The preseason team rankings are out:
Last year’s state tournament finish is in brackets; not sure if we can step up yet…it is hard to tell with the injuries going on right now.
Speaking of injuries, Henry, part of the #3 doubles team, has mono. So that means Kevin is now paired with the other #3 doubles player, Denton, for this quad.
Getting annoyed with the coach…he’s not submitting the scores to the paper!
Match 1: Beat Birmingham Groves (you can see them in the standings above) 6-2, 3-6, 10-2. Really put them away in the tiebreaker, at one point the score was 2-1 and they rolled off the next 7 points.
Match 2: I was wrong; the coach has decided to experiment with the doubles line-ups with all of the injuries going on….Kevin is playing #2 doubles with Parth. Lost 6-3, 7-6 (7-5) to Forest Hills Central (again, see above)
Parth may be the only kid I will flat out say is not a good match for Kevin…..and that’s not Parth’s fault, it’s just that Kevin isn’t really a ‘power’ player, and neither is Parth, and having two of them on the court at the same time leads to the other team overpowering the two of them. Denton, in Match 1, and Nikhil, in Match 3, all have some ‘oompf’ behind their shots and it is a better match of skills.
I guess the thing to really write about is what I texted Suzanne during the match…”really really REALLY impressed by Kevin’s service game in his two service games. This is a good team and he is killing it.”
I’ve never seen Kevin overpower a team with his serve; heck, at times, he’s completely struggled to get his first serve in. Not in that second set, he had multiple aces and they just couldn’t effectively return his serve at all. Really hope that the rest of the season brings this about more consistently.
They should have won that second set….I can’t often say that Kevin’s partner let him down but in this game, Kevin’s partner let him down. Just never recognized that the other team was cleaning up on his 2nd serve and never adjusted. I will say that some of this is on Kevin too….he should be telling his partner to stop the soft-shit and hit his first serve…so what if he double-faults? They are losing all of those points anyway.
Match 3: Paired with Nikhil at #2 doubles; won 6-0, 6-4 against Northview. Went down in the 2nd set 0-3 after Nikhil goes into this major slump and hits every ball long or out of play. Very weird…..
Adham isn’t back for another week or two I think…..Henry has just started mono and isn’t going to be back for another week or two. Really hope things settle down with partners soon.
Competition gets easier for a while; they start league play and that means matches after school. I think there is a quad or two on a Saturday though in September.
