A Rocking Rackets Dynasty (NOW WORLD 6) [Archive]

Brian Swartz

02-29-2016, 05:27 AM

First impression would be, as a fast gameworld it's the opposite of what I do. Generally they have more competition in terms of other managers, but I would expect the players themselves to not be as perfectly developed, since it's a bit more difficult to micromanage a player on 40 minutes per game day than 4 hours per!(understatement alert).

On my 10-point scale, here's how the Top Ten currently looks.

1. Antonio Filho(27, ESP) -- 9.89. Very strong, as good a serve as I've ever seen.

2. Nikolai Balk(28, UZB) -- 10.23. Not sure I've ever taken notice of a player from Uzbekistan before! Worthy of discussion as being among the all-time greats with 10 Slams and 21 Masters. I think he should be #1, interesting that he won the last two Slams and lost early in the two before that. Despite his age and declining skill, all-around excellent athlete and strong mental game also. Could well seize the top spot from Filho.

3. Valentino Dotto(24, ITA) -- 10.05. Best technical player I've ever seen, mine included. Serve's as good as Filho and better rally, but not the athleticism. Still ought to be a future #1, incredible player for his age.

4. Svetislav Jarenovic(SRB, 27) -- 9.61. Another great server but is pretty slow and doesn't have the mental game to reach the top.

5. Gianluca Baruffaldi(ARG, 25) -- 10.03. Excellent technical player with very strong mentality as well. Weakness is athleticism but another fantastic player.

6. Raimundo Banuelos(BOL, 28) -- 9.5. Merely very good, not up to the same standard as those ahead of him.

7. Francisco Olbera(BOL, 27) -- 9.2. Skilled and speedy, but not all that strong and his resolve is as firm as milk unfortunately. In a close match with another top player, he's likely to fade almost every time.

8. Havel Gondzur(SVK, 28) -- 9.62. Although not as severe, another player for whom the mental game limits his potential.

9. Adel Adkins(ESP, 29) -- 9.57. Not the best baseline technique, but the bigger problem here is playing like his feet are stuck in cement. Of course, he's starting to get up there; it happens to everyone.

10. Mario Avendano(ARG, 26) -- 10.23. As good as anyone, very strong, excellent serve, fantastic mental game. A bit weak off the ground but only compared to the best. Avendano should be ranked a lot higher! I can't figure out why he hasn't had better results.

Impressions

So, I'm glad I'm not playing in this world. Overall level of competition seems to be considerably tougher -- I'm really impressed by how many truly elite players there are. There must be a lot of obscenely dedicated managers; I thought I was a psycho-addict.

Teo Rask has a funny-looking nose! :P. In all seriousness, I grade him as an 8.77. Definitely peg him as a challenger-level player. At peak, maybe he gets to Top 30 but I don't think this year. That's my prediction, for whatever it's worth or not. Don't burn out though, I'm interested to see how he and the others do.

CrimsonFox

02-29-2016, 05:32 AM

what is this game?

law90026

02-29-2016, 06:48 AM

Cool analysis. I was hoping to have Teo try and emulate Valentino to be honest, a player with strong skills but only ok'ish athleticism. Let's see how that goes!

@crimson: it's an online browser tennis management game called rocking rackets. Should be easy enough to Google the link.

CrimsonFox

02-29-2016, 06:49 AM

yeah just did. so is this something where I could start a team or character in your world or is it strictly solo? aka could I do something in your "world" to affect things?

law90026

02-29-2016, 06:56 AM

yeah just did. so is this something where I could start a team or character in your world or is it strictly solo? aka could I do something in your "world" to affect things?

Could definitely affect things. Everyone creates their own players and they can potentially face off in the tournaments. One of my guys faced one of Britrock's and his won that match. No graphics though, it's really more of a sim.

CrimsonFox

02-29-2016, 06:57 AM

understood. So would you allow me to make a character in your game world and join in this dynasty with commentary? :)

digamma

02-29-2016, 07:09 AM

There are several of us playing in various worlds. I believe Alf and I are both in World 11.

law90026

02-29-2016, 07:19 AM

understood. So would you allow me to make a character in your game world and join in this dynasty with commentary? :)

Haha no need to ask for permission! Feel free to contribute, a community effort would be cool.

digamma

02-29-2016, 07:24 AM

I'm contemplating using my second world to play around here. Would be fun to have a bunch in the same world.

CrimsonFox

02-29-2016, 07:25 AM

what world? :)

digamma

02-29-2016, 07:40 AM

World 2

I hired two Hungarians to play around with. 16 year old Gyorgy Annus (http://rr2.rockingrackets.com/index.php?page=player&extra=334680) and 26 year old Guyla Artali. (http://rr2.rockingrackets.com/index.php?page=player&extra=324456)

Argali doesn't have the endurance I'd like, but he was the oldest best player I could find to move to trainer at some point.

Annus has a form of 0.1, so we'll be hitting the junior circuit hard.

law90026

02-29-2016, 08:06 AM

CrimsonFox

02-29-2016, 09:34 AM

And.....we're waiting for things to happen...:)

law90026

02-29-2016, 09:35 AM

Week 3 was another disappointing week overall.

Ghazi Mehmett and Daniel Cole both spent the week training and up'ed their respective serves by another point each.

Teo Rask and Iker Gauba took part in the Sydney 250 to try and get their form up. Iker lost in the second qualifying round to 32 year old Luka Lano but managed to pick up 5 ranking points. Teo was more disappointing, as he was drawn against world #22 Andrey Rhyzov in the 1st round and was summarily dispatched 6/1 6/2. 0 ranking points for Teo again and the year starts poorly for him.

In doubles, the pair were knocked out in the first qualifying round so that was another wasted effort.

One thing I realised is that I've been a little too aggressive at the start of the year and that's costing Teo Rask. I need to go back to the more conservative approach that got him to the top 60s in the world, rather than trying to push for results in the bigger tournaments.

Week 4 will be a practice week for both Teo Rask and Daniel Cole. Ghazi will be taking part in a JG5 tournament in Basel while Iker will be playing doubles in the Australian Open.

law90026

02-29-2016, 09:44 AM

Week 4 was a mixed bag.

Both Teo Rask and Daniel Cole were training and Teo is close to having enough xp to place another point into his skill.

Ghazi Mehmett played decently in the JG5, reaching the semi-finals before losing to 2nd seed (and 17 year old) Davy Garten 6/1 6/2. In the first 2 rounds, Ghazi played 2 3-setters, including an upset win over the 3rd seed in the QFs.

Iker Gauba was in the Australian Open doubles maindraw, where he was paired with 18 year old Jerramy Larrance. They won easily in the first round but were crushed by the 8th seeds 6/2 6/0 in the 2nd round. That's 90 doubles ranking points for Iker, which should put him around 70th in the world for doubles.

Week 5 will see Teo Rask return to action in a CH1 at Heilbronn and he will be hoping for a top 4 seeding (it looks like he's no.2 at the time I'm posting this). Britrock's Andrei Lebedyenko (#92) and Sean Mendez (#100) are also participating it appears.

Iker Gauba will take part in a CH3 in Honolulu, both singles and doubles.

Daniel Cole and Ghazit Mehmett are both training but there's a possibility Ghazit may be called up to play for France in the U-16s JTC again.

britrock88

02-29-2016, 09:47 AM

If you're poking around, Brian, would you size up my current pair?

Brian Swartz

02-29-2016, 03:24 PM

Well as far as Artali goes, I'd say you just want to him to earn some points so you can get a real trainer candidate. Like, say, this guy:

Lago Souza (http://rr2.rockingrackets.com/index.php?page=player&extra=316840)

who is in the 4.7-4.8 range right now.

As far as Annus goes, in general that's a bit old to hire a player, but I didn't do a search to see who else might be out there. I'm going to be a bit hard on him(you asked) -- I think you should be able to do better. He's already been largely ruined since he's only played 4 singles and 4 doubles matches in over two years of being active(that means he's had low form and therefore low experience the whole time basically). Also had considerable doubles training which is a waste. Talent is outstanding(4.6), endurance is not horrible at 3.3 max but far from ideal as well. Strength max at 3.2 and 3.0 speed are definitely credible.

So basically, if somebody had jumped on this guy right away and handled him right, he could have been a good player. Definitely at least Top 100 at his peak I think. But it's too late now IMO.

I changed my mind and looked through a few players I might pick(but be fast, because if lots of people are playing in this thread, they might beat you too them or someone else might :)) All in the age-14 section.

Rafael Nadal(once he becomes available). Recently fired and looks like a created cast-off(such original names, always). If you can live with that though, will max at 3.4 endurance, 4.9 str, 3.2 spd, 4.3 talent. Not overwhelming but with strength that high he can be a very good player.

Lukas Schell. At 103% aging won't have a super-long pro career. 4.1 talent, 3.5 endurance and should be a good juniors player. 3.9 str, 3.4 speed at max, so good athleticism. Generally I go against players with high aging but he's got enough to make it worth losing the extra couple years at the end of the career that it costs you.

Those are the best athletes by far which is more important I would think in a faster world. After that the players are more flawed. I'd be tempted at that point to go after players like this one:

Valery Chernov -- 2.7 str, 3.2 spd is at least solid, marginal in terms of talent(4.0), endurance(3.0/3.1) and solid mentality(2.9). I might take a guy like this, there are a few other similar, and then regularly look for better options more like the guys listed above to replace them with.

law90026

02-29-2016, 08:31 PM

Weeks 5 and 6 are done.

Teo Rask took part in a CH1 tournament in Heilbronn and he was seeded 2nd. The expectation was at least a semi-final appearance but he fell short, losing to unseeded 26 year old Evgeni Minkowski in 3 sets (6/3, 3/6, 6/2) in the QFs. A disappointing result but Teo is not in the green zone in terms of form at this time and I’m going to need to get him going again. It’s been a disappointing start to the year for Teo thus far. Evegeni did make the finals though, losing to the #1 seed Rudolf Joachimsthal (world #52) there.

Iker Gauba was in Honolulu for a CH3 tournament. In the singles, he was not surprisingly beaten in the first round, losing to #8 seed Marcelo Borsellino (world #94). He did better in the doubles though, reaching the finals with Rene Nimek but they lost to Logan Hammer and Alrik Agardh in the finals (6/2, 7/5).

Both Daniel Cole and Ghazi Mehmett spent the 2 weeks training and Daniel up’ed his serve by another point while Ghazi up’ed both skill and serve by 1 point each.

At the current XP gain, Iker will be in line to become a trainer in about 5-6 weeks, which is a little earlier than expected. It’s been good carrying out this dynasty because I’ve actually been monitoring the players’ xp gain and am getting a better sense of how quickly they can improve.

Week 7 will be a training week for Teo, Iker and Ghazi and Daniel is headed to an amateur tournament in Lumut.

law90026

03-01-2016, 04:19 AM

Weeks 7 and 8 are over.

Daniel Cole took part in 2 amateur tournaments and reached the semi-finals of both, picking up another 6 ranking points and reaching a singles ranking of 1558. Unfortunately, I dropped him in week 9 as I identified (correctly I hope) a prospect that looks to be better than all of my players. That update can come in the next one.

Teo Rask took week 7 off to train and then headed to Bergamo (a CH2 level tournament) in week 8. His doubles entry was really just to get him form up slightly and he lost in the 2nd qualifying round. Mission accomplished though as he got his form above 15 before the singles main draw. For the first time this year, Teo played well. Seeded 7th, he cruised through the first 2 round before facing 3rd seed Behzad Kiani (world #52) in the QFs. Teo had beaten Behzad previously in a CH2 finals a year ago and he continued his winning streak here, dominating Behzad 6/1, 6/0. In the semis, Teo faced world #56 Mark Edberg and won in 3 sets, 6/1, 6/3, 7/5. Edberg actually won 81 points to Teo’s 80 but Teo squeaked out the win. The run ended in the finals though as Teo was beaten comfortably by the top seed, Kelvin Burgess (world #40, former world #3), 6/3, 7/5. Still a nice run for Teo and he picks up 55 ranking points and that pushes him back up to 65th in the world.

Ghazi Mehmett also trained in week 7 and then headed for a JG4 event in Zacara for week 8, where he reached the semi-finals as the #2 seed. Disappointingly, he lost to #3 seed Andy Raab there but it was understandable as Ghazi’s fatigue had hit 750+ by then, not helped by 2 long 3-setters he had to play that week.

Iker Gauba continued training in week 7 and then went to Bergamo as well for singles and doubles. He wasn’t paired with Teo Rask (deliberately broke up that partnership). He lost in the first round of singles but reached the quarter finals of the doubles main draw, where he lost 3/6, 6/2, 10/7, to Julian Rublev and Behzad Kiani (yes the same one Teo beat in singles).

Week 9 will be a tournament week for Teo Rask as he heads to a 250 and Iker will be heading to a CH2 to play singles and doubles again. Ghazi will be resting as he is completely exhausted.

CrimsonFox

03-01-2016, 04:20 AM

Jonathan Kemp, the man, the myth, The Bruce!

Australian tennis player extraordinaire.

Has stuggled on and off the court. He drives a honda of all things...
A civic.

He won several practice friendly matches but hasn't made any splash in tournaments yet. He completely failed in his first two attempts.

But now he's kicking butt and taking names.

In the Australian F3 Futures Match he showed excellent control and power.

In the Singles Tourney he Made it into Round 2 before getting knocked out.

But in Doubles....a skill he has not shown any promise and very low skill, he made it to the FINALS! It's miller time!

Or rather...Foster's!
:banana:

CrimsonFox

03-01-2016, 04:25 AM

Now drafting 14 year old David Haarland from Sweden!
okay that's pump those stats up pal!

law90026

03-01-2016, 09:29 AM

Weeks 9 and 10 update:

Ghazi Mehmett rests completely in week 9 and has a practice week in week 10 so it's been a lull period for him. He's going to play singles and doubles in a JG4 in week 11 to get his form up. Managed to improve his skill by another point.

Iker Gauba showed that there is still some life in his "old" bones as he managed to win a singles match in a CH2 at Meknes, before losing 6/3 6/4 to top seed Andres Montoya (world #58). Doubles was a semi-final appearance, where they lost to the eventual winners. Iker will be taking part in Indian Wells in week 11 as I'm testing a system where I let the minimum form be 20 at all times.

Then on to the new guy, Claude Curtayne, a 14 year old from France. He potentially looks to max out at 2.9 strength and 3.2 speed but he has a 3.4 mentality and max 3.9 endurance. I suspect he is probably my best player potentially if I develop him right but let's see how it goes. Week 9 was just friendlies as I signed him mid-week but week 10 was a JG5 to get his form up and he exited early in both singles and doubles. Week 11 will be another JG5 to get his form up as well.

On to Teo Rask, who just had 2 excellent weeks. Week 9 was the Open 13 in Marseille, a 250 level tournament. His entry here was opportunistic as sign-ups for the tournament were poor enough that he was seeded 5th even though he was ranked in the 60s. I expected at best a QF appearance for Teo but he was determined to prove that he was getting into form.

The first 2 rounds were easy, as he dropped just 6 games in 4 sets against unranked players. That set up a QF against old archrival Tom Liekmar. As backdrop (and this was before I picked up Teo), Teo had faced off against Tom 11 times in the juniors and lost every single time. When they turned pro, Teo had lost 2 more times. However, Teo finally managed to win one against Tom in a CH2 finals late last year and he was able to maintain the winning streak, beating Tom 7/5 3/6 6/2, to advance to the SFs.

