05-20-2019, 11:00 AM
It's always tough to come back the next day and switch gears from a team triumph to thinking only about yourself again. You just won the thing you came here for, and now you're playing some extra matches where the end goal (an individual title) isn't the thing you've been fighting so hard to accomplish.
There were only a couple of withdrawals, so they didn't get as far down the list as Lampl's 6th alternate spot. A shame there aren't a handful of wild cards for seniors with great careers like hers. If Lampl had played for most other teams, she'd be #1 or #2, and her ranking would be high enough to get her in, but because she plays the other teams' threes instead of their ones or twos, regular-season wins don't move the needle enough. (Counterpoint: when she's had the opportunity to compete against top players in fall tournaments, she hasn't delivered. Arbuthnott played an even easier regular-season schedule than Lampl did, but because Emily took advantage of her tournament opportunities, she got her ranking high enough to be playing today.)
There's a Stanford connection to most matches in the first round, whether we played that team in the regular season or at NCAAs, or there was an individual matchup at a fall tournament. But in terms of what might most directly affect our players in the next couple of days, UW's Stacey Fung beat Syracuse's Gabriela Knutson 6-2, 6-2, so perhaps Knutson isn't entirely healthy yet. In any event, as good as Fung is (she was inside the Top 15 most of the 2018 season), Lord has it in her to beat her.
There were only a couple of withdrawals, so they didn't get as far down the list as Lampl's 6th alternate spot. A shame there aren't a handful of wild cards for seniors with great careers like hers. If Lampl had played for most other teams, she'd be #1 or #2, and her ranking would be high enough to get her in, but because she plays the other teams' threes instead of their ones or twos, regular-season wins don't move the needle enough. (Counterpoint: when she's had the opportunity to compete against top players in fall tournaments, she hasn't delivered. Arbuthnott played an even easier regular-season schedule than Lampl did, but because Emily took advantage of her tournament opportunities, she got her ranking high enough to be playing today.)
There's a Stanford connection to most matches in the first round, whether we played that team in the regular season or at NCAAs, or there was an individual matchup at a fall tournament. But in terms of what might most directly affect our players in the next couple of days, UW's Stacey Fung beat Syracuse's Gabriela Knutson 6-2, 6-2, so perhaps Knutson isn't entirely healthy yet. In any event, as good as Fung is (she was inside the Top 15 most of the 2018 season), Lord has it in her to beat her.