Regionals

As much as I like to be playing in the Regionals, instead we went and watched the first round last night. A couple of things were evident to me right away.

#1 - Northridge and East Noble both have excellent #1 singles players, but we would have competed at all of the rest of the positions (of course, we beat Northridge 3-2 in the regular season!)

#2 - There was a nervousness and a tenseness to the whole night. Every match in the Fairfield - East Noble team match started out close and tense. Even though three of the positions ended up not close, and every match ended in two sets (except #2 doubles), there was a feeling that several of the matches could go either way. Every shot seemed like a big shot, and it certainly got to some of the players.

#3 - You could quickly tell what positions each team needed to win in order to have a chance to win the match. Fairfield was not going to win #1 singles or #2 doubles, so they needed every other spot. East Noble was not going to win #3 singles, so it needed either #2 singles or #1 doubles. Northridge was not going to win #2 singles, but needed to have either #3 singles or #1 doubles. Wawasee had to have #1 doubles and #3 singles. The point is that early in the match, before first sets were even finished, the pressure was already on certain spots and everybody knew it.

So congratulations to Northridge and Fairfield, who handled the pressure well and pulled off 3-2 wins. I'm looking forward to coming back out and cheering on these teams in the Regional final. I'm looking forward to some more high quality - high pressure tennis.