In the SFs, Teo was up against Rozomir Lapcevic, 2nd seed and world #26. On paper, this was a match Teo shouldn't win 99 times out of a 100 because Rozomir is more athletic, stronger mentally and slightly more skillful than Teo. Somehow though, Teo won convincingly 6/3 6/2! Not sure how it happened but Teo will take it.

The finals was against world #22 Jun Radwanski. No fairy tale ending here though as Jun won 6/3 6/4. But for Teo, it's his best ever performance in a tournament and he picks up a hefty 150 ranking points.

In week 10, Teo continued with his good form, taking part in a CH2 in Cherbourg. His new ranking of #60 meant he was the top seed and he held up his end of the bargain, winning the tournament to pick up another 90 ranking points. It was a very dominant win too, as he didn't drop a set in 5 rounds and only lost 14 games in total. With that, he goes up to world #54.

Teo will be taking at least 2 weeks off and potentially as many as 4 weeks off, depending on which tournaments are available during this period. A break well deserved.

ntndeacon

03-01-2016, 11:06 AM

Do we have 4 people in world 2?

britrock88

03-01-2016, 11:47 AM

Looks that way.

digamma

03-01-2016, 11:49 AM

5 I think

britrock88

03-01-2016, 12:51 PM

Right you are! I've added each of you as a buddy so that we can peek at each other's stables more easily.

law90026

03-01-2016, 08:28 PM

Week 11 and 12 update:

Quiet weeks for Teo Rask as he basks in his recent successes. The practice sessions allow him to up his skill another point. Week 13 will see Teo enter a CH2 event at Rimouski as the top seed and he will hope to maintain his recent good run. Currently ranked world #55.

For Iker Gauba, retirement into trainer mode is coming ever closer but he had a decent showing at the Indian Wells Masters. He was knocked out in the first qualifying round for doubles but surprised some in the singles tournament, making it through 3 qualifying rounds to reach the main draw, where he lost to 22 year old American Tony Archer (world #60). Week 13 will be a CH3 event in Bath for Iker.

Ghazi Mehmett took part in 2 back to back JG4s and the performance was mixed. He reached the QFs for both tournaments along with 1 doubles SF but he’s not quite ready to win at JG4 level yet. Managed to up 2 points in skill and 1 in serve. Week 13 will be a practice week for Ghazi.

Claude Curtayne took part in a JG5 in week 11, where he won the doubles tournament and lost in the first round of the singles tournament. Week 12 was a practice week for Claude and week 13 will be as well.

Quarterly Update:

As roughly 1 quarter of the season has passed, it’s a good time to evaluate where the players are right now.

Teo Rask (#55) is finding his stride with a string of good tournament performances. It feels like he’s at the next point in his career progression because he’s good enough to win challengers if he has a high seeding but his ranking isn’t high enough to assure him of a good run in a major tournament yet. The intention is to play him in a tournament when his form is around 19-21 and then take 2 weeks off after, unless there is an opportunity to steal a high seed in a bigger tournament. It looks like reaching the top 50 is a question of time now.

Iker Gauba is really just winding down his career but it’s nice to see him perform decently in recent matches.

Both Ghazi Mehmett and Claude Curtayne continue to develop. It’s hard to tell where they will end up in the juniors but I have decent hopes that they will have good careers.

law90026

03-01-2016, 08:50 PM

World 2 Year 319 1Q Update:

The first quarter of the season is just about over so let’s see what has happened so far.

The Australian Open was won by 24 year old Valentino Dotto, the world #2 (at the time of this post). He beat world #8 Mario Avendano in the finals and it was a close one (7/6(3), 6/7, 7/6(6), 6/7(5), 6/3).

The first Masters of the year was at Indian Wells and the winner was Valentino Dotto again. This time the finals was against world #6 Adel Adkins but it wasn’t close, 7/5, 6/2.

4 500s have been played and they have been won by Valentino Dotto, world #4 Gianluca Baruffaldi (x2) and world #24 Morgan Tallemach.

13 250s have been played and the winners are Valentino Dotto, world #3 Nikolai Balk, world #7 Havel Gondzur, world #14 Eddy Pratt, world #18 Ramon Zandio, world #19 Ippolito Berti, world #20 Adrian Genel, world #21 Jun Radwanski (x3), world #25 Ene Colon, world #37 Tin-jong Cao and world #49 Magui Pitillas. One notable absence in the list of winners is current world #1 Antonio Filho, who has played a relatively light schedule so far (just 5 tournaments and 2 WTCs).

Current top 10:

1. Antonio Filho, 27 years old – 11,900 points
2. Valentino Dotto, 24 years old – 10,470 points
3. Nikolai Balk, 29 years old – 9,160 points
4. Gianluca Baruffaldi, 26 years old – 6,740 points
5. Svetislav Jarenovic, 27 years old – 6,020 points
6. Adel Adkins, 29 years old – 4,520 points
7. Havel Gondzur, 28 years old – 4,350 points
8. Mario Avendano, 26 years old – 4,010 points
9. Francisco Olbera, 28 years old – 3,445 points
10. Jose Morrone, 28 years old – 3,070 points

law90026

03-02-2016, 05:46 AM

Weeks 13 – 15 update:

Teo Rask entered the CH2 event in Rimouski with confidence and the #1 seed and he lost only 13 games enroute to the finals, where he faced off against #4 seed Steven Comley. Somehow though, Teo lost the finals 1/6, 7/6(6), 6/2, despite winning 105 points to Steven’s 95 points. It was likely Teo choking on the day as he only managed to convert 3 out of 12 break points. Steven also managed to blast 15 aces. A tough one to understand but at least Teo reached another Challenger finals. Teo then took week 14 off and the intention was to take week 15 off as well. Unfortunately, Sweden called Teo up to represent them in their group match against Switzerland.

Good thing they did too as Teo, despite being the lesser ranked singles player (Sweden’s #1 is Alvar Freudenthal, world #33), led them to victory by winning both his singles matches. Alvar split his singles matches and the Swede doubles team also lost. It all came down to day 5 where Teo overcame former world #1 Jean Marie Brochet (now world #160) 6/7(3), 4/6, 6/3, 7/5(5), 6/3, coming from 2 sets down to win it. Way to overcome the choke in Rimouski! The mildly annoying thing is that Teo didn’t get enough of a break and I’m going to have to decide whether to push for another CH1 in week 16 where there are some favourable seedings available or to rest another week.

Iker Gauba took part in his last professional tournament in week 13 where he lost in the singles 2nd round and was the runners-up in the doubles. 2 weeks after that, Iker became a trainer and is looking to work to develop Teo a lot more. At his current training level, he gives Teo 19 xp per session at the cost of 23 fatigue.

Ghazi Mehmett had a really tough practice session in week 13, so tough that he had to take the whole of week 14 off to recover. Week 15 was another JG4 where he again reached the QFs before losing. He’s going to take a week off and then will go down 1 level to a JG5 to see how that goes.

Claude Curtayne spent weeks 13 and 15 training. In week 14, he took part in a JG5 and was knocked out in the first round for singles and the QFs for doubles.

law90026

03-03-2016, 09:49 AM

A bit of a heftier update now as we cover weeks 16 to 22.

Teo Rask
Teo played in a CH1 tournament in Johannesburg in week 16 and was the 2nd seed. As has been the case in recent times, he cruised through his first 2 rounds and faced off against #5 seed Mark Edberg in the QFs. The 2 had faced off some weeks before in a CH2 SF which Teo had won but Edberg crushed Teo convincingly here (6/3, 6/1). Disappointing result for Teo.

Next up was a 250 in Munich in week 19, where Teo was the #5 seed. The first 2 rounds went easily again but the draw was unlucky for Teo as he faced off against #1 seed Hugo Brunner (world #28) in the QFs. Teo had his chances in the first 2 sets, winning the first 7/5 and being up 3/1 in the 2nd before losing focus and just falling apart to lose the 2nd 6/3. The 3rd set was an easy romp by Brunner, 6/2.

Week 20 was a CH2 in Fergana and once again Teo fell short in the QFs, despite being the #1 seed. This was probably the worst loss of the lot as he lost to world #112 Gineto Scalvini, a match he shouldn't lose on paper. It went to 3 sets but Scalvini won it 6/3, 6/7(4), 7/6(4). Scalvini did reach the finals where he lost to Mark Edberg but that really feels like it should have been Teo progressing.

Week 23 will be Teo's first ever grandslam as he takes part at the French Open. Hopefully he gets a decent draw as the world #47.

The Juniors:
Rather than go into detail about the juniors, who largely spend their time practising and playing low level junior tournaments, here's the quick overview.

I picked up a new youngster, <style type="text/css"></style>Gregorio Calantanazor. Try typing that quickly 6 times. He grades out as having 3.1 strength and 3.7 speed with a 4.3 mentality so I have high hopes for him. His weeks were spent getting his form up and he took part in 4 consecutive tournaments to get out of the red zone. His best singles performance was a SF appearance in a JG5 and 2nd place in a doubles at a JG5.

Ghazi Mehmett took part in 2 JG5s over this period and did well in both. He reached the SFs for both singles and doubles at La Plata and he went a little further in the next JG5 at Den Haag, coming in 2nd in the finals and winning the doubles. I will be moving him up to the JG4 levels again after this sequence of results.

Claude Curtayne was also at La Plata and Den Haag but he fared worse. He was knocked out of the first round of singles in La Plata and Den Haag although he did manage to make the doubles SFs in La Plata. He also played another JG5 in Lisbon in week 22 but lost in the qualifying rounds for both singles and doubles.

law90026

03-04-2016, 02:43 AM

Week 23 – 26 update

Teo Rask
Teo has been in a bit of a rut recently since he broke into the top 50 and he needs to get his game back in order. Week 23 was the French Open and Teo was knocked out in the first round, losing to world #64 Danilo Maiotti (6/3, 6/3, 6/1). Not a good performance at all. He followed that up with an appalling 2nd round loss to world #194 Cestmir Romanyak in a CH+ tournament and there was another early exit in the 2nd round of a CH1 tournament. He’s playing well below his level and took week 26 off to refocus. Hopefully the break will pay off as he heads to Montevideo to play a CH2 in week 27. My gut feeling is that his serve (3.7) is holding him back at the higher levels because he’s often giving his opponents the opportunity to break. Let’s see how that goes over time.

Ghaza Mehmett
Ghaza played in 2 tournaments over this 4 week period. He tried to move up to a JG4 but was knocked out in the QFs of the singles draw. Taking a week off, he headed to a JG5 in week 26 and was the runner-up for singles and a semi-finalist for doubles. He seems to be just slightly not ready for the JG4 at this level but we will keep pushing through that. He turns 16 in week 30. Currently ranked #332 in juniors.

Gregorio Calantanazor
Henceforth known as GC. He’s around the same level as Claude Curtayne so I’ve decided to pair them up for doubles for now. GC played in 2 JG5s and reached the QFs of both for singles and a QF and a SF for doubles (the SF appearance came in his first pair-up with Claude). Currently ranked #794 in the junior circuit.

Claude Curtayne
Claude also managed to reach the QFs of 2 JG5s during this period and a SF in doubles with GC. Ranked #875 in juniors, his main drawback is the high fatigue he gets after a few matches.

law90026

03-04-2016, 05:18 AM

Week 27 update

I wasn’t going to post another update so soon but the results of Teo’s last tournament was riveting enough that I figured I should (for my own record at least).

For the juniors, Ghazi was having a practice week while GC and Claude were off to Kiev for a JG5. There, they reached the doubles SF. Claude reached the singles QFs while GC reached the SFs. GC had crazy fatigue by the end of the week, he was at 950+ at his worst.

Teo headed to Montevideo for a CH2 on clay, seeded 2nd. The first round saw a relatively routine win over qualifier Magui Rubio (7/6(6), 6/2) and the 2nd round win over Ivan Alvear was even easier (6/2, 6/2). The QFs was where Teo was first tested as he eked out a close win (4/6, 6/3, 6/3) over 5th seed Viesturs Nasr. The semi-finals was a more routine affair, straight sets over 6th seed Romain Flor (6/3, 6/3). That set up a final with a surprising finalist, #8 seed and world #106 Arnaldo Pirovano. To be completely honest, I was pretty sure Teo would lose the finals. Arnaldo is very well trained at age 21 (4.8 skill, 3.9 serve) and a serious clay court specialist, as well as possibly slightly more athletic than Teo. Only area he was marginally weaker was in terms of mentality.

The finals was a super tight affair. The first set went to Teo, 7/5, who didn’t crumble when his serve was broken early. The 2nd set was just as close but Arnaldo won it 7/5. This set up the 3rd set where Teo was constantly under pressure. At 5/4, on Teo’s own serve, he faced 2 match points but managed to save both to hold for 5 games each. Then, at 6-5, he again staved off another matchpoint on his serve and set up a tie-breaker. In the tie-break, I thought it was over when Arnaldo went 5-4 up on his serve but that’s when Arnaldo choked, allowing Teo to win the next 3 points to claim the title. Arnaldo probably deserved to win, he won 129 points compared to Teo’s 118 but it was good to see Teo rebound to playing good tennis again.

digamma

03-04-2016, 09:17 AM

I fired the Hungarians and picked up a 24 year old American Nicholas Woodger and a 14 year old Swiss mister named Hein Siedler. Siedler is athletic and talented, but raw and has a high aging factor, so we'll run him up through the youth ranks and see what happens.

law90026

03-06-2016, 10:11 AM

Whew being busy in real life means that world 2 has moved on very quickly. Time for an update.

Weeks 28-40

The Juniors

Ghazi Mehmett played in 4 JG4s over this period and showed enough that I will be moving him up to JG3 for his next tournament. He managed to win 1 tournament, was 2nd in another and a semi-finalist in a 3rd (2nd round exit was his worst performance in the 4th). He also managed to win 1 doubles tournament during this stretch. Currently ranked #281.

GC also showed enough to suggest that he can move up from JG5 to JG4, winning both singles and doubles in the last 2 JG5s that he played. Ranked #432.

Claude Curtayne benefited from GC's strength as he won the 2 doubles tournaments as GC's partner. In terms of singles, he may be less ready to move up but he will try a JG4 the next cycle just to see how it goes. He was a runner up in singles in the last JG5 (losing to GC) and was also a semi-finalist in another JG5. Ranked #590.

Our lone senior

Teo Rask has been up and down the past weeks. He played 6 tournaments during this period, starting with a CH+ in Bogota where he was the 2nd seed. Unfortunately, he was beaten by 8th seed Benjamin Clavero in the QFs although, to be fair, Clavero was probably a slightly better player than Teo.

Next up was Astana, a CH1 tournament. This time, Teo reached the finals as the #2 seed and he was pleased to see that #1 seed Bill Comfort had been knocked out. Unfortunately, his opponent was Arnold Jarvilaturi, someone he had a 2-4 record against in junior tournaments, although this was their first meeting in the pros. It was a routine 6/3 6/3 win for Arnold and, again, not an unfair result as Arnold is a better player than Teo. Still, it was good to see Teo reach a finals.

Then there was a disappointing CH2 in Binghampton, where Teo was seeded #1 but lost in the QFs to unseeded Nikolaos Metaxas 6/4, 7/6. This was a disappointing result because Teo is the better player but Nikolas is a HC specialist and that probably allowed him to outperform Teo on the day.

