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Game 4:
We played a christian school yesterday about 10 minutes from campus. I was wrong about it being our first match of the year with our entire team, instead we were missing all of our Top 3 (1/2 singles and half of 1st doubles) and a senior captain (4th doubles) and we almost got to lineup announcement with our No. 1 player (for the day) running late.
So I literally made the lineup adjustments as we were walking to do introductions. We bumped 4 JV players into the lineup, two were seniors who were experienced, the 4th doubles team contained one junior who has practiced with varsity all year and played in one match so far and a JV player who had never played in a live match in her entire life.
So it was gonna be interesting, but I thought we'd still be okay.
For the first hour, it was not. looking. good. They had 5 courts, which was nice. But on those 5 courts, there was a point where we were losing on 3 of them. First singles -- my first-year player sophomore -- is gangbusters, she's played No. 1 for us twice against inferior opponents and has given up ONE GAME in those 4 sets. What a find she's been for us. It's awesome.
2nd singles, we pressed a sophomore who is still new to the game but has powerful strokes into action. She was extremely nervous and I had no expectations she'd win. She lost the first set 4-6. The second set she was down 3-4 at a point. She played a pusher who also made terrible line calls and she kept getting frustrated. I was able to calm her down and I think her competitive spirit made her realize she didn't want to lose to a fucking cheater.
One nice thing about being on a team with actual good players is these kids understand what good tennis is supposed to look like and it's hard to have that not rub off on you when you're practicing against it everyday. Anyway, she did a hell of a job winning the 2nd set 6-4. I still did not expect her to win it, but she indeed came back and beat the girl 6-4 in the 3rd set.
Third singles was my freshman discovery I mentioned earlier who we identified early as a singles player. She's still very raw, but for whatever reason she's putting it all together. She blazed through the first set 6-1 and in the 2nd set, though it was bumpy she managed to escape 6-4.
4th singles was a senior who I usually play at 3rd doubles (with the 3rd singles girl from today's match) but I broke them up because she's got clear strokes, isn't a pusher and has been around a while. She rewarded my confidence and won in straight sets 6-4, 7-5.
We won all the doubles flights except 1st doubles, which was clearly their best team. I had two singles players playing together, but the doubles game wasn't for them. They lost 2-6 2-6, but I'm glad we gave it a go anyway.
2nd doubles was my most experienced doubles team - they're seniors who are pals and really in sync with each other - but I wasn't sure how it'd go. Their opponents were okay, but not great. My girls were down 4-2 at one point in the first set and we thought for sure they'd have some issues winning. But they came back to match at 4-4 and then dragged into a tiebreaker at 6-6. The tiebreaker went to 11-9 before they won it. But that first set win was pivotal, as they took the 2nd set and that match.
3rd (6-0,6-0) and 4th doubles were cakewalks, the latter was an absolute trip because I had my JV player being carried by this barely varsity player herself, but the other team could not manage to make enough adjustments to hit it to the JV player enough to win. We won that on 7-5, 6-4.
So we move to 4-0 on the season (ties don't count, you use the tiebreaker) and thankfully we don't have to play them anymore this year. Tuesday we have to go to on our last long road trip of the year against a school with only 2 courts. They will not give us any problems, my issue is gonna be making sure we can take our strongest players down there, because the kids know it's not a tough match.
After that, we play the team that forfeited at home. Then we have a week until the defacto league championship against at rivals at their home. I've already told my team it's all hands on deck for that match, because I don't just want to beat them, I want us to win like 6-2 or 7-1 and really make people how deep our squad is this year.
No word yet on whether we'll get a 6A match before this year is out, but even if this is our only schedule, I want these coaches to realize that we can beat them even when we don't have our stars.
It was fun yesterday after I realized how much we won by, even though it looked ugly for the first hour.
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