opportunity to add players this week.

Most of the playoff races have been decided, with just a few meaningful matches left to be played. In 4.0, SAP takes on the undefeated Westside Phoenix this week. A loss by SAP would put them in a second place tie with an Acers team which has a fairly easy closing schedule. A blowout loss to the Phoenix could leave Goodwin's squad on the outside looking in.

The Katy Coaches dropped their match to GTAC last week in 4.5. James Weaver and Aaron Layman were missing from the Coaches' lineup. Mathematically, they're still in the hunt, as the Deucebags have dropped enough lines to make their season-ender a potential winner-take-all battle. The Coaches will have to clean up against disappointing Ssshhhwings first.

The big battle of the week takes place in contentious 4.5 Div III. The Hurricanes III sit atop the division with a 5-1 mark with two teams breathing down their neck. 4-1 Copperfield dealt the 'Canes their only loss in their first meeting, but both teams have strengthened themselves since. The Hurricanes went with John Grego and Roberto Narajos in singles the first time...I have a feeling their singles will be stronger on Thursday. Even a 3-2 loss for the Hurricanes will essentially sew up a playoff berth for them with Copperfield and Westheimer Indoor facing each other in the season's final week while the 'Canes waltz past Lost Forest.

Results

2010-06-11T08:58:00.003-05:00

The most surprising result of the night was the loss by the 4.0 Hurricane juggernaut to the lowly Columbia Lakes squad, which had its first victory of the season last night. The Hurricanes have their division locked up, so the match had no bearing on the standings. However, it will be interesting to see if/how this affects playoff positioning. In my mind, the Hurricanes are still the top team (I still have Lakeside as number two despite their loss). However, I don't make the seeding, and it might be hard and/or unfair for Lera to seed teams on reputation. There may be three undefeated teams when all is said and done, and if any seeding advantage is to be gained, they should be the recipients.

In other matches last night, both 4.5 Hurricane teams won key battles. Sarosh Ahmed and Bharath Gururaj won tight singles matches with Antoine Ford and Simon Jim. Coach Douds surprised everyone by splitting up the Burrmann/Day duo. No Way Out didn't offer the other Hurricane team much resistance as Chris Towle became playoff eligible for the 'Canes.

In 5.0 play, Aadrian Hasker had a great win against Alim Mambetov as the Met team continued to roll on their way to Sectionals.

Hitting the home stretch

2010-06-10T07:03:00.005-05:00

Only a couple of results have trickled in from last week's rain-outs. In 4.0, SAP lost its first match, a 4-1 setback to the Breakers. They still have the first place Phoenix on the schedule and two teams with just two losses in the division, so they must be very careful henceforth.

Westheimer Indoor has entered the inevitable 5-0 victory against Lost Forest from a few weeks back and is now atop the contentious 4.5 division III. They have a huge matchup with the Hurricanes this week before finishing up with Copperfield. It's a tough schedule, but they control their own destiny and Ken Douds has fashioned a formidable roster. The Hurricanes have two new names on their roster this week in Beaumont's Daniel Dupelchin and Robert Plummer, who is generally seen in mixed. The Hurricanes have Lost Forest and Copperfield on their schedule. It appears that every line may be vital for all three contenders.

In 4.5 D2, No Way Out and the other Hurricane team battle this week. Creed Abell has been solid for NWO in singles thus far, as Hal Hale and Corbin Cooke have been used only one time combined in singles for NWO. The Hurricanes have used a revolving door of singles players thus far, but swept NWO in their last matchup. Michael Chec is a nice addition this week for the 'Canes.

There's really not too much of interest going on in 4.0 or 5.0 right now.

In news across the state, perennial contender Austin Wild has lost another player to disqualification. Former Nevada-Reno player Jeff Ruedy was protested and dq'd this week. Captain Mike Davis has been snakebit in recent years, losing John Swords earlier this year and Jeremiah McMillan in 2008 and Bo Bowman in 2007.

P.S. I love the top 20 singles list someone posted (of course I don't totally agree with every selection, but it looks pretty well thought out).

The 4.0 Playoff Landscape

2010-06-03T08:16:00.002-05:00

As far as I know, there has been no official announcement regarding the playoff format this year. I think most people are assuming that the 4.5 City Wide Championships will be in a round robin format since last year seemed to be such a success.

