I am not a fan of the new doubles lineup. Ante and Lester should be playing #1 together. Good guys are down 1-0.

http://www.texassports.com/live/tn/index.html

I don't think that this is a good doubles line up. Doubles teams that have never played before shouldn't play in imporant matches. Hopefully we can grab 4 out of the 6 singles. This will be an interesting day.

Certainly an Aggie squad that did not live up to expectations as the season started. Not sure what went wrong.....

Good guys are leading 3-2. Wooten won the first and is in a 2nd set tiebreak at #6.

We won!! Joelson was down 5-3 in the 2nd and came back to win the match. I was worried after losing the doubles and 4 out of 6 first sets in singles. Great team effort against tu in Austin.

Well today proved that splitting up ante and lester is not working. you cant go into a match without a definite win at doubles. you have to put your best team up there, and with the #1 doubles team in the nation, you have to play them together. end of story. you go with ante and lester at 1, and then everyone else can fight for it. I dont understand the logic behind the lineup changes, when you have such a strong team. its obvious that ante and lester arent as strong seperate, so why seperate them??

Ags MBA - I said the same thing about them not living up to their billing, and coach cass called me...hope he doesnt have your number

awesome ags! awesome! just got back from the match, I was hoping to walk away from this one without having to hear "poor aggies" and it happened! on a side note, when did they start allowing fans to openly drink alcohol inside college athletic events?

Congratulations to Coach Cass and the team on a very good win.

First softball, now tennis, we are on a roll against tu!!!!

Coach Cass called you? How cool is that? Maybe he will call me too.

Gig'em

just got back from the match, i cant believe you guys are still saying we are not livivng up to the excpectations. The team is on a roll and i think this is the best time for it

I dont understand the doubles line up either. Ever since the Rice match when the first ranked doubles team was split our doubles record has been embarassing. Am I missing something here? Is there an automatic bid to the NCAA's for the first ranked doubles team and perhaps this is why Cass has split Ante and Lester? It's quite embarassing when the No. 1 doubles team loses a match to Tyler Junior College and perhaps Cass is trying to preserve the number 1 ranking by splitting the two? It will be interesting to see the line up for the big 12 tourney.

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't."

gig em- cass called me to gripe me out because he knows me. it wasnt cool, quite unprofessional in my opinion, and in the opinion of quite a few others.

there has been speculation that Cass does hold out ante and lester so that they dont lose their spot. I dont understand how they dont lose ground by not playing together, but thats how the ITA works. the top 32 teams in doubles get an automatic bid to nationals. It has happened before that they didnt play anymore once they got that high, perhaps to retain their record and ranking, which is pretty chicken, I think. If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best, day in and day out, which is not what our #1 doubles teams have done in the past. I would think that it would be looked down upon by other coaches and teams because now no one else can get that spot. And yet we have the excuse that we are doing it to make our doubles lineup better, which obviously doesnt make sense and isnt working. There is no feasible reason to not put the best team in the nation together to try and win. It doesnt add up at all...

I would bet that he puts them together for the tourney. surely it is obvious that this little plan sucks and isnt working at all. I see it as common sense, you put your best team forward for a big match, which is not what A&M does in doubles for whatever reason. Big 12 he should do it though. if not, I will be baffled, again...

[This message has been edited by bigfoot10s (edited 4/17/2004 11:46p).]

[This message has been edited by bigfoot10s (edited 4/17/2004 11:47p).]

as for the doubles line-up, who cares what the other teams think? we are not trying to play "good guys" here. we're trying to win 2 out of 3. has it been working out like we want it to? not always, but we have to experiment. we just don't have a lot of guys who are dominant dubs specialists this year, so we have to make due with the guys we have(and if any of y'all have a lineup that you can guarantee will win the dubs point every time, i would like to see it, and i'm sure coach cass would too). i would like to see ante and lester back together as much as the next guy, especially for the tournaments, but i'm not gonna second guess cass every time we don't start out 1-0. we have not had a consistent dubs lineup all year, so i don't blame cass for switching things around. what good does it do to put ante and lester at 1 if 2 and 3 still lose? none. so quit whining about "not living up to potential" and being "disappointed." we just beat rice and tu and are in the driver's seat to get a rematch against baylor in the big 12's. we are a few tough losses to top 10 teams away from being in the top 10 ourselves. end rant.

on a lighter note...if you were not in austin yesterday, you missed out. we played very poorly in doubles and still won the match 5-2...not an easy feat. i don't even feel like breaking down the individual dubs matches. the pairings had nothing to do with it...if 1,2, and 3 would have played to their ability with the way the teams were, we would have won the dubs point, regardless of the fact that the individual teams don't have a lot of experience together. whether it was nerves or something else, not one single guy played great in dubs and that's why we lost...not because of who played with who.

the lone bright spot for tu was that pete stroer played out of his mind in both singles and doubles and was their only source of fire and energy. both lester and joelson had their backs against the wall and battled back to win in 3. lester's 9-game-in-a-row stretch in the 2nd and 3rd was unbelievable, as was the last set and a half of brett's match. ante barely broke a sweat and beat zarhi so easily that jose didn't even have time to start hooking. wooten overcame morris whining like a little girl on every call and we finally got that monkey off our back on what i like to call the "roger gubser death court."

and to top it all off, khaled went out like a stud and ran haney into the ground in the 3rd and promptly threw the horns down. this brought little baby rocket horn out from under the tent to whine like a little woman about sportsmanship or some crap...i don't really remember what he said, i was laughing too hard to make out his words. then center(or one of the other tu coaches, didn't see which one) told rocket to shut up. classic.

it was so nice to walk out of mostly vacant penick-allison and not have to listen to a bunch of tsips screaming poor aggies at the top of their lungs. they were too busy half-heartedly holding their hook em's in the air and racking their brains for lyrics so they could lip synch that "i've been working on the railroad" song. rocket horn could not be reached for comment after the match as he was nowhere to be found. not much of a talker when his team gets run off their own courts, i guess.

thanks and gig 'em.

