2021 40+ 4.5M USTA League Nationals Predictions

schmke

Legend
Unlike the 18+ 4.0M that have tightly bunched schedule strengths, the 40+ 4.5 men have quite the range. The easiest is just 4.36 while the toughest is 4.51! The team with that easy schedule is not that strong on paper, but may squeak into the semis due to the easy schedule.

The teams likely to advance are SoCal, Mid-Atlantic, Caribbean, and Texas. but Northern, New England, MoValley, PNW, and perhaps even Intermountain could challenge for a spot.
 

McLovin

Legend
Tough match tomorrow morning: Mid Atlantic vs Mo Valley. Both are 2-0. Winner most likely to advance to the semis.

Hope @downs_chris went easy on the evening beer…
 

Ian10s

New User
Texas vs Southern tomorrow is a good one. Texas team is hands down the favorite this weekend. They have 2 solid ringers in their singles spot.
 

McLovin

Legend
Texas vs Southern tomorrow is a good one. Texas team is hands down the favorite this weekend. They have 2 solid ringers in their singles spot.
Sure, but Mid-Atlantic has the former Secretary of Homeland Security in their singles spot…
 

JLyon

Hall of Fame
Unlike the 18+ 4.0M that have tightly bunched schedule strengths, the 40+ 4.5 men have quite the range. The easiest is just 4.36 while the toughest is 4.51! The team with that easy schedule is not that strong on paper, but may squeak into the semis due to the easy schedule.

The teams likely to advance are SoCal, Mid-Atlantic, Caribbean, and Texas. but Northern, New England, MoValley, PNW, and perhaps even Intermountain could challenge for a spot.
Caribbean dropped the ball going 0-2 for the day winning 1 match
 

schmke

Legend
Having only 4 courts and using this ridiculous tie-breaker is such a joke.
A few matches have been tied all the way to the game winning percentage, meaning the team that won court 1 doubles "wins" the match. Will do a full summary on this topic on my blog shortly.
 

rod99

Professional
anyone know the history of enrique marcos of texas? he's S rated, hasn't lost a match all year, and rolled everyone at sectionals and nationals. pretty clear he never should have been a 4.5 to begin with.
 

schmke

Legend
anyone know the history of enrique marcos of texas? he's S rated, hasn't lost a match all year, and rolled everyone at sectionals and nationals. pretty clear he never should have been a 4.5 to begin with.
Was a 5.0M at the end of 2010, in 2014 self-rated at 5.0 again but played just two men's matches and got another 5.0M, managed to self-rate as a 4.5, perhaps due to age and/or an appeal down of what should have been a required 5.0S. Appears to still have 5.0 game though. If it was an appeal down, seems to have been an inappropriate one.

The challenge is there are legitimate appeal downs that if not granted the USTA gets grief about. I have no idea if this was an appeal down or not, nor what case was made for it and how compelling it was.
 

Vox Rationis

Professional
anyone know the history of enrique marcos of texas? he's S rated, hasn't lost a match all year, and rolled everyone at sectionals and nationals. pretty clear he never should have been a 4.5 to begin with.
He played one Challenger Qualifying event back in 1996 where he won his first round and in the next round to a guy with a career high ranking of 136.

I don’t see anything about college but it looks like he’s from Mexico originally so maybe he played down there.

Word was he was clearly a full level above everyone else there and it wasn’t even close.
 

schmke

Legend
Having only 4 courts and using this ridiculous tie-breaker is such a joke.
Just posted on my blog. Two matches have been fully "tied" so far and been decided by the winner of court 1 doubles. Eight others were within a game or two of also being fully tied.
 
I played #1 dubs for Southern. We played Texas 2x on back to back days. They are very deep with a complete lock at singles with two super solid singles guys - Enrique and Manuel Avina who just won 45s Grass Courts 2 weeks ago. Enrique played singles vs us in both matches - I caught a little bit of it. Dude is just super solid and doesn't give you anything. No huge weapons really, meh serve, but returns great and constructs points extremely well. Manuel played #2 dubs both times. Texas is a great group of guys - well-deserved national title.
 

McLovin

Legend
Enrique and Manuel Avina who just won 45s Grass Courts 2 weeks ago.
Ummm…that wasn’t the 45s Grass Court Nationals, was it? Have you ever seen the talent at those things? 5.0s maybe make it to the quarter finals.

If so, how in the hell is he playing 4.5? Or, more importantly, why?!??
 

Ian10s

New User
Ummm…that wasn’t the 45s Grass Court Nationals, was it? Have you ever seen the talent at those things? 5.0s maybe make it to the quarter finals.

If so, how in the hell is he playing 4.5? Or, more importantly, why?!??

He indeed won the 45 National grass court singles. Probably the only one that could've beaten Enrique was on their own team.
 
Does anyone like this format over the normal 5 lines they use in 18 & over? Seems like this gives advantages to those teams who have the lock singles line.

I haven't talked to or met anyone who likes this 4 line format. They just need to bring back the 4.5+ 40+ where a team was allowed to carry three 5.0s. This increases the pool of players to choose from and then the 5 court format would be more feasible.
 

BeyondTheTape

Semi-Pro
I played #1 dubs for Southern. We played Texas 2x on back to back days. They are very deep with a complete lock at singles with two super solid singles guys - Enrique and Manuel Avina who just won 45s Grass Courts 2 weeks ago. Enrique played singles vs us in both matches - I caught a little bit of it. Dude is just super solid and doesn't give you anything. No huge weapons really, meh serve, but returns great and constructs points extremely well. Manuel played #2 dubs both times. Texas is a great group of guys - well-deserved national title.
Great run for the Commonwealth and hats off to TX! Congrats on the success :cool:
 

rod99

Professional
I haven't talked to or met anyone who likes this 4 line format. They just need to bring back the 4.5+ 40+ where a team was allowed to carry three 5.0s. This increases the pool of players to choose from and then the 5 court format would be more feasible.

it also give 40+ 5.0s a place to play (especially singles players who would otherwise be stuck playing 25 year old 5.0s).
 

JLyon

Hall of Fame
really surprised the TX Singles player was not D'ed up to 5.0 yet, maybe they are still working thru everything. Seems like the 18's have plenty of bumps done already.
 
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