4.0 is a different animal. In most years there are two teams who qualify for Sectionals in 4.0. Jason Freeman's team lost a match in pool play in his first year as a 4.0 captain in 2005. They've not lost one since. I have no idea just how good his team is this year, but based on history, they'd have to be considered a favorite. If I were an opposing captain I'd do everything in my power to avoid the Hurricanes' pool.

I personally feel that the playoff format and brackets should be announced prior to the season. I assume that they are not announced early in order to avoid teams losing intentionally in order to better position themselves. In the coming weeks we have Sienna vs. Chancellor's, SAP vs. Phoenix, the two Cinco Ranch teams playing each other, and Lakeside vs. Gleannloch. In most cases those teams are assured of playoff spots. The question is, do they have any incentive to win those matches?

How should the HTA group teams? If the Hurricanes are truly head and shoulders above the rest, should the (perceived) second, third and fourth best teams all be placed in the other bracket? Technically, I suppose, teams seeded 2 and 3 should be in one grouping and those seeded 1 and 4 in another. If the season ended today, I would have to say that the Hurricanes would be #1, Sienna #2, Phoenix/SAP winner #3, Cinco winner #4 and Lakeside/Gleannloch #5.

By virtue of their loss, Lakeside will probably either be placed in the Hurricanes' bracket or have to get past two heavyweights to win their pool, as I don't think you can seed them ahead of any undefeated teams at this point.

This Week

2010-06-02T07:27:00.002-05:00

There are two heavyweight fights this week, one in 4.0 and one in 4.5.

In 4.0, Sienna and Chancellor's meet for round two after Sienna took the first match 3-2. Sienna has dropped just 4 lines all season as Donn Nguyen has again assembled a top contender for Sectionals. Newcomer Troy Gor has been impressive for the Over Hitters.

Chancellor's has remained competitive despite the disqualification of doubles star Thai Chung. Despite having five of Thai's wins reversed, Chancellor's remains at 5-1. Cuong Truong and Danh Mai have been strong in singles for Louis Lu.

In 4.5 the big battle between Lakeside and the Deucebags takes place this week. Some potential heavyweight singles battles between Borkop, Nguyen, Bui and Hess will be worth watching. This should be a good one.

Boring week

2010-05-26T08:15:00.002-05:00

There are not any/many interesting matches on the docket this week.

In 4.0, Copperfield's Shock and Awe takes its 4-1 team on the road to play Cinco Ranch's undefeated Comets. Copperfield has a huge defecit in a tiebreaker situation. They will need a win this week and some good breaks the rest of the way to make it to city playoffs.

In 4.5, Ssshhhwings host Lakeside in an effort to keep their small playoff hopes alive. Lester Callaway was impressive last week in the #2 singles slot for Shwings and is now 4-0 on the season.

Division III has a virtual 3-way tie for first place, but none of the teams figures to be tested this week. Every set may end up being crucial. The Hurricanes have the toughest match this week, but we'll see what kind of Taylor HS brings on its trek to LLTC.

2010-05-24T19:14:00.004-05:00

Another WTT is almost here!

June 12th/13th

3.0 & 4.0 levels play on the 12th

3.5 & 4.5 levels play on the 13th

Teams consist of a minimum of 2 males and 2 females with a maximum of 10 players.

Cost for the entire event is $100/team or $25/person. You are guaranteed 3 matches.

Play format for each round is as follows:

1 set of men's doubles

1 set of women's doubles

1 set of men's singles

1 set of women's singles

1 set of mixed doubles

1 set of mixed doubles

for more information and to register go to: http://www.wttrec.com/

Lance Loken

832.387.8248

lloken4@comcast.net

4.5 Tidbits

2010-05-21T09:12:00.002-05:00

- Nice win by the Deucebags last night. Clutch performance by Andres Ballesteros and David Huffman pulling out the third set breaker. Another nice win from Hung Nguyen at one singles. Alain Tran is now 12-2 in doubles this year.

- Some nice new 4.5 roster adds this week: Peter Hansen, David Huffman, John Burrmann, David Herr, Murray Fonseca, Adam Kent.