All this was meant to be a precursor to the US Open but Teo was drawn against #28 seed Tony Archer, who trounced Teo 6/0, 6/1, 6/1. I'm not even kidding when I think Tony Archer is going to be a future world #1 because, at age 22, his rating (using Brian's formula), is 9.93. He has crazy athleticism (4 strength, 4.5 speed) and a 4.2 mentality. Still, it sucks to be out early in only Teo's 2nd Grand Slam.

Teo used that as motivation though and he did well in a CH+ at Scezecin, where he beat Britrock's Sean Mendez in a close 3-setter in the semi-finals (4//6, 6/4, 6/3) and then #1 seed Stephen Peters in the finals (6/3, 3/6, 6/3). The 2 players are roughly around the same level so it was always going to be hard to predict who would come up on top but Teo pulled through on the day.

As part of my attempt to rejig Teo's court preferences, I also signed him up for an easy CH3 in Recife but he choked there, losing in the QFs as the #1 seed to #6 seed Davy Roope. It was a match that Teo shouldn't have lost as he is clearly the better player so this was a very disappointing result.

Overall, Teo managed 1 CH+ win, 1 CH1 runner-up, 3 QFs CH appearances and a first round loss in the US Open during this period. Personal view is that it's an overall disappointment because at least 2 of those QF losses should not have occurred. Still, Teo is ranked #46 in the world so he meets the Top 50 target if he is able to maintain his position, although I suspect he will find it hard-going to improve on that.

law90026

03-06-2016, 10:42 AM

What happened in world 2 since week 12? Let's see.

Grand Slams
The French Open was won by Gianluca Barrufaldi, the current world #3. This is the grand slam that Gianluca really focuses on as he is a clay court specialist and he beat world #1 Valentino Dotto in straight sets in the finals before facing off against legend Nikolai Balk in the finals, where he prevailed in 3 easy sets as well. This is Gianluca's first ever grand slam title.

Wimbledon was won by world #2 Antonio Filho, who beat Gianluca Barrufaldi in the finals in 4 sets. It's his 3rd grand slam title, following 2 previous French Open titles. Remember Tony Archer? He reached the semi-finals here before Antonio beat him, while Gianluca beat Valentino Dotto in the other semi-finals again.

The US Open was won by world #1 Valentino Dotto, which makes it his 2nd grand slam of the year (he had won the Australian Open) and his 3rd overall (he won the US Open 2 years ago as well). He beat world #7 Adel Adkins in the finals, who had beaten Gianluca Barrufaldi in the semis. Valentino must have been glad not to see Gianluca in the semis of another grand slam and he gleefully crushed world #6 Mario Avendano in straight sets in his semi-finals.

Masters
Valentino Dotto won Miami, beating world #6 Mario Avendano in the finals.

World #5 Svetislav Jarenovic won Monte Carlo, beating Gianluca Barrufaldi in the finals.

Antonio Filho won Madrid, beating Adel Adkins in the finals.

Valentino Dotto won Rome, beating Svetislav Jarenovic in the finals.

Canada was won by Valentino Dotto, who beat Antonio Filho in the finals.

Valentino's run was broken by Nikolai Balk in Cincinnati though.

500s
500s were won by world #2 Antonio Filho, world #12 Morgan Tallemach and world #13 Javier Juan Ricardos.

250s
250s were won by world #4 Svetislav Jarenovic(x2), world #8 Havel Gondzur, world #10 Jean Paul Demercastel, world #11 Indrek Sarv (x2), world #14 Eddy Pratt, world #15 Josh Morrone(x4), world #16 Ene Colon(x2), world #18 Timmy Toy, world #19 Glenn Southwell, world #22 Rozomir Lapcevich (x2), world #26 Rudolf Joachimsthal(x2), world #28 David Villa, world #29 Stepan Durocsinszky, world #34 Alberto Gallas, world #37 Danil Mamine, world #39 Hugo Brunner and world #47 Jong Heng-zong.

Top 10

1. Valentino Dotto, 25 years old – 12,680 points (up 1 place)
2. Antonio Filho, 27 years old – 9,680 points (down 1 place)
3. Gianluca Baruffaldi, 26 years old – 8,735 points (up 1 place)
4. Svetislav Jarenovic, 27 years old– 6,455 points (up 1 place)
5. Nikolai Balk, 29 years old – 5,955 points (down 2 places)
6. Mario Avendano, 26 years old – 5,580 points (up 2 places)
7. Adel Adkins, 30 years old – 5,175 points (down 1 place)
8. Havel Gondzur, 28 years old – 4,790 points (down 1 place)
9. Anatoly Cherny, 24 years old – 3,210 points (new)
10.Jean Paul Demercastel , 27 years old – 2,915 points(new)

Brian Swartz

03-07-2016, 01:34 AM

I'm not even kidding when I think Tony Archer is going to be a future world #1 because, at age 22, his rating (using Brian's formula), is 9.93.

Egads! He's almost 23, but yeah ... he's pretty much ridiculous.

law90026

03-07-2016, 02:53 AM

Weeks 41 to 44:

The Juniors

Ghazi Mehmett took part in a JG3 during this period and it showed that he wasn’t ready yet. First issue is that he had to qualify for the maindraw of both singles and doubles so he needs to improve his #280 ranking first. He did qualify for the singles maindraw but he was tired by the time the main tournament started and he was knocked out in the 1st round. Back to JG4 then and he will now be paired with GC for doubles.

GC took part in his first JG4 during this period and he reached the semi-finals of the singles main draw and the QFs for doubles. This looks like a good fit for him right now.

Claude Curtayne on the other hand showed he was out of his depth for JG4 and will be moving back down to JG5. He lost in the first round of JG4 singles although he reached the QFs of doubles with GC in their last pairing together for now. He took part in a JG5 tournament and he managed a runner-up position for doubles but only a QF appearance in singles.

Our Senior

Teo Rask put the disappointment of Recife behind him by coming in 2nd in the Mons CH+ tournament. This is the first time I’ve really seen the advantage of playing to a homecourt advantage as it was indoors, which is nominally Teo’s preferred surface (he’s pretty evenly split between all the surfaces). However, most of his opponents have very little preference and I think it showed. Teo was seeded #1 and dropped just 6 games in the first two rounds, setting up a tricky QF tie with #6 seed Julien Rublev. I wasn’t confident Teo could win but he eked out a close match, 6/7(5), 7/6(5), 6/3. The semi-finals was against #4 seed Andrei Lebydenko, Britrock’s other player, but Teo managed to beat him comfortably 7/6(4), 6/3. On paper I think Andrei is better (9.05 or so rating compared to Teo’s 8.95 or so) but the difference in this case could be that Andrei only has an 8% preference for indoor courts. The finals was against old foe Tom Liekmar, who was the #2 seed and had beaten Britrock’s Sean Mendes in the other semi-final. Teo and Tom are incredibly close in terms of ability and that proved to be the case as there was very little to differentiate the 2 players but it could again be the fact that Tom’s indoor preference (32%) is higher than Teo’s, allowing him to win 6/4, 6/7(3), 7/6(5). Good tennis all round and not disappointed here.

After a week off, Teo took part in the Stockholm Open, a 250 event. Teo was only the #7 seed but I figured it was worth trying it out because it was indoors and also in Sweden, Teo’s home country. Round 1 was an easy win over a qualifier, 6/0, 6/1. Round 2 was a slightly tougher challenge against Mathieu Trotter, 7/5, 6/0, a player Teo had defeated earlier in the year at the WTC. This was pretty much where I expected Teo to reach and any further progress would be a bonus.

The QF was against #1 seed and world #16 Morgan Tallemach and Teo beat him handily, 6/3, 6/2! The semi-finals was against #4 seed and world #28 Stepan Durocsinzsky and Teo won again, 6/4, 7/5, setting up a finals appearance against #3 seed and world #20 Rudolf Joachimsthal. Could Teo win the title in front of the home fans? The answer was yes as Teo won 7/6(4), 6/3. Teo’s first ever major title and not a single set dropped through 5 rounds.

The cool thing about this is that all of the players Teo had beaten are all winners of 500-level and 250-level events this year so hopefully it’s a sign Teo is ready to make the next step up in the coming year. With this win, Teo reaches a new record ranking of #37 in the world.

law90026

03-07-2016, 08:54 PM

Weeks 45 to 48

The Juniors

Ghazi Mehmett played 1 JG4 during this 4 week stretch, reaching the SFs of the singles and the QFs of the doubles. Otherwise, he was just training.

GC played 2 JG4s during this period in order to maintain his form. His singles form was patchy, being knocked out in the 1st round at Manila and the QFs in Oulu. Doubles was slightly better, reaching the QFs in Manila (with Ghazi) and was runner up in Oulu.

Claude Curtayne played a JG5 and reached the SFs for both singles and doubles, which is a good result for him I think.

The Senior

In a bid to keep Teo’s form high before the end of the season break, he played in 2 tournaments. The first was a CH1 in Ortisei on indoor courts and he romped through the first 3 rounds, dropping just 9 games. He had a real test in the SFs as he beat unseeded David Carpaccio 6/4, 3/6, 6/3, setting up a finals with #1 seed Gianni Macciocchi (Teo was #2). The finals was easy though as Teo crushed Gianni 6/4, 6/0, allowing Teo to pick up his 5th title of the year. This cements Teo’s position as world #37 so mission accomplished.

The other tournament was a CH3 in Cancun on clay. Maybe Cancun wasn’t the right place because Teo switched off in the SFs and lost 6/7(5), 6/1, 6/4, to #5 seed Gregorio Yapo. A little disappointing but this tournament was not critical in the grand scheme of things and it’s time for Teo to take a break.

End of season review coming up next.

law90026

03-07-2016, 10:12 PM

End of Season Review

Not much to say about the juniors for now as they continue to train and practice. Ghazi Mehmett and GC both turn 17 in the course of the next year so I have some hopes they can continue to progress to the JG 2/3 level. I suspect I might cut GC loose if another talented junior comes along (or if I want to create a player) because Brian is right, losing a year of training is a huge disadvantage (I picked GC up when he was 15). His skills are only about the level of Claude Curtayne, who is a year younger.

For Teo, he achieved his primary goal of reaching the top 50, finishing the year as #37. I wasn’t convinced it would happen midway through the season but he ended his season quite strongly. Overall, he finished the year 66-19. His biggest achievement was the 250 win in his homeland of Sweden and he also managed to win 4 challenger level singles titles. His overall tournament performance as follows (not counting the Grand Slams):

1st round: 2
2nd round: 2
QFs: 7
SFs: 1
Runner Up: 5 (including 1 250 event)
Winner: 5

The results kind of show Teo’s erraticness overall, with 11 early’ish exits and 10 finals. In terms of his ability, Teo grades out around an 8.95 but that actually puts him around 54th out of the current top 60 in the world, so he might be over-achieving slightly. I’m not sure whether he will be able to break into the top 32 this year but that is going to be very dependent on strategic management of his tournament appearances, which is something I clearly didn’t have a good handle on at the start of the year.

So the goals for Teo:

a) To reach the top 32;
b) To win the 2 Swedish 250s available;
c) Better performances in the Grand Slams.

Key things I need to remember will be to watch his seeding for tournaments although that has become easier with his relatively high ranking because he tends to be seeded #1 or 2 for challenger level events now, as well as to focus his training more on specific court-types. I’m still debating whether to go for a hardcourt/clay/indoor balance, or to focus on either hardcourts or clay and the 2nd preference being indoor. Why indoor? Doing a count of the 250 level and up events, there are actually quite a few indoor tournaments and that tends not to be a preference for most players it seems, which gives Teo a slight advantage I feel (as evidenced by his strong end of the year run). Hardcourts are the most common surface but a lot of players focus on it so it would be difficult to get any real significant advantage there.

Onwards to year 320!

BishopMVP

03-07-2016, 10:56 PM

I can't look into World 2, and I don't have as good a grasp on older players as I'm on my first mid-career player, but I doubt you'll be able to change court pref's much at this point. Particularly as Teo gets into the Top 30/Sweden's top 2 and his schedule is basically dictated to him (and is quite varied between the 4 surfaces.)

Brian Swartz

03-07-2016, 11:16 PM

That's basically true. The older a player gets the longer it takes to make a significant change. By about age 20 I would say it's no longer feasible to make a major adjustment, unless you want to take years to do it. You can still push him a little in one direction or another of course.

law90026

03-07-2016, 11:23 PM

Ah good to know!

law90026

03-08-2016, 12:55 AM

Year in Review

Year 319 is done and here’s how it went.

Grand Slams

World #1 Valentino Dotto won the Australian Open and US Open while new world #2 Gianluca Barrafuldi won the French Open. Former world #1 and current world #3 Antonio Filho won Wimbledon.

Gianluca Barrafuldi also won the World Tour Finals, beating world #4 Mario Avendano in the finals. It was a surprising tournament as Valentino Dotto didn’t make it out of the group stages and the semi-finalists were Gianluca, Mario, Antonio Filho and world #5 Svetislav Jarenovich.

Masters

For the Masters, Valentino Dotto won 4 of them, while Nikolai Balk (world #6) won 2. Antonio Filho, Svetislav Jarenovich (world #5) and Timmy Toy (world #9) were the other winners at this level.

500s

At the 500 level, Valentino Dotto, Gianluca Barrafuldi, Juan Javier Ricardos (world #15) and Morgan Tallemach (world #16) won 2 titles each, and Antonio Filho and Indrek Sarv (world #10) and Anatoly Cherny (world #11) won 1 each.

Year End Top 10
1. Valentino Dotto, 25 – 12,700 points (10.00 rating)
2. Gianluca Barrafuldi, 26 – 8,735 points (10.00 rating)
3. Antonio Filho, 27 – 7,840 points (9.85 rating)
4. Mario Avendano, 27 – 6,970 points (10.11 rating)
5. Svetislav Jarenovich, 28 – 6,455 points (9.42 rating)
6. Nikolai Balk, 29 – 6,225 points (10.09 rating)
7. Adel Adkins, 30 – 5,055 points (9.48 rating)
8. Havel Gondzur, 28 – 3,560 points (9.58 rating)
9. Timmy Toy, 25 – 3,140 points (9.65 rating)
10. Indrek Sarv, 28 – 3,115 points (9.71 rating)

Valentino Dotto was dominant from the start of the year and firmly established himself as the #1 player in the world. However, he’s being chased by Gianluca Barrafuldi, who had a career year as well but the gap is still significant. Mario Avendano made his move as well this season, moving from around #10 at the start of the year to #4 and he is possibly the best player in the top 10 right now. Overall though, it’s an old’ish looking top 10 at this stage.

In the coming season, potential names to look out for amongst the younger players include current #11 Anatoly Cherny (9.95 rating), Tony Archer (9.93 rating), Ene Colon (9.66 rating), Feliciano Putignani (9.72 rating) and Alvar Freudenthal (9.66 rating), all players in the top 40 who are 24 and younger.

law90026

03-09-2016, 10:41 PM

Year 320 Weeks 1 – 9

The Juniors

Ghazi Mehmett had a big jump in rankings by about a 100 places as the previous 18 year olds bow out of the junior tour and he’s now around 141st in the world. Over the first 9 weeks of the year, Ghazi has been a runner-up in 2 JG4 singles tournaments and won 2 JG4 doubles titles with GC. I suspect he’s nearly ready to move up to JG3 but I’ve said that before and been wrong.

