Toyota dockside in Bermuda: Team New Zealand's big America's Cup gamble

Emirates Team NZ (left) will be taking on Land Rover BAR (right). Photo / Photosport

Team New Zealand have taken a risk with the selection of Ben Ainslie Racing as their semifinal opponent in this week's America's Cup play-offs, but the pay-off for that gamble could come in the form of gains in that crucial starting box if the Kiwi crew can learn through that period.

I don't know if it came into Emirates Team New Zealand's thinking at all, but Ainslie, the British skipper, has the best starting stats so far in this regatta. Team NZ helmsman Peter Burling and his afterguard are still learning that part of match racing and it will be one of the key areas identified for improvement after the round robin stages.

Ainslie will deliver an intensive learning experience for the team. This will give Team NZ a chance to do a number of races against a guy who is very aggressive - as they can expect Spithill will be if they advance to the Cup match - and I think that's good for them. They're still learning the game of match racing at this level.

The risk is the Brits have shown significant improvement over the latter stages of the round robin after tweaking the configuration of their boat. I still don't think they have the pace of Team NZ, but as we saw today when BAR hung on to beat Team Japan, speed isn't always the defining factor. The Kiwi-led Japanese syndicate were quicker - Ainslie just sailed smarter.

The weather forecast would have had the biggest bearing on Team NZ's decision to select BAR given when they raced Ainslie in the second round robin it was light, as it is looking tomorrow, and Team NZ were really dominant.

BAR look to have really improved their performance in that 10-14 knot range, but the shorter forecast is below that, and the longer forecast is way above it, so strategic forecasting played a role.

The tight turnaround between the qualifiers and tomorrow's opening day of play-offs is probably a good thing for Team NZ

When you've had a shocker, which is the only way to describe Team NZ's performance today against Oracle Team USA, a fast turnaround between races can be helpful. They don't have a week to stew on their mistakes which you got back in the old Cup days, here they're straight back into it again tomorrow.

But in between time there will need to be a full and frank debrief of the day's events. After a flawless performance on the penultimate day of qualfiers, today was a reality check for Team NZ and it is better they receive that now before they move into the knock-out rounds.

The role of sailing coaches Ray Davies and Murray Jones in unpacking the team's errors around the race course and helping them re-set for tomorrow will be crucial. They are older than the crew - they've got a few grey hairs and they've seen this picture before.

They would have seen Jimmy Spithill's antics today before as well. We've all heard that banter before. A lot of what Spithill does in the press conferences was unique in San Francisco, and it was disruptive to Dean Barker, but when you hear the same record playing again, it kind of loses its impact. Mostly it just makes you roll your eyes and wonder when he's going to come up with another line.

I doubt Team NZ are too distracted by what Oracle are doing at this point, they've got enough on their plate with the challenger play-offs.