- Was surprised to see Mark Keener in singles for the Black Sheep with Pio Davila in doubles. Keener hasn't played much in 4.5 but it looks like Tommy Ristau has a lot of options.

- We're halfway through the 4.5 season and there's no obvious favorite yet. What would the Vegas odds be for winning citywides? I'll throw some out there off the top of my head for fun (assuming rosters stay as is and everyone plays in playoffs). Rank 'em yourself if you want.

Lakeside 4-1
Black Sheep 5-1
Deucebags 5-1
Copperfield 6-1
Hurricanes II 8-1
Hurricanes III 8-1
Westheimer Indoor 10-1
The field 50-1

I probably underrated Lakeside's chances (4-1 gives them just a 20% chance). The smart money would probably be on Lakeside at those odds.

Great week

2010-05-19T12:50:00.003-05:00

The schedule is jam-packed with good match-ups this week in both 4.0 and 4.5.

In 4.0, there is a bit of intrigue in Division I after Kevin Lim Cunningham's disqualification this week. His four matches were defaulted, which managed to vault Gleannloch Farms into the second place spot ahead of Cunningham's Ace Makers. Lakeside will be favored over Gleannloch Farms this week, and we could see GF and the Ace Makers battling it out for that second place spot until the final week.

In Division II, top team WSTC-Phoenix plays upstart Double Trouble, who have a surprising 3-0 record despite losing Rafah Ahmad and Ed Galvez from last year's mediocre team. In Division III, two Cinco Ranch Teams are filled with unknowns, but have dominated the division thus far. Lance Loken is hoping his Copperfield squad can remain in the hunt until their match next week with top-ranked Cinco Ranch Westside Comets.

In 4.5 Division I, the top four teams will be tested in crucial match-ups this week. Lakeside faces a desperate GTAC team fresh off its first loss last week. A potential line one singles match between Moser and Hess will be worth watching. Quack Bui would be a favorite over Sandblom at the other singles spot, but could have trouble with Benton if he's used there. Lakeside would seem to have the edge in doubles. The Deucebags have a talented roster, and on paper would seem to be the favorite. They're in a precarious position in my opinion, however. Peter Borkop has been destroying people. TOO EASILY. Should he fall victim to the "three strikes" rule, as did Austin Wild's John Swords and the aforementioned Kevin Cunningham, the Deucebags' season would be over. Luckily for Borkop, his opponents have not been very strong and he has been spared from disqualification.

In Division II the Hurricanes II take on the Black Sheep in a battle of unbeatens. Recently added Murray Fonseca and the dominant Pio Davila give the Black Sheep an intriguing one-two punch (Humberto Alzate gives them a nice third singles option). Sean Lacy and Wayne Morgan look to rebound from a puzzling loss last week to Metoyer and Champlin.

In Division III, top dawg Copperfield plays Westheimer Indoor, who is tied with the Hurricanes in second place. With the Hurricanes having a bye (aka Lost Forest, who has yet to pick up a line this season), the Titans will be behind the eight ball with a loss. Copperfield looks to have the stronger roster. Simon Jim has yet to be seen for Ken Douds' crew. They may need him this week.

Tidbits...

2010-05-14T07:26:00.002-05:00

- I'm glad to hear that Hung Nguyen played last night. In all my years of playing league I don't think there has ever been a player about whom I'd heard so many contradictory stories. I was mistakenly informed that he wouldn't be playing for the Deucebags, that he was signed up against his will, that he played for the infamous 2006 Backesto Park team, etc. All of them have proved to be false. The one constant story I've heard is that this guy is GOOD. It sounds like he proved it last night.

- Alain Tran worked harder in the offseason than any other captain, and the results are starting to show. A case could be made that he has the best starting lineup in the city right now. I'm not sure what his top 8 would be, but with Nguyen and Borkop in singles and veterans Tran, Ballesteros, Jannuzzi and Teague (will Huffman be joining them soon?) he's got a solid foundation. One thing worries me about the team, but I'll hold that thought for now.

- I noticed Freeman changed the names of his two Hurricane 4.5 teams. I'm officially taking the "B-team" label off of Hurricanes II. Since receiving that moniker they've added McCool, Lombardi, Guy and Raymond Martinez. They're now very formidable.