GC is ranked #235 in the junior tour. He’s not as developed from a skill perspective as Ghazi but he makes up for it with high mentality. For GC, he’s won the 2 doubles titles with Ghazi and he has also made the SFs for both singles tournaments he took part in as well. He will move up with Ghazi to JG3 as well.

Claude Curtayne is ranked #401 and still playing JG5s. He’s also about ready to move up to JG4 I think as he’s reached 2 consecutive JG5 SFs and also won a JG5 doubles title. He plays for France in their U15 WTC team and he won both his matches in their 4-1 win over Argentina in the first round of matches.

The Senior

Once again the start of the year has been frustrating for Teo as he chased form and a seeding for the Australian Open.

The year started with a win (out of 2) in Sweden’s match against Estonia in the WTC, which came with it a nice 50 ranking points. The win came over rival Arnold Jarvilaturi, a tense 5-setter. Teo lost in the reverse singles though, to world #10 Indrek Sarv in straight sets and Sweden lost 3-2 overall when Alvar Freudenthal couldn’t beat Jarvilaturi in the last match.

Then came a horrific run of 1st round exits as Teo was knocked out early in Sao Paulo (CH1) and Sydney (250). Still, pullouts meant that Teo was seeded #31 for the Australian Open and I was hoping for at least a 2nd round appearance. Alas, the terrible form continued and Teo was knocked out in the first round by Ferdinand Duran, who is, in fairness, a rising star (21 years old, 9.33 rating). Early hardcourt season sucks for Teo.

Luckily the indoor tournaments became available thereafter and Teo was the runner-up at Heilbronn (CH1), where he lost in the finals to world #72 Elliot Rejnener. Elliot is better in terms of overall rating so not a surprising loss.

Teo then appeared for Sweden in the next round of the WTC tournament, one I had contemplated pulling him out of. It was against Spain, who field world #3 Antonio Filho and #7 Adel Adkins, both much better than Teo. In the end I went for it for the xp and, as expected, he lost in straight sets to both.

Teo finally got his first tournament win of the season when he went to Quimper (CH2) and he won relatively easily, not dropping a set at all, although the finals against Arnold Jarvilaturi was close (7/6(5), 7/5(4)). He is currently hovering around the #32 position in the world and so it’s another season where the strategic decisions become more relevant in terms of tournament choices since there will be weeks when the challengers are not available to Teo.

law90026

03-10-2016, 09:12 PM

Weeks 10 to 15

The Juniors

GC was dropped at week 13 and a new junior hired, Vitorio Annunzio from Switzerland. GC’s lack of development prior to my hiring him was going to be an issue and it was time to cut ties. Vitorio projects to have decent/good strength, speed and mentality so hopefully he will do fine.

Ghazi Mehmett’s only tournament appearance during this period was a JG3 and, once again, he looked out of his depth. He was knocked out in the first round by the 2nd seed although he reached the QFs of the doubles tournament. Back to JG4 again for now.

Claude Curtayne looked good in his JG4 appearance, reaching the singles SF and was a runners-up for doubles. He is also solid for France in the U-15s, winning all 4 of his matches thus far and helping France to a 2-0 record.

The senior

Teo Rask played in 2 CH2s, both on indoor courts, during this period. He failed to defend his title in Cherbourg, losing in the finals to Marcello Borsellino 6/2, 6/2. Marcello is a very good player though, rated at 9.49 at the end of year 319, so it wasn’t unexpected.

Teo did manage to win the CH2 in Rimouski though, beating Alberto Aveles 6/2, 6/3 in the finals. Teo was a finalist here last season so it’s good to see him improve on his performance this year.

In week 15, Teo and Britrock’s Sean Mendes took on South Africa in the WTC Round Robin matches. Teo won his singles match-up against Stephen Peters in 4 sets but Mendes lost to their Bill Comfort in straight sets. When the Swedish doubles team lost their match, the pressure was on. And Teo choked. Teo started strongly, going 2 sets up but then lost the 3rd and 4th sets. He managed to stabilise things in the 5th and had 3 match points when he was up 5-4 in the 5th set but failed to convert and proceeded to tamely lose the last 3 games. It was a close’ish game (6/7(6), 4/6, 7/5, 6/1, 7/5) but Teo threw this one away. That meant that Sweden lost the tie 3-1 although Mendes won the last singles match-up to make it a respectable 3-2. Sweden has now lost all of their group games.

As at week 15, Teo is ranked #33 in the world but there’s a gap of about 150 points to #32 (who is Bill Comfort coincidentally enough). To reach the top 20 requires about 2190 points so Teo is 900 points away from that. I think it’s probably not possible to reach that level with Teo because he would need to do much better in the bigger tournaments in order to get the required number of points but we’ll see.

Brian Swartz

03-11-2016, 01:43 AM

Teo's still young -- he has 2-3 years until he reaches his peak. Obviously he's not going to get a huge amount better but he will get some better if you keep at it. I think Top 20 is definitely still a possibility for him. It's interesting to me -- the way you describe him he really is a tweener, almost ready to 'graduate' challengers but maybe not quite yet.

law90026

03-11-2016, 02:01 AM

Ha that's a good way to describe him. He's going to have one of those unspectacular careers I think, kinda good but not great. Good learning experience though because it will be useful when I try and groom someone better.

britrock88

03-11-2016, 10:46 AM

As a brief aside to law's info here, the jockeying for the Swedish WTC roster is great.

Teo is ranked 36th, with 1255 points.
Alvar Freudenthal is ranked 37th, with 1225 points.
My guy, Sean Mendez, is ranked 40th, with 1160 points.

Teo took over the #1 spot from Freudenthal last year, and Freudenthal and Mendez have been swapping places in the #2 spot for most of this calendar year.

They're all very close in age, too--Teo is 24 and at 96% of peak athleticism; Freudenthal is 25 and at 93%; Mendez is 24 and at 95%. Freudenthal's aging factor of 102% is a bit faster than the others', though. So I have Teo and Mendez will be the singles pairing for Sweden for a while to come. :)

law90026

03-14-2016, 08:39 AM

So go away for a weekend and it ends up as many missed weeks of updates. Here goes.

Weeks 16 - 35

The Juniors

As at week 35, Ghazi Mehmett has just turned 17 and 7 weeks. Not sure where he will end up in the juniors, it's been a learning curve for me here. He's currently playing relatively successfully at the JG3 level, unless he faces a seeded player early. He's taken part in 5 JG3 tournaments during this period and he's won 1 title, come in 2nd in another, reached the SFs in a 3rd but was knocked out in the first round in 2 of them. Doubles has also been successful, with 1 title, 1 runner-up position and 2 3 QFs. Currently ranked #116 in the world.

Claude Curtayne is 15 and 50 weeks so he will turn 16 soon. Currently ranked #268 and he is playing in the JG4 levels although he should move up shortly. He's played a few JG4 tournaments and he won his most recent entry and was a consistent SF in the previous ones. He also won 2 doubles titles at this level. Continues to represent France, where he was won 3 out of his 4 matches thus far.

Vittorio Annunzo is 15 and 13 weeks so he's the youngest of the lot. He is looking decent at the JG5 level so will also be moving up soon, having won 1 singles tournament, come in 2nd once and reached the later stages of the tournaments on multiple occasions. Ranked #383.

The Senior

Teo Rask continues to hang around the 32-35th slot in the world and hasn't quite been able to make a breakthrough.

In week 17, he reached the SFs of a CH2 at Santos, which was a tad disappointing. Then 2 early'ish exits in weeks 20 and 21 at Bordeux and Cremona, which didn't fill me much confidence leading up to the French Open.

Teo did manage to better his performance at the French Open this year though, reaching the 2nd round before losing to #13 seed Eddy Pratt 5/7, 6/4, 6/4, 6/4.

Wimbledon wasn't far off and Teo took part in a CH1 at Nottingham and I was pleasantly surprised when he won the title here as the #2 seed, dropping only 1 set in 5 rounds of matches. Could this mean a better performance at Wimbledon?

The answer was yes as Teo cruised to the 3rd round before facing off against phenom Tony Archer. However, Teo managed to bring the match to 5 sets before losing 5/7, 6/1, 3/6, 6/3, 6/4. A credible performance and, with that, Teo has far surpassed last year's overall Grand Slam performance in terms of points gained (145 points to 30).

Then one of the big goals for the year was the Swedish Open but Teo was not able to progress past the QFs as he lost a super close match to world #18 Ene Colon in the QFs by the score of 6/7(2), 7/6(4), 6/4. Ene is the better player and a clay specialist but the frustrating thing is that, as seems to often be the case, Teo is able to take the lead but is simply unable to close out the match. He had match points in the 2nd set but simply could not convert. One goal missed as a result.

Teo then won a couple of weeks later at a CH1 in Poznan, only dropping 1 set again throughout the tournament.

He hoped to build off that success at another CH1 in San Marino but was disappointingly dumped in the QFs by a young up-and-comer, Adam Preto, in the QFs, who went on to win the tournament.

Teo will be skipping the US Open to play a CH1 in Como. Hardcourts are his bane and most players train a lot on that surface so it's never going to be favourable for a player with Teo's more limited abilities. After that, we will be entering the indoor season as the year begins to come to an end. Teo will be hoping to pick up a bulk of his points during this stretch. Let's see whether this strategy works off for him.

law90026

03-14-2016, 08:41 AM

law90026

03-14-2016, 08:54 AM

britrock88

03-14-2016, 10:01 AM

Oh one other thing that's kinda cool: Britrock's Andrei Lebydenko is doing really well in recent weeks. He reached the QFs of Wimbledon and that pushed him into the Top 30. Hopefully he will be able to push far into the US Open.

But I overplayed him in the W-S 250--singles and doubles--and he was totally gassed by the 3rd round of the US. Took a rough 0/0/1 loss to 9-seed Timmy Toy. Still a par showing for the 28-seed. Now, for several weeks' rest.

law90026

03-15-2016, 09:41 AM

Week 36 to 41

The Juniors

Ghazi Mehmett tried out the Junior US Open in Week 36 and that was a bit of an eye-opener as he was knocked out in the qualifiers for singles and the first round for doubles. Maybe next year but this level looks out of his league for now. He went on to his first JG2 where he won the doubles and came in 2nd in singles. Currently ranked #87 after that strong performance in the JG2.

Claude Curtayne took part in 2 JG4s and he was a semi-finalist for both singles and doubles in the first one but he proceeded to then win both singles and doubles in the 2nd. Looks like his time in JG4 is up and he's going to be moving up. Ranked #231 in the world for juniors.

Vittorio Annunzio also looks to be moving up soon as he won a doubles JG5 and reached the SFs for singles. Ranked #412 right now.

The Senior

Teo Rask has had a decent few weeks overall.

First up was a CH2 on clay in Como where he came in 2nd, losing to #1 seed Arnaldo Pirovano in the finals. Not a surprising loss since Pirovano is the world #29 and he is a clay court specialist.

Then to St Petersburg for a 250 on indoor courts. Teo reached the QFs here where he was unfortunately faced #4 seed Andrei Rhykov. Against a superior player who has homecourt advantage, I figured Teo would be knocked out and that was accurate although Teo made it close (3/6, 6/2, 6/4). Rhykov went on to win the tournament.

Final tournament before the Stockholm Open was a CH+ at Mons, where Teo had come in 2nd last year. In the 2nd round, Teo faced ntndeacon's Adrian Benavediz and Teo overcame him 7/5, 6/3. The finals had Teo face off against Marcello Borsellino, the world #35, and it would be the 3rd time the pair had faced off this year, each time in a challenger final. Marcello had beaten Teo at Cherbourg in week 10 but Teo had won Nottingham in week 32.

This time around, Teo came out on top in 3 sets (7/6(4), 2/6, 6/4) in a match where Marcello won slightly more points (97 to 93). Not a victory I expected based on talent and form but every win is appreciated!

This moves Teo back up to world #32 and the last major tournament (in my eyes) for Teo is coming up, the Stockholm Open, where he will be hoping to defend his title (and 250 ranking points).

One thing I've come to realise though: a steady sequence of challengers probably isn't enough to push to the top 20 in world 2. There needs to be serious pushes in the major tournaments (i.e. 250s and above) to see some real progress so I will need to rethink how I approach Teo's tournament schedule for year 321.

Brian Swartz

03-16-2016, 03:00 AM

a steady sequence of challengers probably isn't enough to push to the top 20 in world 2. There needs to be serious pushes in the major tournaments (i.e. 250s and above) to see some real progress so I will need to rethink how I approach Teo's tournament schedule for year 321.

You are still right there on the challenger 'bubble'! My thought here is primarily that it's basically impossible to be good enough to be Top 20, and still be ranked low enough to play challengers. Or to put it another way, Teo's schedule this last year was at a minimum semi-reasonable, and not the reason he isn't ranked higher.

Here's how I would look at what you did:

Majors

Slams -- Played three, skipping the USO(not in the seeds I presume?), losing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd rounds.

Masters -- Didn't play any.

Taken by themselves, what does those results say? They look like the resume of a guy who'd be lucky to be in the Top 50.

Minors

500 -- 1 QF
250 -- 1 Final, 2 QF, 1 R1 exit

Pretty much the same here. Only once did Teo reach the 'business end' of one of these tournaments. Relatively small sample size but I think it does suggest that playing more 250/500s probably isn't the answer.

Challengers

CH+ -- 1 Title, Helsinki pending, hope I'm not spoilering by mentioning that
CH1 -- 2 Titles, 1 Final, 1 QF, 1 R2, 1 R1
CH2 -- 3 Titles, 2 Finals, 1 SF, 1 QF

Overall, 22 tournaments. That's a little heavy in my opinion, esp. since you can only count 18 of them. Faster world and making sure you have enough matches might have an impact there though, so take it for what it's worth.

If it was me I would keep playing a mix of big challengers and 250s as long as you are able to -- which is better on any given week depends on the schedule. Watch the entry lists as you have been and so on. I would think you'll be able to avoid the poor start Teo had this year, and if so you should be seeded at the Australian Open and then be able to get a seed at Indian Wells and Miami later on. If that happens, you should be in the Top 30 and will be waving goodbye to challengers. I'd say the only real problem this past year was a few too many early-round losses, and maybe a few too many tier-2 challengers instead of the bigger ones. You're really close though, obviously.

law90026

03-16-2016, 06:25 AM

Thanks! Insight is always helpful.

We'll see what happens in Helsinki, which will be starting shortly.

law90026

03-16-2016, 11:41 AM

And the year comes to an end. Here's how it went for my team.

The Juniors

Ghazi Mehmett ends the year in the top 90 for juniors. He took part in a JG2 but was knocked out early so he then dropped back down to JG3. Maybe it's just the year-end but he didn't perform fantastically there as well. It'll be interesting to see how he does next year, which is technically his last junior year (I think). He won 2 singles tournaments and 6 doubles tournaments and will end the year with a record of between 31 to 39 wins (he's playing one last year-end tournament) and 10 to 12 losses.

Clayde Curtayne is around #235 in the junior circuit and is consistently strong in the JG4s but it's erratic for him at the JG3 level thus far. He has a 39-10 record this year and he won 2 singles tournaments and 4 doubles tournaments.

Vittorio Annunzo is ranked around #415 in the junior circuit. Another tweener at this time as he doesn't quite have the ability to move up to JG4 consistently yet. He went 21-19 on the year and won 1 singles tournament and 4 doubles tournaments.

