Post-NCAA Mailbag: Coaching Drama, Historical #1s, and Lineup Questions (Part 1)

All right, so for this first category of kind of strategy, lineup decisions, first question is about Wake Forest's decision to pull Charlie Robertson.

Essentially why did Wake Forest do that, especially because Wake had made a comment on their Instagram that Charlie had only lost five matches since February of 2025? Well, I know why they included that specific date, because prior to that he had lost six matches in a row last season, but I think ultimately one of the reasons why Wake pulled Charlie from this match was because one of his losses this season was to Andre Santamarta of Virginia.

That was 7-6, 6-1 in the regular season.

And so I think Tony Bresky, like much of all of us, at least myself, underestimated Styles Brockett at five.

They probably assumed that they didn't like the match up with Robertson versus Santamarta, and that they could win at five and six versus Virginia with really whoever they rolled out, and so probably felt pretty comfortable with Shaw versus Santamarta.

Maybe they get that win.

It's a different look for Santamarta, and then felt like they can and should win it again with Joe Giami at five and Casper Smekoiac at six, and they weren't far from that.

I mean, Giami won that first set, and then that is when kind of Styles Brockett really turned things on, right? He wins that second set in a tie break, ultimately wins 6-3 in the third, and continues to play great tennis in the, um, in the final.

So that really was the key inflection point for this Wake match.

Now, if they had played Charlie, let's assume that Virginia still wins at four because Santamarta beat Shaw, then the question just becomes does Arian Shaw beat Styles Brockett? And if he does, then that flips the Wake result versus Virginia.

Now, in hindsight, if you're Tony Bresky, maybe you think yes, but we also saw how good Styles Brockett looked in the final, so I'm not convinced that Arian Shaw beat Styles Brockett, particularly the way Shaw tensed up in the second and third set versus Santamarta.

So ultimately, I'm not sure it really mattered.

Maybe they didn't love Robertson's form after splitting with Le- Ledosky there against Arizona, but I don't know if this one would've mattered given what we saw from Styles Brockett in hindsight.

Okay, another similar question was about Georgia also pulling Gureva at four in both their quarterfinal and semifinals.

I know I mentioned on one of the other podcasts this was certainly a theme, right? We saw three different schools pull their number four singles player.

So this question asks, "Should Drake have left Gureva at four? Would Rojas have won at six?" And so you look at this match up with Texas A&M, ultimately Georgia rolls out Emma Dong at four, Sofia Rojas at five, and, uh, Patri Po- Poksaide at six.

So I think the reason they did this is because Gureva's form had looked not great over the last month, and they probably didn't love the match up with Gureva and Lexington Reed.

And Emma Dong does get the win over Lexington Reed, 7-6, 6-1, but then Rojas loses to Violeta Martinez, and Poksaide loses to Smetanikov.

Both of those five and six matches were in three sets.

And so if you had Gureva in this lineup, the problem is you might lose against Lexington Reed then at four.

You assume Emma Dong w- uh, you assume that you'd have Gureva then at four, so she might lose to Lexington Reed, but then you'd have Emma Dong at five, and you would have Rojas at six.

So in hindsight, yeah, you assume Emma Dong beats Violeta Martinez, even though it seemed like Violeta Martinez was playing with total house money and really was a massive hero for this A&M team.

But the, then the question becomes Rojas versus Smetanikov at six.

Rojas and Smetanikov haven't played despite the amount of times Georgia and Texas A- A&M have played.

I don't know if Rojas wins that match.