[This message has been edited by txag731 (edited 4/18/2004 5:06p).]

weirdest triple post ever

[This message has been edited by txag731 (edited 4/18/2004 5:03p).]

The splitting of Lester and Ante had nothing to do with trying to preserve their ranking, and everything to do with trying to put together a doubles line-up that could win two out of three matches. The switch is now 0-2. I don't know if Coach Cass will continue with the experiment or not. It is obvious that we had better get something going in doubles, because you just can't continue to lose the way we have been recently at doubles and expect for singles to dominate against good teams. Coach Cass always focused on doubles, and I am sure he is not pleased with the way things have developed. Great win for the Aggies in Austin. They are always tough and I don't think you can ever taken beating them for granted. Any win against Texas in tennis is huge. We have a week to figure this out before OSU, but I believe our player designation has probably already been made pursuant to Big XII rules.

"gig em- cass called me to gripe me out because he knows me. it wasnt cool, quite unprofessional in my opinion, and in the opinion of quite a few others.
"

Cass called you out on what?

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't."

because I said the team was overhyped, and I didnt agree with some things he did.

raven-how is breaking up a 95% sure winning team to suck at the other doubles good for the team? dont you think you would realize that after one match? it doesnt make sense to split it up. you dont split up your best team, when it is obvious after one time that it didnt work and they dont play as well with other guys. you keep your top team in the lineup and make the best two teams out of the other guys. then you really only have to get one win, since #1 is basically guaranteed. seems like common sense to me...

weirdest triple post ever

[This message has been edited by txag731 (edited 4/18/2004 5:02p).]

bigfoot: I certainly understand your point. It is almost the ultimate irony that you have the number one doubles (or two or three for that matter) and you feel like you have to split them up in order to win the doubles point. I have not talked to Coach Cass about how he feels the new lineup is doing, but when you are 0-2 things obviously have not gotten any better. This is a critical problem at this point in the season, and we simply don't have much time to get things ironed out. I am sure that Coach Cass will play the line-up that he feels gives us the best chance at winning doubles. What that will be after Saturday is anybodies guess.

I saw what khaled did, and i thought it was the ultimate shut up for all the horns. I heard the woman "rocket" asking him where did he learn that, and khaled looked up the stands and told him "I cant hear you". Then i was standing next to the woman and he ran away after beeing embarrassed twice in 3 seconds. It's one of my favorite seens as an aggie tennis fan.

Our doubles play has not been good all year. It was bad before the switch too. Changing the lineup does make sense if it gives you a better chance at winning 2 matches, not 1. The team doesn't get credit for winning one match, and losing the doubles point.

I guess the point is I'd rather lose two competitive matches than win won big, and get blown out on the other 2.

That being said, Cass may have to rethink the switch based on the results thus far.

last year we had problems with depth, this year doubles is the problem. i would rather have 6 points and not worrry too much about 1 point. our guys can play with the best of them in singles. last year we played with all top teams without a 5 or 6 in the line up, and we still did well.

it has been shown in the past years how much the doubles point means. I understand that you want to make the best lineup possible, but when you lose all three matches by splitting up the #1 team, dont you see something wrong with that? Thats why you put the #1 together, then get the best out of the other two. Winning one and only having to win one more is MUCH better than losing 3 and not having a snowballs chance of winning the point.



[This message has been edited by bigfoot10s (edited 4/19/2004 10:35a).]

Brett and Marvin were ranked #37 at one time, proving that they are a pretty good team, so they could be a good #2 or #3. Ante and lester are 17-5 together, while lester is 1-4 with others. Ante is 2-2 with others. (all of this is according to the stat sheet on the website). Joelson and Rolle are 15-7 together, and El Dorry and Malmgren are 6-4 together. that sounds like a doubles lineup to me.

in the 3 matches (that I saw) against D-1 opponents when we split up lester and ante, we lost the doubles point in each of them (rice, Cal, Texas)

When ante and lester played together against D-1 opponents, we are 9-6 for the doubles point. I would so that so far its pretty obvious that we had better (not a ton better) chance of winning the doubles point when ante and lester play together. the numbers dont lie.

[This message has been edited by bigfoot10s (edited 4/19/2004 10:29a).]

Alls well that ends well....and we got free pizza.

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't."

Bigfoot: Interesting numbers. I may be able to get some update on the thinking at the womens match tomorrow. I don't know if Coach Cass will want anything on a public forum prior to the OSU match. I know we have to turn in the linups a week early, but I don't know when the opponent gets to look at the lineup. Time will tell, I suppose.

from my experience, he wont want anything on a public forum...dont tell him Im posting here, Im running low on my cell phone minutes

everything txag731 is true (btw, ur sexy)!

TXAG731-
did you see the numbers I found on our records? sounds like proof enough to me

bigfoot10s, I agree......PUT IN THE MALM!!! (him and shuon madden are the only reason I watch tennis)

I agree, that you need to put your strongest team forward in doubles and try to find some other combinations that work as well. I agree with Cass experimenting a little when he did, but now its getting to crunch time, he needs to find the doubles that are going to lead this team the rest of the season. You cant go into ok st and the big 12 still experimenting and certainly not the NCAA's. I believe ante and lester should play one and maybe brett and marvin at 3 and then put your seniors, dakki and khaled at 2. That sounds like a sound team to me.

The MALM is sweetness

The Malm is a dang good player, and doesnt get the PT he deserves...