Vox Rationis
Professional
So the infamous DF 4.0 Utah teams that won 3 straight 4.0 national titles has been heavily discussed. In one of the threads I mentioned that last year So Cal might have been the only team with a legitimate shot at beating them. The reason for that were their two best players may have conceivably been on par if not even better than Utah's ringers. I stumbled upon video of one of them from his matches last year. The first one is from his first match of the year where he was trying to establish his self-rating. The second is from his last match at Nationals where the gloves were off. You decide for yourself, is this the anatomy of a sandbagger?
Here's the background. The subject of this post, JW (not naming names here but you can look up the team easily enough), had a history of being a UTR10 player. Even immediately prior to nationals last year he played in an open California tournament and had 5.0 level results. He had a 6-4 6-4 win over a UTR 9, a 2-6 6-7 loss to a UTR 10, and a 5-7 2-6 loss to a UTR 11. And all his prior years were full of similar results, beating 9s and competitive with 10s and 11s. I would consider that the results of a huge ringer at 4.5 nationals let alone 4.0 nationals.
The other player is EC. He was computer rated but was something like 4.38 on TennisRecord heading into nationals. Half a year later he is now rated 4.51 on TennisRecord. He has gone 18-2 this year as a 4.5 with his only two losses coming in tournaments early in the year. He recently went 3-0 at So Cal sectionals including a 6-1 6-1 win over a 4.42 rated player at singles 1 in the sectional finals. So essentially he lead his team to 4.5 nationals this year. In terms of UTR, his isn't as high as the guy above. He's an 8, but potentially a high 8 as he has several comfortable wins over other 8s, as well as some tight 3 setters against 8s as well. So seemingly he's at the top pf the 4.5 mountain...except he was about this level as a 4.0 last year too.
The rest of the team had some solid guys. They also had one college player, RK, who was DQ'd by a grievance for I can only assume lying about his background. Point being if the two guys above won their matches So Cal would have only needed one more upset somewhere to have defeated a Utah team we consider one of the most out of level teams we've seen at nationals.
Here's the background. The subject of this post, JW (not naming names here but you can look up the team easily enough), had a history of being a UTR10 player. Even immediately prior to nationals last year he played in an open California tournament and had 5.0 level results. He had a 6-4 6-4 win over a UTR 9, a 2-6 6-7 loss to a UTR 10, and a 5-7 2-6 loss to a UTR 11. And all his prior years were full of similar results, beating 9s and competitive with 10s and 11s. I would consider that the results of a huge ringer at 4.5 nationals let alone 4.0 nationals.
The other player is EC. He was computer rated but was something like 4.38 on TennisRecord heading into nationals. Half a year later he is now rated 4.51 on TennisRecord. He has gone 18-2 this year as a 4.5 with his only two losses coming in tournaments early in the year. He recently went 3-0 at So Cal sectionals including a 6-1 6-1 win over a 4.42 rated player at singles 1 in the sectional finals. So essentially he lead his team to 4.5 nationals this year. In terms of UTR, his isn't as high as the guy above. He's an 8, but potentially a high 8 as he has several comfortable wins over other 8s, as well as some tight 3 setters against 8s as well. So seemingly he's at the top pf the 4.5 mountain...except he was about this level as a 4.0 last year too.
The rest of the team had some solid guys. They also had one college player, RK, who was DQ'd by a grievance for I can only assume lying about his background. Point being if the two guys above won their matches So Cal would have only needed one more upset somewhere to have defeated a Utah team we consider one of the most out of level teams we've seen at nationals.