- I really can't believe Willy Lock has lasted this long. Is he the best player (resume-wise) to play in the Houston league in this century? I remember getting lambasted after adding Farzad Heidari to my roster (and filling out his self-rating form without knowing his background). He got DQ'd to a 6.0 level, somehow. (he actually legitimately lost a set to one of my teammates in practice) Lock's background dwarfs Heidari's in accomplishments.

- Still, I'm glad Lock, Gururaj, Borkop and Nguyen are all playing. With all of the talent losses the league needed some competent new blood to avoid becoming too stale.

- Nice win for Ricardo Martinez last night. He and Roberto were the two singles players on Freeman's Hurricane 4.0 team two years ago. I don't believe the two ever played back then, but I think most of us assumed Narajos was the number one guy. Heck, even Ricardo might have agreed. Ricardo has a great game but has always been really lacking in self-confidence and sometimes struggles with nerves. It'd be nice to see Ricardo lead Copperfield on a playoff run. It's hard to believe a 4.0 team with those two singles players didn't do any damage at Sectionals.

Week Four

2010-05-11T13:17:00.003-05:00

The standings have begun to take shape, and this week there are a few match-ups that will have a big impact on playoff positioning.

In 4.5 GTAC will take on the Deucebags in a crucial match-up for both teams. There are four quality squads in Division I, and all four should be expected to sweep the five also-rans. So, how the teams fare in the three "big" match-ups will decide their fate. The Ball Busters have faithfully fielded teams for the last decade. They haven't made the playoffs since 2002 and in fact went 3-28 from 2005-2008, so Denny Dantimo should be commended for their resurgence. Jochen Moser must be considered among the top singles players in the league, and Ashley/McKeithen are a quality team, but I see the Deucebags squeaking out a 3-2 victory.

Copperfield hosts the (non-Morton? A-team?) Hurricanes in Division III. Both teams are undefeated and the loser will move into a tie with the Titans for second place. Dave McMullan and Ricardo Martinez have been solid in singles for the Lobsters so far. Copperfield's top two doubles lines have looked good thus far, but line three has been suspect, filled with 4.0 bump-ups.

The Rolido Boys and Hurricanes bump heads in 4.0, both entering the match-up with 3-0 records. The Rolido Boys managed to avoid the massive 4.0 ratings inflation that afflicted many teams, retaining Robert Kane, Greg Moran, Richard Walker and Randy Lawton. Kane and Walker are a combined 6-0 in singles this season. Tunde Olu has pitched in with three three-set victories this year as well. Still, I don't think the Rolido Boys are gonna' be able to match the firepower that Freeman will put out there in a "big" match.

Week Three

2010-05-07T07:26:00.002-05:00

The big matchup in 4.5 last night was between the Hurricane "A" team and Sugar Creek (oops...Westheimer Indoor). Last year Antoine Ford played four singles matches and lost three of them in third set tie-breakers...against Aadrian Hasker, Omon Dibua and Odion Dibua. Yesterday he went down to Bharath Gururaj in straights. 'Nuf said. The big decisive line one doubles match in a fairly important regular season matchup was won by Ayman Abouelchabob and Richard Perreras over Stephen Epstein and Lito Diano.

The season thus far has been fairly uneventful, but I think we'll have a little drama on the horizon in the coming weeks. With only two or three weeks into the season, the playoff picture is fairly clear already in 4.0, unless I'm reading too much into these results. I'm assuming two teams from each division will qualify for Citywides.

4.0 I: Lakeside and Gleannloch/Ace Makers
4.0 II: Phoenix and SAP
4. 0III: 2 of the 3 Cinco Ranch teams
4.0 IV: Hurricanes and Rolido Boys
4.0 V: Sienna and Chancellor's

4.5 is actually still quite competitive, perhaps the most competitive it's been in quite a while. The Hurricane/NWO result has not been posted yet, but the winner will have a big leg up on a playoff berth in Division II. Division I still has at least four teams vying for the two spots. Hurricanes, Titans and Lobsters are all in the hunt in D III.