The Senior

Teo's final objective was the Stockholm Open and he entered in high spirits. Given a bye in the first round as the #3 seed, he beat a qualifier easily in the 2nd round and cruised through the QFs as well. In the SFs, he was up against the #2 seed Milton Aguilar and Teo won in straight sets to set up a finals showdown with #4 seed Adrian Genel. Unfortunately, Teo wasn't able to defend his title, losing 3/6, 6/2, 6/4, and disappointing the home crowd.

It was off to Valencia for a 500-level tournament after that and Teo surprised #7 seed Rozomir Lapcevic 6/3 6/3 in the first round. The second round was a straightforward 6/0 6/1 win over a qualifier before a QF match against #4 seed Jean Paul Dermacastel. Teo wasn't able to sustain his momentum though and he was knocked out in straight sets but a credible performance in a major tournament for Teo.

A little time off then Teo took part in two more indoor tournaments to close off his year and he won both, a CH2 in Eckenthal and a CH+ in Helsinki. At this level and on indoor courts, Teo generally has no competition I think, as he crushed pretty much all his opposition in these tournaments.

With that, he ends the year at the #32 spot and a 69-20 record.

His performances as follows:

1st round: 2
2nd round: 1
QFs: 5
SFs: 1
RUP: 3
Winner: 8

It's a slight improvement in the sense that he reached 11 finals this year, compared to 10 last year and he also won 8 of those finals. He's shown some improvement in terms of reaching the later stages of tournaments so that's helped.

He also did better at the Grand Slams this year, making the 3rd round of Wimbledon and the 2nd round of the French Open.

So about the objectives set at the start of the year? Teo did manage to better his Grand Slam performances this year so that was 1 task achieved. However, Teo failed to win either Swedish 250-level tournament so that was disappointing. I would probably have graded Teo with a pass if he had won Stockholm but the inability to win either tournament means I give Teo a slight failing grade.

Lest you think I'm being harsh, I'm not. Overall, I think Teo did decently. He's kind of maintained his standing in terms of the world rankings and he's still around his prime so next year may be the year he can push a little higher.

The goals for year 321?

a) Continue to improve at the Grand Slams (better 145 points overall);
b) better his overall performance at major tournaments, i.e. level 250 and up (330 points);
c) win the Swedish and Stockholm Open;
d) break into the top 30.

law90026

03-16-2016, 12:48 PM

Year 320 in Review

Valentino Dotto won the Australian Open, beating Mario Avendano in a 5-setter in a thrilling finals and a repeat of last year's result. This makes it 3 consecutive finals for Dotto and back-to-back wins wins for him. It's Avendano's 3rd final in 4 years, although he's come up 2nd to Dotto twice now.

At Indian Wells, Dotto was the winner, beating Nikolai Balk in the finals. Similarly, it's Dotto's 3rd consecutive finals and 2nd consecutive win here. For Nikolai, he's supposed to be on the downswing of his career but he's showing he can still compete.

Next up was Miami and Dotto did not participate! Nikolai Balk was able to take advantage of this by winning the tournament, beating American Glenn Southwell in the finals. It's Balk's 4th win here, although his previous 3 wins came in years 315, 316, and 317.

Monte Carlo saw the return of Dotto as he beat Svetislav Jarenovich in the finals. Jarenovich was the winner here last year so he will be disappointed he wasn't able to repeat.

In Madrid, world #2 Antonio Filho finally made his first Masters final for the season and he beat Jarenovich in the finals. This is Filho's 5th consecutive win here on homesoil. Jarenovich has actually made 3 finals here in 6 years but never won.

Rome saw a repeat of the Madrid finals as Filho beat Jarenovich again. It's Filho's 3rd win here in 5 years. Bizarrely enough, Jarenovich has reached the last 3 finals here and lost every single one. Talk about being a bridesmaid.

These strong clay court performances led to Filho beating world #3 Gianluca Barrafuldi in the French Open finals. It's Filho's 4th finals appearance in 5 years, of which he has won 3. For Barrafuldi, it's his 3rd consecutive finals but he's only won 1 (last year) and he's now lost to Filho twice in the past 3 years here.

Wimbledon saw the return of Dotto to dominance as he beat Filho in 5 sets in the finals. The 5th set went 9/7, showing how tight the match was between the top 2 players in the world. For Dotto, it's his first finals appearance in 5 years and his first Wimbledon title. Filho has appeared in 4 of the last 5 finals here, although he's only won 1 of them.

The Olympics was won by Dotto and he beat Balk in the finals. Filho was 3rd.

Heading into hardcourt season and first up is Canada, where Avendano beats Dotto in the finals. This is Avendano's first finals appearance and win here while Dotto has appeared in 4 of the last 5 finals (although only winning 1).

In Cincinnati, Dotto re-established his dominance by winning it, beating world #9 Eddy Pratt in the finals. It's Dotto's 4th consecutive finals appearance here and his 2nd win. It is Eddy's first ever Masters finals.

At the US Open, Dotto won his 3rd Slam of the year, beating Balk in the finals. It's Dotto's 4th consecutive finals here and he has won back-to-back titles (and 3 out of 4) here. Balk has made 5 of 8 finals here and won this three times previously.

Shanghai saw the continued dominance of Dotto as he beat Avendano in the finals. It's Dotto's first ever finals and win while Avendano has now come in 2nd here for a 2nd consecutive year.

At Paris, Barrafuldi beat Filho for his first Masters title of the season. It's Barrafuldi's first ever finals appearance and win here while Filho was the winner at Paris 2 years ago.

Finally, the WTC Finals saw Barrafuldi beat Dotto in the finals. This is Barrafuldi's 3rd consecutive win here!

Summary:

Really, this year was all about Valentino Dotto, as he won 3 out of 4 Grand Slams and 4 of 9 Masters titles. He's the clear world #1 and it doesn't look like anyone is ready to challenge him yet.

We also saw the continued excellence of Antonio Filho, who must be cursing his luck as he was 2nd fiddle to Nikolai Balk for a long time before taking the world #1 for a short'ish period prior to Dotto's rise to dominance. Balk also had a career resurgence as he ended the year as the world #4, surprising many who thought he was on the way down.

Barrafuldi was expected to be a serious challenger to Dotto but he was disappointing for most of the year and really only picked up his game at the tailend of the season. Avendano was another disappointment as he slipped to world #5 despite possibly being the best player in the world on talent.

We are starting to see some of the old stalwarts drop out of the top 10 now, such as Adel Adkins, and some of the younger stars are making their move. Anatoly Cherny and Danil Mamine are both already in the top 10 and Tony Archer is lurking at #12.

World Top 10

1. Valentino Dotto, 26 years - 13,470 points
2. Antonio Filho, 28 years - 9,540 points
3. Gianluca Barrafuldi, 27 years - 8,020 points
4. Nikolai Balk, 30 years - 7,210 points
5. Mario Avendano, 28 years - 7,080 points
6. Svetislav Jarenovich, 29 years - 4,795 points
7. Anatoly Cherny, 25 years - 4,150 points
8. Danil Mamine, 24 years - 3,890 points
9. Eddy Pratt, 27 years - 3,205 points
10. Timmy Toy, 26 years - 3,185 points

law90026

03-17-2016, 03:21 AM

Minor Update

In the last few weeks of the year, Teo (and Britrock’s Sean Mendez) were called up for Sweden’s relegation playoff against Paraguay, which I had completely forgotten about. This had the advantage of giving Teo some competitive matches to maintain some form.

Teo won his matches easily, as did Mendez and Sweden prevailed 4-1 to maintain their place in the top level of the WTC. One side-advantage of this though is that Teo picked up another 80 ranking points during the dead part of the season for most of the top players and this actually pushed him up to 28th in the world! So that changes some of his scheduling concerns for year 321 since he now has to play in the Masters and the like to avoid a penalty (although it may not really matter that much to him) and he also can’t play any challengers to start the year.

Teo and Mendez will also be playing for Sweden in the first round of year 321’s WTC fixtures so that will again come with some ranking points (hopefully), xp and form.

Brian Swartz

03-17-2016, 05:06 AM

Fantastic! I say that not just because you have a reached a new stage in Teo Rask's career, but because it justifies(or maybe I just think it does) me plopping down in this thread again to dispense more completely unsolicited and quite possibly unnecessary counsel!! Seriously though, cheering hard for Teo this year. This now mandates an 'establishing' year in which you transition from challengers to elite status. Going to put most of what I have to say in the tips/strategy thread since I think it fits better there. Plus that way I don't derail the thread.

Big few weeks coming up ... go kick some butt at the Australian Open Teo!!

britrock88

03-17-2016, 09:35 AM

Lebedyenko also hit the masters-mandatory ranks thanks to the Wimbledon QF appearance of last year. We'll see if he and Teo run into each other in some big tourneys.

law90026

03-17-2016, 10:12 AM

Lebedyenko also hit the masters-mandatory ranks thanks to the Wimbledon QF appearance of last year. We'll see if he and Teo run into each other in some big tourneys.

Yeah it'll be an interesting year for the 2 of them! I think Mendez will be there soon too, he looks strong.

I'm also keeping an eye out for ntndeacon's Arbizu because I suspect he's got the potential to make top 30 as well.

law90026

03-18-2016, 05:19 AM

law90026

03-19-2016, 09:35 AM

Weeks 1 to 13, Year 321

The Juniors

Ghazi Mehmett has not played many tournaments thus far and the only tournament he played he won (a JG2). Ranked #19 in the juniors, his schedule has been start stop because of Junior WTC Cup commitments as well as a scheduling mistake on my part (I entered all 3 of my juniors into a 250 event by mistake!).

Claude Curtayne entered 2 JG3 tournaments during this period and made the SFs for both in singles and runner-up for doubles in both. He also entered the 250 event and managed 5 ranking points when he won a first qualifying match over Vittorio Annunzio! So he's now ranked #131 in the juniors but #1916 in the professional ranks :p

Vittorio Annunzio made 2 SF appearances for both singles and doubles in JG4 tournaments so he will stay at this level for a while.

The Senior

It's been a strong start to the year for Teo Rask,one that I'm really pleased about but I'm not entirely sure where it's coming from.

Teo started the season at #28 in the world. First week of the year was a WTC Cup clash between Sweden and Croatia. Teo and Britrock's Sean Mendez were playing singles for Sweden and the team just crushed an overmatched Croatian team, winning 5-0 and every match by straight sets.

Teo then entered a 250 at Brisbane where he reached the QFs before losing to the #2 seed Svetislav Jarenovich. This left Teo with enough form that he could practice before the Australian Open.

At the Australian Open, Teo was seeded #26 and he played to his seeding by reaching the 3rd round before losing to #13 seed Feliciano Putignani in straight sets. An improvement over last year's first round exit. Congrats to Britrock's Andrei Lebydenko though as he had another strong Grand Slam performance, reaching the 4th round before losing to Tony Archer.

Another WTC Cup match against South Africa was up next and, surprisingly, it was Alvar Freudenthal who was called to play 2nd singles, rather than Sean Mendez. This match was disappointing for Teo though as he lost his first singles to the South African #2 in 5 sets, a match he should have won. He then lost to South African #1 Bill Comfort in straight sets and Sweden lost 4-1 overall.

Then came the purple patch. First up was a 500 indoor event at Rotterdam. My expectation based on the draw was a QF exit. True enough, Teo cruised through the first 2 rounds to set up a match with world #3 Gianluca Barrafuldi in the QFs. Somehow Teo managed to win convincingly (6/2, 6/3), a result I have no explanation for since Barrafuldi was in perfect form, not fatigued and also a good indoor player. Next up was #4 seed Ippolito Berti, who had beaten Britrock's Lebydenko in the QFs, and Teo again pulled out the win, 6/4, 7/6. Unfortunately, the finals was against Putignali again and he was crushed but a big result for Teo and it comes with 300 ranking points. This actually pushed Teo into the world #19 spot!

Next tournament was a 500 indoor event at Memphis. My expectation here was a QF or SF appearance, the main concern being that Teo would have more than 25 form by the time the QFs rolled around. In the QFs, Teo was up against #7 seed Fernano Delbrey but he was easily brushed aside in straight sets. The SFs was against #5 seed Indrek Sarv, who was a former world top 10 player but is on his way down now. Another straight sets win and Teo was in his 2nd consecutive 500s finals! Unfortunately, the same tale was told as he was crushed convincingly in the finals by a superior player, this time by world #9 Timmy Toy. However, another 300 ranking points and Teo looks good to be entrenched in the top 30 for this year.

The first Masters of the year was next, Indian Wells. Teo reached the 3rd round here before losing to world #7 Anatoly Cherny so no shame there.

The recent results meant that Teo was actually seeded #16 in the next Masters at Miami and that meant he would have a decent chance to at least reach the 4th round. He performed to that expectation, beating #25 seed Adrian Genel in the 3rd round before facing off against Timmy Toy again in the 4th round, where Teo was again beaten easily.

Sometime during this first quarter of the year, Teo also went past the $1 million mark for earnings, another milestone met.

Next up will be a 3rd WTC Cup round of matches before the clay Masters begin. Teo will be hoping to maintain his form leading up to the French Open and to secure enough points to preserve a top 20 spot.

law90026

03-21-2016, 12:22 AM

Week 14 to 24

Just focusing on the senior player for now!

Week 15 saw Teo Rask play for Sweden against the Slovak Republic. He won his first singles match against world #70 Dominik Fetsko in 5 sets and Sean Mendez upset Durocsinszky to put Sweden 2-0 up. Then it all fell apart. The doubles pair lost first. Teo then went up against Durocsinszky and lost 3 sets to 1, and the decider was between Mendez and Fetsko. Unfortunately, the upset was on the cards and Fetsko beat Mendez 3 sets to 1 and Sweden lost the tie 3-2, finishing 3rd in the group.

Teo took part in the Monte Carlo Masters but it didn’t go well as he was knocked out in the 2nd round by fellow Swede Alvar Freudenthal. What was especially frustrating was that Teo was 5-2 up in the 3rd set but he could not convert and lost 7/6(5).

Form was going to be an issue potentially leading up to the French Open so Teo signed up for a 500 at Barcelona. Unfortunately, he was up against in-form Magui Pitillas in the 3rd round and was knocked out early again.

2 back-to-back Masters were next, first in Madrid and the next in Rome. In Madrid, it was upsets galore and Teo was knocked out by a wild card in the 2nd round. The upsets included world #1 Valentino Dotto being knocked out in the 2nd round, world #4 Mario Avedano being knocked out in the 2nd round, world #5 Nikolai Balk knocked out in the 3rd round, world #7 Timmy Toy knocked out in the 2nd round and world #9 Feliciano Putignani knocked out in the 1st round amongst others.

It was another 2nd round exit for Teo in Rome as he was knocked out by unseeded Ferdinan Duran in straight sets. These results did not fill me with confidence leading up the French Open.

The first 2 rounds were straightforward as Teo (#17 seed) knocked out his opponents in straight sets and only dropped a total of 6 games! He was joined in the 3rd round by Britrock’s Andrei Lebydenko (#25 seed) and Sean Mendez (#32 seed). The 3rd round was a match-up against world #9 Feliciano Putignani and Putignani had beaten Teo in their last 2 professional meetings. Teo pulled out the upset though as he beat the Putignani 4/6, 6/4, 6/1, 6/7(1), 6/4! Lebydenko was knocked out by world #1 Valentino Dotto but Sean Mendez continued his run with a straight-set beating of #15 seed Glenn Southwell.

