CC Sardinha played at the No. 6 spot in her first weekend of matches. Head coach Luke Jensen just wanted to see his lone freshman compete. She won all three of her matches.

Sardinha played No. 5 the very next weekend. She won two out of three.

This past weekend, just a week later, she played as Syracuse’s top seed. In her challenge match Tuesday against longtime No. 1 Emily Harman, she won in a tiebreaker to maintain her position for another week.

For Syracuse, the No. 1 spot in its lineup is never set in stone. Every Tuesday, the top-seeded player must face a teammate for the right to keep a position. For the team, it keeps the players hungry and competitive. And for Jensen, it allows him to disguise his starting lineup every week, something that’s helped the Orange jump out to a 6-2 start.

‘It is the most competitive situation they’ll find at any time during the year,’ Jensen said. ‘You’re playing a teammate that knows your game, that has actually game-planned with the coaching staff to play you. So they know every strength, every weakness, every mental tendency. It’s the most difficult of any match you’ll ever play.’

After three weekends of matches, the Orange has seen three different lineups. This pattern is likely to continue, as each week the players compete in challenge matches for their spots.

It is the transparency of the system that Sardinha appreciates most. Instead of deciding based on what they think, coaches decide the order based on what actually happened on the court.

‘It keeps everyone very even,’ Sardinha said. ‘(The alternatives) create problems between the team members and the coaches.’

While the coaches do take past performance and overall track record into account as well, the challenge matches have great bearing on the rankings for the weekend. Because of this, Jensen said, intra-team play is often more competitive than facing another opponent.

The players are familiar with how their teammates play. They all know who isn’t feeling well or who’s been struggling with her backhand. Each week they play the same few women, all of whom compete on a near even plane. They always analyze each other’s game. There is no cheering for friends because for that one practice, they are not on the same side.

And when their weekend matches finally come, the players unleash that competitive energy against an opposition that has to prepare for a lineup that can change every week.

‘A lot of other schools just pick their lineup off of what they thought was right, and it wasn’t in the end,’ Harman said.

Jensen said that he has never seen a player mentally affected by a drop in ranking. Once the practice ends, the atmosphere shifts back to that of a team trying to defeat whatever opponent the weekend may bring.

Harman said that the only way a seed change has ever effected her was to motivate her during practice. When the regular-season matches start, however, she focuses exclusively on beating the player on the other side of the court.

Each win, no matter the seed, counts for one point toward the final score. While the matchups affect who will win or lose, the sole focus for the players is getting your team that point.

This year’s team is very even, so challenge matches allow a player who might have had an off-day the previous week to move up. Jensen said that all the players are so close in skill level that the matches are always competitive and the rankings never set. It is possible, therefore, to have a freshman girl go from No. 6 to No. 1 in two weeks.

‘Practice is so good every day,’ Jensen said. ‘We don’t have to doctor it because this person isn’t good enough to play against that player. All eight players are world-class. So you’re talking a very high level of play that makes everybody better. There’s not a real drop-off. We can change the lineup, we can change the doubles lineup, we can change the pairings and we still have two people at seven and eight who are still world-class players.’

alguggen@syr.edu