5.0 appears to be a runaway. David Toney's Met squad is nowhere near as loaded as Houston's top 5.0 team last year, but appears to have things well in hand, although Willow Fork has the talent to make a push for the title.

Week Two

2010-04-29T08:42:00.002-05:00

Sorry, I haven't had time to do anything more than glance at things this week. Nothing jumped out at me in the way of exciting matchups. In 4.0 Sienna faces Chancellor's in a battle of two teams who have been top contenders in the past few years. With the significant roster turnover it's hard to tell just who will be the team to beat in that division, but tonight may tell the tale.

There were a few roster moves that made me take notice, though many of them are not coming to mind right now. Blake Martin being added to Ssshhhwings is intriguing, I guess. Martin was dominating the 4.0 tournament scene this year. Interestingly, he self-rated as a 4.5, which I guess precludes him from pursuing the top ranking in 4.0 this year. It might open things up in the tournament rankings for Oscar Larrazolo, who was plucked from the Acers roster to join the Lakeside 4.0 team. The Acers actually would have had a dangerous squad with Larrazolo, Romero, Le and Obenrader, but Larrazolo has moved to a team that will almost certainly be in the hunt. Lakeside has got to be considered the second favorite behind Freeman's team, and has added another recent self-rate in Jorge Ferrer that will bear watching.

One roster move in 4.5 that comes to mind was Ryan Cooper moving from the Jedi Knights, where he's been a fixture in the last few years, to the Katy Coaches team. I'm not sure if Cooper is in the coaching business or just lives out in the Katy area. Jedi Knights have struggled for singles players in the last several years and will again probably be very shorthanded in that department. Perhaps newcomer and self-rate Santiago Lock will be the answer. Captain Karl Burford (who does a great job with the usually undermanned Katy High School tennis team in a killer district) will pit Cooper against the Lakeside CC team today in their season opener.

Reminder

2010-04-26T10:04:00.001-05:00

Don't forget to pay your HTA dues so we can avoid all of those annoying protests, etc.

Opening Day

2010-04-23T11:36:00.002-05:00

In MLB this year we had Red-Sox v. Yankees to open the season. In Houston League tennis, we had No Way Out vs. Black Sheep. Not quite the same.

Captains have been slower than usual reporting their scores. All of the favorites appear to have won their matches. The Hurricane franchise won all of their matches, although the Herb Morton-led 4.5 team (hereafter referred to as "The B Team") looked very shaky in doing so. Lakeside appears to have some solid squads, and word is that SAP squeaked out a win in their quest to return to Sectionals. Hopefully things will get more exciting as the season progresses.

WEAK

2010-04-20T12:04:00.001-05:00

Sorry for being so neglectful...for only the second time since '97 I won't be playing in the Thursday night league so I haven't paid it as much attention as I usually do. Despite being on the sidelines I'll still be watching things fairly closely and chatting frequently with friends and contacts in the league.

I took a look at the rosters this morning. Maybe my absence from the tennis scene has skewed my judgement, but my impression is that this is the weakest summer league since the turn of the century. The 4.5 league seems to be missing so many of the big guns from last year, and with perhaps a very few exceptions there don't seeem to be any new studs to take their places. Again, customarily captains try to spring their "surprises" on opponents at the last minute, so there may be a flurry of roster activity on Thursday, but right now I can't see any team that has a remote chance of doing any damage at the Sectional level this year. The league will be competitve, and even some of the 4.0 bump-ups will be able to "hang", but there doesn't appear to be a real quality team out there. Even some of the perennial contenders (Ssshhhwing, Black Sheep, etc.) appear weaker, but still may be good enough to qualify for citywides.

As for 4.0, the number of recognizable names is pretty small, but I would suspect that the captains who annually field contenders (Freeman, Goodwin, Lu, Spoor) will all be in the playoff hunt and will all be trailing Jason Freeman when all is said and done (though Freeman's roster seems to have a couple of head scratchers on it, I'm sure he will be strong by the time the playoffs roll around).

Brackets are out.

2010-04-14T07:09:00.003-05:00

Both the 4.0 and 4.5 brackets have been released. At first glance it appears they have done a good job with them. Of course, the strength of the teams is still subject to change but I think the brackets look fairly balanced in both 4.0 and 4.5. Discuss.