The 4th round saw Teo Rask up against world #12 Eddy Pratt and once more Teo pulled out a 5-set upset, 6/0, 2/6, 7/5, 3/6, 6/3, and he is into his first ever Grand Slam QFs! Sean Mendez also kept pace with a 5-set win over #26 seed Indrek Sarv.

Unfortunately, there would be no continuation of the fairy tale in the QFs as Teo was crushed by Dotto 6/1, 6/4, 6/1, and Mendez was also comprehensively beaten by world #3 Gianluca Barrafuldi, 6/1, 6/0, 7/5. If they had managed to win, they would have faced off in the SFs but no such luck this time. Still, a fantastic performance by the players and a ton of ranking points as well.

Wimbledon starts in about 3 weeks so it’s a question of maintaining the right amount of form for Teo as he looks to reach at least the 3rd round there. One goal achieved now as he has far surpassed his Grand Slam performances from last year.

law90026

03-22-2016, 04:28 AM

Weeks 25 to 30

Just to update on the French Open, it was eventually won by Gianluca Barrafuldi (world #2) but it was nearly a fairy tale for #30 seed Aleksei Yatskay, who reached the finals and lost in 5-sets.

Teo Rask entered the Queen’s Club tournament in week 25 as part of the warm-up for Wimbledon. As the 3rd seed, Teo had a bye in the first round and cruised through the 2nd round. The 3rd round was a 3-set win over #11 seed Valentin Agia (4/6, 6/3, 7/5) and that was followed up with another 3-set win over #8 seed Indrek Sarv (2/6, 7/6(3), 6/4). The run came to an end though when Teo lost to #9 seed Adrian Genel 4/6, 6/3, 6/2 in the SFs.

Then it was Wimbledon, where Teo had reached the 3rd round last year and he was seeded #15 this year. The first round was a easy straight set win over a qualifier and the 2nd round was a 4-set win over Rastislav Celic, the world #94 player. Teo faced his first seeded opponent in the 3rd round, where he beat #18 seed Aniceto Lopezcastro 6/3, 6/2, 5/7, 6/4, to reach the 4th round and better last year’s performance. Unfortunately, the 3rd round is where Britrock’s Sean Mendez (lost to world #3 Antonio Filho) and Andrei Lebydenko (lost to #12 seed Ene Colon) were knocked out.

Teo was knocked out in the 4th round though, losing 7/4(4), 7/6(6), 7/4(2) to #27 seed Marcello Borsellino. Ridiculous close match and one that could really have swung either way. Wimbledon was won by #16 seed Tony Archer in dominant fashion as he lost only 1 set throughout the tournament.

Week 29 was the Swedish Open, one of Teo’s targets for the year. As the #1 seed, Teo matched expectations by winning the title, getting revenge against Adrian Genel in the finals. It was a comfortable tournament win as Teo did not drop a set throughout the week.

Teo is ranked #15 at this time and he’s within distance of the #12 spot. Top 10 seems a little too far off, especially since the hardcourt season is not Teo’s favourite time, but one can hope.

Brian Swartz

03-23-2016, 01:56 AM

It's already been one heck of a year though! Much better than I expected, anything more he gets is gravy in my opinion.

ntndeacon

03-23-2016, 11:11 AM

I'm excited. it looks like Ecuador will have a playoff to get to the first level of the WTC.

law90026

03-23-2016, 09:23 PM

It's already been one heck of a year though! Much better than I expected, anything more he gets is gravy in my opinion.

For sure! It's just one of those things where you wonder what might have been but, if you had told me at the start of the year that Teo would be entrenched in the top 20, I would have been highly pleased. And I still am, just that I regret not paying attention to court surfaces more when I picked Teo up. A very good lesson to learn though.

law90026

03-23-2016, 09:36 PM

Weeks 31 to 40

As I feared, the hardcourt season was difficult for Teo. For those who may not be familiar, the period leading up to the US Open is traditionally hardcourt heavy for the top players, as evidenced by the fact that there are 2 Masters events in Canada and Cincinnati in weeks 33 and 34.

Here is where Teo’s lack of preference for hardcourts really starts to show, even though this had reduced magnitude at Masters and Grand Slams (according to the forums). Teo was knocked out in the first round at both Masters, which is absolutely terrible. The US Open didn’t go much better as he was knocked out in the 2nd round. Congrats to Britock’s players by the way as both Andrei Lebydenko and Sean Mendez made the 4th round.

Teo is always happy to put the US Open behind him because it then enters a period when there are a bunch of indoor events. Unfortunately, there is now a roadblock in his way: Britrock’s Andrei Lebydenko.

At the Open de Moselle (a 250 event), Lebydenko beat Teo in the QFs, 4/6, 7/4(4), 6/4. It’s my fault for not getting Teo enough games leading up to this point as he was below optimum form and that, I suspect, would have made the difference. Teo literally needed 1 more match prior to this to get in shape. Lebydenko lost in the SFs to eventual winner Ippolito Berti, and Berti beat Sean Mendez in the finals.

Next was the Malaysian Open (a 250 event). In one of those rare occurrences, all 8 seeds made the QFs and Teo was the #4 seed, with Mendez and Lebydenko the #5 and #6 seeds respectively. They were set up on opposite sides of the draw though and Teo beat #1 seed Jean Paul Demercastel in 3 sets to reach the finals. In the other SF, Lebydenko beat Mendez in 3 sets to set up another match with Teo. Unfortunately, I had gone the other way this time and had overplayed Teo inadvertently for this tournament (he entered doubles to get some form for the early rounds and ended up with his form over 25 for the finals) and Lebydenko beat him again, 7/6(7), 6/3. Not a bad result and great to see Teo starting to match up with Lebydenko in major tournaments.

At the end of this stretch, Teo is ranked #17 in the world and with 5 weeks left to play. There are 2 more Masters (one in Shanghai and one in Paris) and another 2 more possible indoor tournaments that Teo will be taking part in (including the Stockholm Open) so there will be matches aplenty (hopefully). Managing the form will be tricky during this run-in and I suspect I may end up with just the 2 Masters and Stockholm to finish off the year.

law90026

03-25-2016, 10:27 AM

End of Year 321 Round-up

Teo Rask ends the year at #21 in the world, which was indicative of relatively poor performances during the 2nd half of the season.

In the Shanghai Masters, he was knocked out in the 2nd round. These early exits hurt because all of the Masters results are taken into account for the top 32 players.

Teo did achieve his last goal for the year though, winning the Stockholm Open easily. He followed that up with a 3rd round exit at the Paris Masters, which was a decent enough result.

So let's see how he did overall.

The Grand Slams were a success I would say, as he reached the QFs of the French Open, the 4th round of Wimbledon, the 3rd round of the Australian Open and the 2nd round at the US Open being the one blemish. Total ranking points here were 675, which was nearly a third of his 2200 total points.

The Masters were more disappointing, in part because quite a few are played on hardcourts. He had a 4th round appearance, 2 3rd round appearances, 3 2nd round appearances and 2 1st round knock-outs. Just 380 points here, which averages out to be 45 points, and that's a poor return overall.

In the 500s, he had 2 runner-up positions, 1 3rd round appearance and another 230 points from his WTC matches, for a total of 875 points. This is where he did really well.

He also had 2 250 wins at the Swedish Open and the Stockholm Open to add to his point tally. He actually had a few other tournaments which could have added to the point tally but, due to the manner in which the top 32 players have their points calculated, those were wasted. In that sense, Teo probably played too many tournaments overall, something to bear in mind for next season.

All in all, this was a successful season for Teo as he met all his goals (bettering his Grand Slam results, winning the Swedish and Stockholm Opens, getting into the top 30). I'm a little disappointed he didn't finish in the top 20 but that's just being greedy :p

Ghazi Mehmett bids farewell to the junior circuit this year as well. He never really excelled, reaching a career high of #18 and never really winning any tournaments of note. For that matter, he hardly ever played any of the major tournaments, which I'm wondering whether it was a mistake. He won 6 singles tournaments and 16 doubles tournaments. I'm wondering how he will transition into the amateur level tournaments to be honest.

law90026

03-25-2016, 10:42 AM

Year 321 End of Season Summary

World #1 Valentino Dotto had another dominant year, winning the Australian Open and the US Open, the World Tour Finals, and 4 Masters (Paris, Shanghai, Canada and Indian Wells). That's 6 of the year's top 13 tournaments (not including the WTF Finals).

World #2 Gianluca Barrafuldi won the French Open but none of the other major tournaments.

World #3 Antonio Filho won 3 Masters, all on clay (Madrid, Rome and Monte Carlo).

Remember that phenom, Tony Archer? Well this was the year he made his move as he rose to #4 in the world and won his first Grand Slam at Wimbledon. He also picked up the Masters title at Cincinnati. The crazy thing? He only played 17 tournaments so his manager (arefj) is being super efficient.

The other winner of a major tournament this year was world #7 Timmy Toy, who won at Miami.

This is also the year that we see former great Nikolai Balk fall out of the top 10 although he's still hanging around at #11 at year's end.

Year-end Top 10 ranking
1. Valentino Dotto, 27 years old - 13,350 points
2. Gianluca Barrafuldi, 28 years old - 7,135 points
3. Antonio Filho, 29 years old - 6,760 points
4. Tony Archer, 24 years old - 6,305 points
5. Mario Avendano, 29 years old - 5,230 points
6. Danil Mamine, 25 years old - 4,490 points
7. Timmy Toy, 27 years old - 3,755 points
8. Bill Comfort, 25 years old - 3,345 points
9. Feliciano Putignani, 25 years old - 3,310 points
10. Glenn Southwell, 27 years old - 3,200 points

law90026

03-25-2016, 11:03 AM

Here we go with goals and predictions for Year 322.

Teo Rask

The goals this year are:
1. Get into the top 20 and stay there
2. Maintain or better the Grand Slam performances (675 points)
3. Better the Masters performances (380 points)
4. Maintain or better the 500/250 performances (1,375 points)

Note that this year I'm not targeting the Swedish or Stockholm Open although the chances are high I will play there. I want a little more flexibility in terms of my scheduling.

Ghazi Mehmett

1. Break into the top 500

That's the only goal for Ghazi. I'm going to go with a very match-light schedule to see how that works for him in terms of development.

Predictions:

1. Valentino Dotto continues to be year #1 but ...
2. Tony Archer makes a serious move and ends the year at #2.
3. We're going to see no real changes in the top 10 but there are going to be a few names that may break in or be hanging around there by year's end: Marcello Borsellino, Gaspare Caprara and Milton Aguilar. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Britrock's Sean Mendez ends up in the top 20 this year as well and knocking on top 10.

Brian Swartz

03-25-2016, 11:10 PM

Definitely a great year! There's a lot of players in their prime years or coming into them ahead of Teo. He may find it quite difficult to get to the Top 10 but I'm hoping you can get him up to 15th or so for a while. Might be quite difficult to make further progress.

I think Mehmet is ready for amateur tournaments definitely, but might take a bit to get through futures. I've got him at 6.44 and a very general rule of thumb for me is 7.0 to be ready to progress past the futures level. I think you have the right idea.

law90026

03-27-2016, 08:26 AM

Definitely a great year! There's a lot of players in their prime years or coming into them ahead of Teo. He may find it quite difficult to get to the Top 10 but I'm hoping you can get him up to 15th or so for a while. Might be quite difficult to make further progress.

Agreed on Teo, there's just a ton of talent coming up. I would be happy to get into the top 20 for the next few years to be honest but I suspect more realistically it will be top 30.

law90026

03-27-2016, 08:43 AM

Year 322, Weeks 1 to 9

Teo Rask

The year starts for Teo Rask with a WTC match against Germany. Teo and Britrock's Sean Mendez are playing singles for the Swedes, while Germany have the 50th player in the world and the 142nd player in the world. Teo wins both his singles and Mendez wins his tie against the 142nd player and Sweden edges out Germany 3-2.

Off to a 250 event at Qatar where Teo was knocked out in the 2nd round by an unranked Ludvek Habsudov in 3 sets. Congrats to Mendez though as he wins the tournament as the 5th seed and beat world #7 Danil Mamine in three sets in the finals!

Next was the Sydney 250 event and Teo did well here, reaching the semi-finals before being knocked out by #1 seed Mamine. Mamine went on to win the title here.

All this led to the Australian Open, where Teo cruised through his first 2 rounds but faced a peer in Bill Comfort in the 3rd round. Bill however is really good and has risen to #5 in the world and he showed the difference, crushing Teo in straight sets. Still, Teo maintains last year's showing here. Round 4 here saw Britrock's Mendez and Lebydenko face off and Lebydenko won the match easily to reach the QFs, where he was beaten by world #8 Feliciano Putignani. Great job for the 2 of them. The finals was won by world #1 Valentino Dotto, where he beat Bill Comfort in straight sets.

The next competitive match for Teo was the 2nd round of WTC matches. Sweden faced off against Latvia this time but the Swedes had no issues, easily winning 5-0 overall. This sets up a final round match against Russia to see who will top the group but both Sweden and Russia are guaranteed a place in the QFs this year.

2 important tournaments were coming up for Teo, the 500 level events at Rotterdam and Memphis. If you recall, these were the events that pushed Teo into the top 20 last year as he was runner-up in both. However, this year, he's defending points and that puts the pressure on him to maintain his performance.

In Rotterdam, Teo had an easy run to the SFs, where he faced off against Mendez and Teo edged him 6/4, 3/6, 6/1. This then set-up a finals match against Lebydenko and, once again, Lebydenko proved to be Teo's nemesis, beating Teo 6/4, 6/4. Congrats to Lebydenko though for winning a 500 level event! Lebydenko leads the head-to-head match-ups against Teo 3-0.

Memphis was slightly more disappointing. Teo reached the SFs but he was up against home crowd favourite and world #14 Timmy Toy (formerly at top 10 player) and he lost a close match 7/5, 7/6. This hurt Teo's points total as he loses a bunch and, with that, he drops to #23 in the world.

The first 9 weeks have not been as excellent as last year but, to be fair, Teo has more or less maintained his performance. Coming up will be 2 hardcourt Masters before clay season begins.

Ghazi Mehmett

Ghazi has played 3 amateur tournaments this year and results have been mixed. He reached QFs, 3rd round and 1st round of the singles draw for these tournaments and has achieved a grand total of 3 ranking points! That puts him at #2130 in the world. It's going to be long hard slog for Ghazi.

law90026

03-27-2016, 08:45 AM

Oh in one other notable thing to report: my junior Vittorio Annunzio and Digamma's Hein Siedler are both representing Switzerland in the Junior Tour Cup and play doubles together at that level. Siedler is currently the #19 junior in the world, just ahead of my other junior (Claude Curtayne, who is #21) so it'll be interesting to see where Siedler's career heads after this.

law90026

03-28-2016, 11:17 AM

Year 322 Weeks 10 to 16

Teo Rask

Teo had 2 hardcourt Masters (Indian Wells and Miami) to play at during this period. Last year, Indian Wells was a 3rd round exit and Miami was a 4th round exit.

At Indian Wells, Teo was seeded #19 and he made it to the 3rd round, where he faced off against #9 seed Glenn Southwell. His tournament ended there as he was beaten 7/6(4), 6/3, but he maintains last year's performance. Britrock's Sean Mendez continued his strong start to the year, reaching the 4th round before being crushed by world #1 Dotto 6/2, 6/1. Dotto went on to win this tournament relatively easily.

