Last year at districts, I was pleased when all but one of our players made it out of the first round. There was no state tournament last year, but we would've had 4 players make state (2 singles players, one doubles team) and we had 3 quarter-flnalists in singles.
This year, when the stakes were the highest this team orbited into another level. All but one of our players made the quarterfinals this year. The one girl that lost was on JV until 2.5 weeks ago, we inserted her into our last singles spot on our district roster and she almost upset the 6-seed before losing 5-7, 6-4, 6-7.
For context, everyone who makes the semis get to go to state. We submit 4 singles & 4 doubles entries into the district bracket. So out of our 12 kids in the bracket,
11 were a match away from going to state. I've been telling the team all year that "I want us to play like it's possible for us to take all 12 of us to state." And we almost did it.
Some notes:
- We've already clinched another district title -- our 3rd straight -- dating back to 2019. They've never won it this decisively though. We were a shitty doubles seeding job away from having 3 doubles teams heading to state.
- The quarter-final match between my 3rd singles player and the 4th best player in the league/conference/district was must-see TV. Mostly because this was a mix of contrasting styles. The 3-seed was a big-hitting freshman who is very good, but is she not as good as she thinks she is. The prototypical tennis headcase. My player? Composed all the time. Rarely makes errors. Can hit with pace, will hit crafty shots and can hang with a big hitter by just being consistent and forcing them to be precise and hit winners. My girl won 6-2, 6-3. She only trailed once, down 1-2 in the 1st set. During the changeover she said "I dunno, it doesn't look good." And I said
"you just broke her, she's up a game and she's already negative self-talking.
What's gonna happen if you get a lead? Just strap in, frustrate her and see where it goes." My girl won 5 straight games to win that set & kept the car running through the 2nd set. It was a masterful performance and I'm extremely proud.
This is just a background aside...
Spoiler
What's satisfying about this matchup is that part of the fraud that was the seeding process was our rival school's coach deliberately violating the league rules on seeding, so that they could avoid my 2nd best player (who is going D1) and so...the school (not the rival) who had this 3-seed thought that playing my 3rd best player was going to be a cakewalk. They'd never played her before at 1-singles, so they'd not paid much mind to her...too busy being in awe of my top roster players.
What's funny is, my strategic decision to forfeit last Friday against this team was prescient. It should've just been rained out, but at the behest of their coach, they rented an indoor bubble so that we could play out the match on Friday instead of cancelling it. I think they wanted one more crack at our players before the district tournament, mostly for scouting purposes.
I do not think they assumed they'd play the girl they played yesterday, but rather, they wanted to scout my top players to see if there would be an angle for beating them, because they thought delusionally that she had a chance to do that.
I didn't have enough players on Friday because I didn't think we'd play the match. Forfeiting sucks, but...it was a strategic choice because I knew why they wanted to play it -- there'd have been no point, we beat them 8-0 with our full lineup and they only got 15 points on us total -- and I didn't want my kids playing a match the Friday before a tournament.
- To further illustrate the shitty bracketing job, the quarterfinals featured my 5th seeded 2nd doubles team playing the top seed. She did this mostly by insisting her 2nd doubles team be seeded over ours due to skill level. I shouldn't have let it fly, but...there was a hole in the bracket where my 3rd doubles team (a senior/junior combo) had an easy 2nd round match against a weak 3-seed from a different school.
I didn't want to blow up the bracket because I thought that
worst case scenario we'd end up with 2 doubles teams at state which was always my plan and if we got lucky, the 2nd doubles duo (9th/10th grader) would pull off a big upset and we'd have 3.
Ultimately, it played out like I imagined it would. The youngsters did lose, but they fought hard and were composed. The other thing is...I think getting punched in the mouth like this is going to make them want it even more. Both of them have been splitting their time between tennis and something else this season -- one of them is on the track team at the same time -- and so I felt like it's come pretty easy for them all year & in a weird way, this experience will make them so much more resilient given they have two more years together as a doubles duo. They'll make state next year for sure; it's just a matter of seeing how far they can go.
Wednesday is the semis & finals. We have 3/4ths of the singles entries, my 1-2 combo will meet in the finals, just like they did their 9th grade year. I have actually never had to watch them play each other & I'm not that excited about it, but...it'll be better than an opposing player being in that match.
In the 3rd place match, I'm hoping my soft-hitter can work up her same magic against a less talented player than the one she beat in the quarters. The girl she'll face in that match won't be as much of a headcase, but she's also not as big a hitter. The first two times my girl has played people like this she's caught them off guard, I'm wondering this time if the lack of element of surprise will cause the other player to be more ready.
In the doubles deal, we'll have our top-seed because they'll beat our surprise team. Then it'll just be a matter of seeing if our girls can pull another big against our rival's top doubles team.
They did it two weeks ago, but the rival's coach pulled out all the stops including 1) stacking her doubles lineup and conceding singles, essentially and 2) rigging the bracketing to ensure she was guaranteed (essentially) two doubles teams at state.
I did learn a lesson about speaking up better though and I'll be more prepared for something like this in the future, though at this point, I'm pretty sure I'm not coming back next season. So this is the last ride.
Honestly, I don't have any major complaints. I'd prefer to win the doubles title at districts so my team is ensured the top seed, but it's not the end of the world if they're the 2-seed. I'm just trying to get to state and finish the job. We're not the Warriors and there's no hanging a banner for a 13-2 season and a district title if we don't win it all, so we have to finish the job in a week.