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We had our last league match (probably, assuming Friday rain) yesterday. We were short-handed by our standards, missing 5 players who've been started for most of the year. Thankfully, the past few weeks we've identified some JV players who are good enough to fill the gaps and thus, it gives me a surplus of players to choose from.
Still, we made some last minute adjustments to the doubles lineup yesterday based on the Districts playoffs lineup. Still, it went fine.
We beat the 3rd best team in our (not especially great this year) league/district 8-0 (we won 7-1 last week) by fortifying the 3rd doubles spot we lost, sweeping them in singles despite using 2 JVers turned varsity in 3/4 singles. The biggest surprise was one of my emergent lower doubles players who has turned into a potential singles asset breaking through at 2nd singles winning a 3rd setter 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (1) it was not the prettiest victory but the point was...she overcame the odds and finished the job.
The best part of yesterday though was 4th doubles: Because we were kind of short-handed and our stalwart senior 4th doubles player couldn't play last minute, we pressed our manager into action on the way to the bus lol along with a newly promoted junior hadn't played for us before that Friday match last week.
She has very unorthodox strokes and hasn't practiced with us, but after she dominated with her friend last week, she earned her away onto the backup varsity roster and in this match where I had zero expectations they'd win -- I was very content yesterday for everyone to have their worst match, so long as we won 5-3 -- instead, that team comprised of JV player and our manager did the opposite. After dropping the first set 4-6 (and they were up briefly 4-3) they came back to win the second set 6-3 and then claimed the 3rd set handily 6-4. I was in no way expecting this and I'm still amazed they pulled it off.
It's a credit to our manager that she's gone from being a bit of an on-court liability, but better than a forfeit, to turning herself into "the anchor from which we will use to win a 4th doubles match" against a team that's actually really solid and even has a full JV program. So like...even though this wasn't their full-strength top-to-bottom roster, it was still a very solid team they beat.
Anyway, that might be it for the regular season. Tomorrow we have that potential rainy day match against a team that I expect after today will also be 13-0. So it'll be a real barn burner and a way to end the regular season.
I have absolutely zero interest in playing on Friday for a rubber match against the league's 4th best team (who do have a likely seeded player at 1-singles...but we have the 4 best singles players in the district, so it's moot)
As for tomorrow's likely match, I have no idea what to benchmark them as. I do know that they've taken their 1-2 singles players and moved them to 1st doubles in anticipation of the state tournament at 6A (a common tactic here among programs that don't have singles players strong enough to go far in the state tournament) and so I imagine they will be solid.
Our 1st doubles pairing have played together most of the year and this team only started pairing up yesterday, so they'll have 2 days of practice. Also, our 1st doubles team yesterday looked better than I'd ever seen them before yesterday. Just crisp and their timing was really really good.
Singles-wise, they've already taken their best singles players and put them at doubles which means...it should be a clean sweep, especially if -- as expected -- my 1-2 combo decide they're both going to play.
The real wildcard here, will be seeing how talented their doubles depth is. I anticipate these will be slightly better players at 2nd/3rd/4th doubles than we've seen all year and I won't have my regular 2nd doubles pairing.
I do not envision a scenario we'll lose this match, we're just too strong. But I'm curious if it'll be a 7-1/8-0 blowout or if we'll sweat this one out a bit more. Either way, I'm thrilled we get to it. These kinds of ad-hoc matches never happen here, much less between two of the Top 10 teams in the state regardless of classification, this late in the season.
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