At Miami, Teo was again seeded #19 but he faced off against #7 seed Feliciano Putignani in the 3rd round. That's where his tournament ended again as he was beaten 6/3, 7/6(1) and that means more ranking points dropped for Teo. Both of Britrock's players, Sean Mendez and Andrei Lebydenko, reached the 4th round, where they faced off against Dotto and world #2 Tony Archer respectively, and both lost at that stage. It's hard when you're up against 2 of the best players in the world. Archer went on to win the tournament, beating Putignani in the finals.

Then it was the final round of the WTC Cup group stages. Sweden was up against Russia, who field world #6 Daniel Mamine and world #10 Aleksei Yatskay. Unfortunately, both Teo and Mendez were not able to overcome their opponents and lost all their singles matches and Sweden lost 4-1. Still, Sweden have made the QFs, where they will face off against Spain, which fields world #4 Antonio Filho and world #33 Lucas Coscino.

With these relatively poor results and Teo dropping to #24 in the world, I decided to rethink my next few tournaments. Instead of taking part in the Monte Carlo Masters (which is the only non-mandatory Masters), I elected to enter Teo in a 250 at Hassan. I've also pulled Teo out from the Barcelona 500 and will enter him in a 250 event instead. The thinking is that there is no real point trying to go for the big points when Teo is having a little bit of an off-year.

At Hassan, Teo cruised through to the SFs, where he faced off against world #34 Stephen Peters. The 2 players are very closely matched but Peters is a clay court specialist (60%) and so that resulted in a very lopsided loss for Teo (6/1, 6/2). Still, the 90 ranking points here would likely have matched the points he could have gotten at Monte Carlo unless he had an exceptionally good draw.

While I'm disappointed that Teo isn't in the top 20, I think the current results are probably a fair indication of Teo's level currently as compared to his competitors.

Ghazi Mehmett

Ghazi played 2 tournaments during this stretch. His first tournament was a QF exit in singles and a 3rd round exit for doubles. The 1 ranking point for doubles means that Ghazi is now ranked #3614 in the world for doubles!

Then came a nice tournament run for Ghazi, as he ran the gauntlet and won a claycourt amateur event in Cape Coast. That gave him 6 ranking points (for a total of 11) and pushed him up to #1369 in the world. He needs about 18 points to break into the top 1000 but I'm in no rush at this time (having learnt patience along the way!). His next tournament is in 5 weeks time so plenty of practice for Ghazi.

britrock88

03-29-2016, 04:27 PM

Round 3 of Roland Garros was a bloodbath!

In my stable, #18 Lebedyenko (fresh off a Power Horse 250 win) took out #14 Mendez in a real battle-- 7-6(7), 7-5, 4-6, 6-7(1), 6-2.

#17 Teo Rask fell to #6 Danil Mamine in a tough draw-- 7-5, 2-6, 4-6, 6-7(6).

But elsewhere! Here's the list of high-seeded players that went down: #1 (to #26 in 5 sets), #2 (to #31 in 5 sets), #4 (to an unseeded player in 3 sets, 1-4-1--ouch), and #7 (another 3-set loss to a non-seed).

Back to law's coverage. :) I just thought that was a red-letter kind of day.

Brian Swartz

03-29-2016, 04:58 PM

That's interesting. Definitely a different environment than my world, which is seeing the seeded players do better than usual this year. Looks like a real shake-up is on the way over here.

law90026

03-29-2016, 07:11 PM

Thanks for the post! Yeah it was a crazy tournament wasn't it?

We are seeing a chance in the guard though as former greats Nikolai Balk and Antonio Filho are both done with singles play it seems and have slid down the ranks very quickly. The next generation is pressing in now and I think the only older guys left are Barrafuldi and Avendano.

digamma

03-30-2016, 09:26 AM

In a funny tidbit, Teo Rask was paired with my junior player Hein Siedler in a doubles practice session this week. They won both of the matches they played in straignt sets.

law90026

03-30-2016, 11:37 AM

In a funny tidbit, Teo Rask was paired with my junior player Hein Siedler in a doubles practice session this week. They won both of the matches they played in straignt sets.

Yeah I saw that too! Shows how bad Teo's doubles play is.

Another cool thing, my junior doubles pair beat Hein in the Wimbledon junior doubles finals! First Grand Slam win (albeit at junior level).

law90026

03-30-2016, 12:04 PM

Year 322 Weeks 17 to 28

Teo Rask

Teo took part in a clay 250 at Bucharest where he was seeded #4. He cruised through the early rounds until the SFs, where he faced #2 seed Milton Aguilar and was beaten 6/3 6/3.

Next was the Madrid Masters. Teo was knocked out in the 2nd round by Magui Pitillas, a player that he has lost consistently to on clay in the past. Pitillas actually beat world #1 Dotto in the 3rd round before being knocked out in the QFs. This tournament was won by then world #13 Arnaldo Pirovano (who has since shot up to #4!), beating world #3 Gianluca Barrafudi in the finals. Britrock's Sean Mendez made the 3rd round before losing to #8 seed Aleksei Yatskay.

Rome next, another clay Masters. Teo had a better outing here as the #16 seed. First round he beat former great Nikolai Balk in 3 sets then beating 2 qualifiers to reach the QFs. In the QFs though, Teo faced off against Stephen Peters and Peters again proved to be the better player, knocking Teo out 6/2, 7/5. This Masters was won by world #11 Ene Colon in a tournament where 3 of the top 4 seeds had early exits, which would turn out to be a precursor for the French Open. Mendez reached the 3rd round before being knocked out by Barrafuldi.

All this leads up to the French Open, where Teo had an excellent tournament last year, reaching the QFs. Teo reached the 3rd round easily but was beaten by #6 seed Danil Mamine 5/7, 6/2, 6/4, 7/6(4). It's disappointing but Teo played to his seeding at least.

It was a rough tournament for #1 Dotto, #2 Tony Archer and #4 Bill Comfort as all 3 were knocked out in the 3rd round as well. This left the path open for #3 Barrafuldi to win the tournament and he duly obliged, reaching his 5th straight final and winning it for the 3rd time. Britrock's Lebydenko and Mendez actually faced off in the 3rd round and Lebydenko prevailed but was knocked out in the 4th round by #8 seed Yatskay.

It's always an abrupt transition to grass after the French Open and Teo headed to a grass 250 at Halle. He played to his seeding as the #3 seed, reaching the SFs but was knocked out by #2 seed Yatskay there, 4/6, 6/3, 6/3. One thing I've noticed is that Teo tends to win the first set against stronger opponents then he crumbles after and I wonder whether it ties in to his relatively low'ish mentality.

At Wimbledon, Teo was seeded #20 and again cruised to the 3rd round where he faced #12 seed Marcello Borsellino. It was a really close match but Borsellino prevailed in 5 sets, 4/6 7/5 4/6 6/3 6/2. Tony Archer won his 2nd successive title here, beating #5 seed Arnaldo Pirovano in the finals. Mendez and Lebydenko reached the 4th round and 3rd round respectively here.

It's been points lost by Teo overall during this period as he failed to pull off any upsets in the big tournaments. Like I mentioned previously, he's playing around his level, i.e. somewhere between #17 to #32 in the world, at this time. He will be hoping to have a stronger 2nd half of the year to pull his ranking up (currently #21).

Ghazi Mehmett
It turns out Ghazi really didn't want to stay at the amateur level. He took part in 2 more amateur tournaments and won one while coming in 2nd in the other and these 10 ranking points meant that Ghazi shot up to #824 in the world. No more amateur events and on to futures level tournaments now.

Juniors
Couple of interesting snippets for the juniors. As alluded to in an earlier post, Claude Curtayne and Vittorio Annunzio took part in Wimbledon together and were seeded #4. They reached the finals where they faced off against Digamma's Hein Siedler (seeded #3) and my guys won 1/6, 6/4, 10/7! This makes me inspired to let them play in the US Open to see if they can win another doubles title there. This result meant that Claude went up to #19 in the junior circuit while Vittorio is #42.

Separately, Claude was part of the French team that made the finals in the JTC Cup. Unfortunately, they were beaten comprehensively (4-1) by Argentina in the finals, where Claude lost in the doubles match but gained France's sole point in the final singles match (albeit it was a meaningless one).

law90026

03-30-2016, 12:14 PM

Craziness but world #8 Danil Mamine has just been fired by his manager. He would cost 850 points to pick up once he is available. He grades out as a 9.35 on Brian's rating scale, so he's not too bad.

kingfc22

03-30-2016, 09:36 PM

How do you gain points to purchase players? I was under the impression the 150 you start with is what you get. Unless you can buy points via VIP?

law90026

03-30-2016, 10:32 PM

How do you gain points to purchase players? I was under the impression the 150 you start with is what you get. Unless you can buy points via VIP?

You get points based on your player's performances in tournaments I believe. So the more successful your players, the more points you slowly accumulate.

Brian Swartz

03-30-2016, 11:24 PM

Yep. The difference is you get points from both practice and standard tournaments to add to your manager pool. Take a look at the 'Top Managers' section of the rankings in your world. After you've been playing for a while, having enough points to buy the best available players is extremely trivial -- but of course, the top players aren't ever for sale.

ntndeacon

03-31-2016, 01:02 PM

My Ecuadorian Joaquin Arbizo just won his first CH1. I'm so pleased! He's now #58.

law90026

03-31-2016, 08:57 PM

My Ecuadorian Joaquin Arbizo just won his first CH1. I'm so pleased! He's now #58.

Congrats!

law90026

04-01-2016, 12:32 PM

Year 322 Weeks 29 to 40

Teo Rask

First up after Wimbledon is the 250 clay event at Stockholm, where Teo is the defending champion. Teo reached the finals without dropping a set but faced another rival that has been cropping up a lot recently, Stephen Peters. Unfortunately, the home advantage wasn't sufficient against the clay court specialist and Teo lost 6/3 5/7 6/2.

Then it was off to a 250 event at Gstaad, where the top 4 seeds (Teo included) all made the SFs. There, Teo faced off against Jean Paul Demercastel and lost 7/5 6/2.

The next major tournament was the Canada Masters, where Teo was unseeded.

I was mildly annoyed as I had entered Teo into the doubles tournament to hopefully get a bit of form after being knocked out in the qualifiers. Unfortunately, Teo was paired with world #14 Milton Aguilar and the 2 of them easily reached the 2nd round of the doubles maindraw before losing to former world #1 Nikolai Balk and his partner Ramon Zandio.

However, he still had a decent singles draw and cruised to the 3rd round where he was summarily dispatched by world #4 Bill Comfort, 6/0 6/0. Embarrassing. As an aside, Comfort is the South African #1 player while Stephen Peters (see above) is the South African #2 player. I hate South Africa at this time.

Cincinnati was up next, another Masters event. Teo was again unseeded and this time he faced Comfort in the 2nd round. Same result, albeit with more games won, as Teo lost 6/3 6/1. This just shows how important seeding is, especially at the more competitive levels.

All this of course is the precursor to the final Grand Slam of the year, the US Open. This time, Teo made it to the 3rd round before facing off against world #2 Tony Archer and Teo was beaten 7/5 6/1 6/3. Britrock's Lebydenko also made the 3rd round but Mendez was shocked in the 1st round unfortunately. World #1 Dotto won the finals, beating #4 seed Comfort there.

After the US Open, no real time to rest as Sweden was up against Spain in the WTC QFs. Luckily for the Swedes, Spain's #1 player Antonio Filho has given up on singles and his ranking dropped so fast that he ended up playing only doubles. This meant that Spain fielded world #27 Lucas Coscino (someone who has given Teo problems in the past) and world #30 Frank Maydon as their singles players. Teo and Mendez duly took advantage of this, winning all of their singles matches for a 4-1 result and Sweden are into the SFs against Italy. Teo narrowly edged out Coscino in the first singles match in 5 sets but easily beat Maydon in straight sets in the meaningless last singles match.

The WTC SFs were played soon after and Italy fields world #1 Dotto and world #9 Putignani. A very tough match-up and the Swedes were crushed 5-0. Dotto easily beat both Teo and Mendez but Teo narrowly lost to Putignani in 5 sets in the last singles match, winning only 2 points less throughout the entire match. Great xp though!

The end of season is fast approaching and Teo will be playing in the last 2 Masters of the year, Shanghai and Paris. He's currently ranked #18 in the world so he's on target for a top 20 spot but he will need to maintain his performance to do so.

Ghazi Mehmett
Ghazi's first futures tournament went badly as he lost in the qualifiers for doubles and the 1st round of singles for 0 ranking points.

However, his next futures tournament (a FT3 on clay in Mexico) went much better as Ghazi reached the finals of the singles draw before losing. The 9 ranking points shot him up to 700 something in the world rankings.

A few weeks later, at a FT3 on clay in Brazil, Ghazi reached the SFs for the singles draw. The 5 ranking points allowed Ghazi to push up to #679 in the world.

With maybe 2 or 3 tournaments left for Ghazi this year, the #500 spot is still in sight, so fingers crossed that goal is achieved!

MarkBGregory

04-01-2016, 01:48 PM

Hi guys!

Enjoying the legacy. Feel free to join me in - my username is the same as the one on here, and I currently have:

Juan José Elezgueta (20y50w)

Current #155 in the world and former junior #13. My weakest player in general but still could see him forging out a career in the top 50 or so in the next couple years.

Igor Borowski (19y23w)

In his first year since the junior tour, was ranked as high as #2 and was #3 at year end. Slowly climbing up the rankings through the futures events, currently sits at #398.

Christian Kulle (18y20w)

Current junior #1 and junior US Open and Australian Open champion. My best prospect, though he'll peak very early. Could be a big name, but we'll wait and see. Most likely of my guys to hit the big time.

law90026

04-02-2016, 09:50 AM

law90026

04-02-2016, 10:15 AM

Year 322 Weeks 41 to 45 (or more or less the end of the season!)

Teo Rask

Teo's season has come to an end save for maybe some doubles matches to maintain form after this. The full-season analysis will be a different post but suffice to say Teo ended the year at #21 just 3 points away from the #20 spot.

At the Shanghai Masters, Teo went out in the 2nd round to #12 seed Lopezcastro.

He then defended his title at the 250 indoor event in Stockholm, beating Jean Paul Demercastel in 3 sets in the finals (5/7 7/6<sup>5</sup> 6/2 (http://rr2.rockingrackets.com/index.php?page=tournament&extra=616704&subpage=draw&subsubpage=singles&round=5&addb=match&addv=56ff329140c6a8.99739174)).

The final Masters of the year was at Paris and it was a little disappointing for Teo here as he went out in the 2nd round (he reached the 3rd round last year). He faced off against eventual runner-up Marcello Borsellino in the 2nd round and lost 7/6<sup>3</sup> 6/4 (http://rr2.rockingrackets.com/index.php?page=tournament&extra=616708&subpage=draw&subsubpage=singles&round=2&addb=match&addv=56ff86f5464893.06819782).

Ghazi Mehmett

Just one tournament during this period, a clay FT3 in Brazil. Ghazi reached the QFs but was knocked out there. He goes up to #654 in the world after that.

law90026

04-03-2016, 11:41 AM

End of Year 322 Review

Teo Rask

The goals were:
1. Get into the top 20 and stay there
2. Maintain or better the Grand Slam performances (675 points)
3. Better the Masters performances (380 points)
4. Maintain or better the 500/250 performances (1,375 points)

Teo actually managed to finish the year in the #19 spot as a player ahead of him dropped some points after week 45 (probably from challenger events). So success in an anti-climatic fashion!

