Teams expectations at Championship Levels?

[wvtennis]

Curious about something. Does every team that travels to districts/states/sectionals beleive they have a chance to win, or do some go knowing they are not going to win and are just going to have fun?

Also, expectations effect the Lineups. Teams that beleive they will win are more inclined to just play their top players and leave some of the other players at home im assuming?

Thoughts?

[dizzlmcwizzl]

In my experience every team shows up on Friday with hope in their souls. By the end of the day Friday teams know whether they are contenders or not. Those who realize they are out of contention drink heavily and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Our team planned to use everyone throughout the weekend. The captain sent out our best lineups on Friday to see if we were contenders. Once it looked like we could advance he made a couple changes to the lineups on Saturday to strengthen our team for the morning match. After loosing the first Saturday match we realized we were out of contention then the lineups remained unchanged to let everyone play.

[HitItHarder]

I believe that most teams know going into the State/District Championships if their team is competitive. It requires enough depth and skill on every court to put out a strong lineup where stacking or other line up ploys don't really matter. In other words, there isn't a real difference between any of your courts. Those teams go in thinking they can compete.

However, as dizzlmcwizzl states, you pretty much know after the first day if you are in it or not. Lineups get adjusted accordingly.

My USTA team is heading to our State Championship in two weeks. Realistically, we probably won't be in the running. We are a team of computer rated players that are just all at the top of our local level. Without any real self-rated ringers in the lineups, we will likely get toasted in at least one of our matches based on past experiences at State. That will probably take us out of the running. So we are bringing the whole team and everybody will play. It should be a lot of fun.

[bcart1991]

Originally Posted by dizzlmcwizzl

In my experience every team shows up on Friday with hope in their souls. By the end of the day Friday teams know whether they are contenders or not. Those who realize they are out of contention drink heavily and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

This.

We went into 4.0 State with two 3.5 players and one 4.0 who just got bumped up. After a tough draw on Friday, we had fun the rest of the weekend, and pulled out a match victory Saturday.

Many teams that come in serious about the weekend normally have already had at least some of their players bumped up a level by tournament weekend.

[Geezer Guy]

It depends on which team members can make the trip. If many or all of the stong players go, then everyone is hopeful.

If several of the stonger players cannot make the trip, then people pretty much know they don't have much of a shot.

It's still fun though.

[raiden031]

Originally Posted by dizzlmcwizzl

In my experience every team shows up on Friday with hope in their souls. By the end of the day Friday teams know whether they are contenders or not. Those who realize they are out of contention drink heavily and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

This is not true. EVEN the teams that are in contention drink heavily.

My team at 3.0 Nationals knew we had a very good shot at winning just from the amount of depth we had. Most of the teams have a couple players who would win at the top of the next level, but we had pretty much a whole lineup that could do it plus lots of reserve players who were also solid.

[Jim A]

we played everyone at Districts (lost each match 2-3) knowing that if we advanced we didn't have the depth to do well @ Sectionals. We needed a second singles player and a better #2 dubs, or maybe our #1 at #2. For most of the guys it was their only chance to play @ Districts ...

[bodieq]

Originally Posted by wvtennis

Also, expectations effect the Lineups. Teams that beleive they will win are more inclined to just play their top players and leave some of the other players at home im assuming?
Thoughts?

Here's the thing...even if your team loses the Friday match at (let's say Districts), you could still potentially win your round-robin "flight" as long as no team goes undefeated in your grouping/flight (i.e. such as each team ends up losing one team match), which would then be decided by individual matches won, sets won/lost, etc. Thus, competitive teams probably won't just give-up if they lose their first round match at Districts and/or Sectionals. Now, in terms of how the line-up is adjusted/played....that would depend on the team Captain and/or the team-philosophy on playoffs (and possibly also the players' availability for each of the 3-days).