Except that in those team matches configuration, you can pretty much figure out that two will loose so the main character, who always play last, can have her turn and save the day. ^^; Sports manga suffers mostly from the author trying too hard to make some suspense, but that actually end up killing it entirely.
Saki works mostly because how the team play work out : Saki is garanteed to have her turn while being last unless there's an actual bust, which is unlikely given the amount of points in play (which is set so high probably to avoid the matches to end at round two, if not one). Here, for Koyori to have a turn, two of her teammates have to loose their matches. Meaning that given Hukuto's victory, unless either the 3rd years team or Agari looses, Koyori won't get to play. And frankly, that would actually be both surprising and refreshing. ^^;
Would be much less predictable if they'd actually put Koyori to play first, then you wouldn't feel forced to reach the last game and that alone would leave you with much more room to decide the matches results. I also tend to feel bad for characters like Hibari and Hokuto who are basically too much on the "side character" part of the main cast, which make them the usual "sacrifice". To be honest, Hokuto winning was kinda surprising there in that regard, considering how the chapters prior to that competition put the senpai and Agari on such a level either their opponents need to be real strong or their skill wasn't as great as advertised ^^;
And don't get me wrong, I like sports manga, but those kind of team based competitions gets way too predictable. Sports like lacrosse, basketball, baseball, etc... are somehow less predictable because only the final score actually matters, so during the game, you can have pretty much anything happening. Tennis is another example of predictable sports because of the set configuration. Take baby step for example, you basically know that on three set matches, each of the player will win one set, then battle it out in the last set. Makes one set matches much more interesting.
And yeah, players using their special attack over and over again is kinda bad : it makes them look like one-trick ponies and frankly, it only gives that much more chance to the opponents to get used to it and counter it in the end. XD