For Teo's Grand Slam performances, it was a fail as Teo managed 4 3rd-round exits for a total of 360 points. There was a level of consistency here but it would have been nice to see a big push in 1 of the Grand Slams.

For the Masters, Teo managed 540 points so he succeeded here. Similarly, it was consistently 2nd or 3rd round exits here for a total of 540 points.

For the other tournaments, Teo actually managed 1,360 points so just a little off last year's total.

Overall, Teo probably played around the level expected. I would expect to see something similar this year so similar goals:

The goals this year are:
1. Stay in the top 20
2. Maintain or better the Grand Slam performances (360 points)
3. Better the Masters performances (540 points)
4. Maintain or better the 500/250 performances (1,360 points)

Ghazi Mehmett

Ghazi just fails to make the top 500 as he finishes the year #540 in the world. He is close and should be able to push in this year. My expectations are for Ghazi to finish the year in the 200s so that he can push for Challengers next year.

Claude Curtayne

Claude's juniors career comes to an end. He was ranked as high as #19 but finished #30 in the world. He won 4 junior singles tournaments and 17 doubles tournaments, including the Wimbledon junior doubles title with Vittorio Annunzio.

I think Claude enters the pro ranks more developed than Ghazi so I'm setting a top 500 goal for him as well.

law90026

04-03-2016, 12:14 PM

End of Year Summary

The Australian Open was won by world #1 Valentino Dotto, beating world #4 Bill Comfort in straight sets in the finals.

Dotto continued his good start to the year by winning the first Masters, Indian Wells, beating world #10 Daniel Mamine in the finals.

At the Miami Masters, it was world #2 Tony Archer that won the title, beating world #6 Feliciano Putignani in the finals.

Eventual world #9 Aleksei Yatskay beat eventual world #5 Arnaldo Pirovano in the Monte Carlo Masters.

Pirovano showed that he was a growing force to reckon with though as he won the Madrid Masters, beating world #3 Gianluca Barrafuldi in the finals.

The Rome Masters was a bit of an odd one as the finals was contested by world #9 Ferdinand Duran and world #11 Ene Colon, after Dotto and Archer were upset in the early stages. Colon won this tournament, his first Masters title.

This was a precursor for the French Open, where both Dotto and Archer were knocked out in the 3rd round. It was an all-Argentinean final as world #3 Barrafuldi faced off against compatriot and world #5 Pirovano in the finals. This time, Barrafuldi prevailed, taking revenge for the earlier Masters loss in Madrid and taking home his 3rd French Open title.

At Wimbledon, it was #2 Archer that won the title but he faced off against Pirovano, who made another Grand Slam finals. A very good strong year for Pirovano but he was unable to prevail against Archer, who might possibly be the best player on the tour right now. With this, Archer defends his Wimbledon title.

At the Canada Masters, world #4 Bill Comfort beat #2 Archer in the finals. It's Comfort's first Masters title.

The Cincinnati Masters saw #1 Dotto and #2 Archer face off in the finals and Archer prevailed in 3 sets. The gap between the 2 is getting smaller and we may see the change in the top spot sooner rather than later.

Of course, Dotto then proceeds to win the US Open after that, beating #4 Comfort in the finals. This is Dotto's 4th successive title here, an impressive streak.

At the Shanghai Masters, the top 4 seeds all got bounced by the 3rd round. It left #9 Ferdinand Duran to face off against #6 Feliciano Putignani in the finals and Duran came out the winner. It's Duran's first Masters title while Putignani is still searching for his first one.

The last Masters of the year at Paris was won by #1 Dotto, beating #7 Marcello Borsellino in the finals.

At the WTF Finals, it was #2 Archer that won the title, beating #7 Borsellino in the finals.

Overall, it was a more open year this time around. While Dotto continues to reign at the top, he only managed 2 Grand Slams (Australian and US) and 2 Masters titles this year, which is a far cry from previous years. Instead, we see the next generation begin to press hard, with Archer closing the gap at the top to just 600 points by year's end and with other players like Comfort, Pirovano and Putignani also beginning to make regular appearances in Masters and Grand Slam finals.

Year End Top 10

#1 Points: 9,390 Valentino Dotto Age: 28
#2 Points: 8,790 Tony Archer Age: 26,
#3 Points: 7,010 Gianluca Baruffaldi Age: 29
#4 Points: 6,840 Bill Comfort Age: 26
#5 Points: 6,230 Arnaldo Pirovano Age: 25
#6 Points: 5,150 Feliciano Putignani Age: 26
#7 Points: 5,030 Marcello Borsellino Age: 25
#8 Points: 4,815 Ferdinand Durán Age: 24
#9 Points: 3,925 Aleksei Yatskay Age: 27
#10 Points: 3,890 Danil Mamine Age: 26

law90026

04-03-2016, 12:26 PM

So some shoutouts for other FOFC people in RR World 2:

Britrock's guys continue to be strong. Mendez and Lebydenko ended the year at #15 and #20 respectively. I expect Mendez to continue to improve on that this year.

Ntndeacon's Arbizu looks like he might have a decent year ahead as well. He's currently ranked #59 but he's got talent to move up more although he is getting a little older.

I'm also following digamma's Hein Siedler closely. Hein finished as the #11 ranked junior in the world and he will be starting his professional career at the same time as Claude Curtayne.

MarkBGregory

04-03-2016, 01:14 PM

A quick update on my three players in GW2 as well:

Juan José Elezgueta is entering his 22nd year and is hovering just outside the top 100. This year, he's planning to enter the majority of the Grand Slams, starting with the Australian Open in Week 4, although his clay court specialism will probably see him do best at Roland Garros. I'm hoping for him to break the top 50 this year, although his lack of stamina will continue to hold him back and may mean he never gets further than that.

Milestones: Elezgueta won his first Challenger title this year, a CH2 in his homeland in Buenos Aires, defeating the 1st, 3rd and 4th seeds along the way.

Igor Borowski graduated from the junior tour two years after Elezgueta, but is already ranked 289th in the world, having played just 13 tournaments last year. He's the fifth highest ranked 19-year-old at the turn of the year. He'll also be entering the Australian Open, as he's a hard court specialist, and that will enable him to assess what his target needs to be for the upcoming year. I'd like to see him inside the top 100, but it's a big target for such a young player.

Milestones: Borowski had an amazing end to the year, winning 6 Futures titles, including two FT2s, in the last six months, climbing from outside the top 500 to inside the top 300 in the process.

Christian Kulle finished his final year of junior eligibility with aplomb: he won the final JGA in Casablanca and ended up #1 in the junior rankings. He's only played one senior tournament so far, so he's ranked well outside the top 1500 in the world, but I'm hoping a year similar to Borowski's should take him closer to the top 200-300 by the end of the year.

Milestones: Kulle won three Junior Slams: the Australian Open, US Open and the Casablanca Cup.

law90026

04-03-2016, 06:54 PM

Nice results Mark!

MarkBGregory

04-04-2016, 03:33 AM

Thanks law! Mixed results at the start of the new year, I'll update once the Australian Open is over.

MarkBGregory

04-04-2016, 09:12 AM

I've leave Law to do a full update, but I'll catch you up on the first few weeks for my lads, now the Australian Open is over.

Juan Jose Elezgueta has had a pretty crap start to the year, to be honest. It's now been three years since he graduated the junior tour, and so he'll be turning 22 this year. He's a clay court specialist from Argentina, with a fondness for grass too, but I thought I'd enter him into the Australian Open, to see what sort of impact he could make on the hard courts.
I expected him to have to qualify for the main draw, therefore picking up some decent experience and ranking points, but he snuck into the main draw as the last direct acceptance, which kinda sucked. He promptly got beaten by Latvian Varis Ozols in the first round.
The following week, he entered a clay court CH2 Challenger, much more up his street. Unfortunately, it seemed to be quite a strong field, and Elezgueta was unseeded and played the 2nd seed Gregorio Yapo in the first round, losing 6-7(4) 6-4 6-1. Thanks to a Futures title dropping off his ranking from last year, he's actually slipped five places in the rankings to #124.

Igor Borowski has had a completely different set of results. Borowski only graduated from the junior tour last year, but his stats already looked decent enough to enter the Australian Open. Ranked #295, he had to come through qualifying, but did so nicely without dropping a set, before a completely unexpected 6-3 7-5 6-3 first round victory against Canadian Alan Lockett gave him a place in the second round. He played Falko Gimelstob, who was in the same junior year as Elezgueta, and lost 7-6(2) 6-7(4) 6-2 7-5 in a decent performance.
The following week he entered a FT1 Futures event Indoors in his home country of Belarus. Because the AO lasts two weeks, his points from the competition hadn't come on yet, so he was only seeded 5th, but he still managed to come through to the final before losing to Victor Baiao 5-7 6-4 6-4.
The two week boon means Borowski climbed 90(!) places to #205 in the world - still eligible for Futures but not far from competing at Challenger level. And, an added bonus - he was called up for his country in the World Team Cup this week too!

Christian Kulle is no longer a junior #1 - he's now fighting to see where he belongs in the big leagues. He's only played one event so far this year, in the same week as the Australian Open - a FT3 Futures on Hard in Belgium. He had to qualify for the main draw, but had an excellent week, reaching the final before losing to the top seed Nicolas Della Longa 6-3 6-4 in the final. He's up to #1110 in the world now, still a long way to go.

I also hired a fourth player, German Harald Babbel, who looks okay in terms of Talent and Endurance but could use some work mentally and physically. I'll probably drop him as soon someone half decent comes along, but I'm training him up as normal for now.

law90026

04-04-2016, 11:34 AM

Year 323 Weeks 1 to 6

Teo Rask

The year for Teo starts with a WTC match for Sweden against France. As has been the case in recent times, Teo and Sean Mendez play singles for Sweden and they are up against #27 Jean Paul Demercastel and #55 Pierre-Yves Poidebard. It's a close one as Sweden win 3-2 and Teo plays the part of the hero this time by winning both his singles and Mendez winning his match against Poidebard.

Elsewhere, ntndeacon's Joaquim Arbizu plays for Ecuador and they lose to Russia 3-2. Arbizu actually beat world #9 Aleksei Yatskay but lost to world #10 Danil Mamine, splitting his matches. Compatriot and world #8 Ferdinand Duran also split his matches and it was over when the Ecuadorian doubles lost as well.

Off next to the Sydney 250 for some form and Teo reaches the QFs before losing to world #16 Sarmiento Roblez. A fair result against one of the best young players in the game.

At the Australian Open, Teo cruised to the 3rd round where he faced off against world #11 Mario Avendano (who was a mainstay in the top 5 for a long period). Teo loses in straight sets but he matches last year's results again. Britrock's Sean Mendez was upset in the first round by another up and coming star in Uson but Lebydenko reaches the 3rd round before being knocked out by #12 Ene Colon. Arbizu had an unfortunate draw, going up against world #2 Tony Archer in the first round and he stood no chance. ntndeacon's other player, Benavediz, ran through the qualifiers but was knocked out in the first round as well. Mark has helpfully covered his players in this tournament!

Remember how I said we might be seeing a change in the #1 spot soon? This is where it happens as Dotto is knocked out in the QFs by #7 Marcello Borsellino. Tony Archer reaches the SFs but that swing is sufficient to propel Archer to the #1 spot in the world. This was a tournament which I think shows the changing in the guard is taking place as #6 Feliciano Putignani wins his first Grand Slam, beating a super-talented 22 year old, Gaspare Caprera, in the finals.

Teo then heads off for another WTC match and Sweden crushes Brazil 5-0 overall. This should mean that Sweden will top their group as their final match is against a Bolivian team that has seen better days as they currently field the #211 and #777 players in the world for singles.

It's the 2 big 500 indoor tournaments up next for Teo so good luck to him.

Ghazi Mehmett

Just one tournament for Ghazi during this period and it was disappointing as he was bounced in the first round of a FT3 in Brazil for both singles and doubles. He will be playing another FT3 in week 7 and hoping for a better result.

Claude Curtayne

Similarly, just 1 tournament for Claude as he takes part in his first amateur tournament but there was a lot of tennis to be played. He had to play qualifiers for both singles and doubles and reached the SFs for singles and QFs for doubles, playing a total of 11 matches. While he was beaten soundly in the SFs, he was exhausted by then, but a fair enough result for Claude in his first non-junior tournament (not counting a scheduling mistake I made a long time ago). This pushes him to #2098 in singles and his grind begins as well.

law90026

04-04-2016, 11:51 AM

So just a quick look at some of the best young players coming up through the ranks right now using Brian's ranking system:

1. Tony Archer is the best player with a 10.21 rating. At 26 years old, he's probably around his peak.
2. The recent Australian Open finalist, Caprara, is 22 years old and a 10.11, with a -3% aging factor! Odds are high he's going to be a future no. 1.
3. Marcello Borsellino, 25 years old, is at 10.06 and already ranked #7 in the world.
4. Putignani, the winner of the Australian Open, is 9.99 at age 26.
5. 22 year old Mjej Aghavelian is ranked #33 in the world and rated at 9.78.
6. 25 year old Milton Aguilar may have had the boat sail past him as he hasn't been able to break into the top 10 and others are now coming up past him. Rated at 9.74.
7. Sarmiento Roblez, 22 years old and ranked #16, is rated at 9.71. He has a 5% aging factor though so he might already be peaking/peaked.
8. Ferdinand Duran, 24 years old, is #8 and rated 9.68 but he has a 2% aging factor.
9. Juan Larran, #27 and rated 9.62, is 23 but his 4% aging factor will be a hurdle for him at this stage.

As a reference, Sean Mendez is at 9.54 while Teo Rask is only a 9.22. Arbizu is a 9.01 while Lebydenko is a 9.22 as well.

I have to say though that Mark's guys look good! Elezgueta, at age 21, is a 9.28 rated player although his 4% aging factor is a potential issue. Borowski, at age 19, is 8.79, so already potentially a top 100 player.

MarkBGregory

04-04-2016, 01:17 PM

Thanks Law! Yeah, that's the problem with all three of my seniors - they all have positive aging factors, even Borowski at 101%. But, we'll see I guess!

law90026

04-06-2016, 02:47 AM

Year 323 Weeks 7 to 16

Teo Rask

So Teo’s season is starting to fall apart a little at this early stage. Not sure if it’s an indication he’s beginning to fall back based on age but staying in the top 30 this year may be a more realistic goal than staying in the top 20.

After the Australian Open, Teo was off to the Rotterdam 500 event, a place he has made 2 consecutive finals. This year though, he was knocked out in the 2nd round, albeit by rising star Lucas Coscino in 3 close sets. Here, Britrock’s Sean Mendez made the QFs before losing to world #4 Gianluca Barrafuldi.

Teo didn’t take part in the Memphis 500 this year, electing instead to take part in the Open 13 250 event. Here he made the SFs as the #1 seed before losing to #6 seed Jean Paul Demercastel in the SFs.

Week 11 was Indian Wells, where Teo was seeded #22. He made the 3rd round before facing off against world #2 Dotto and was beaten 6/2, 6/4. This was a tournament where youth again showed its strength as the finalists were Sarmiento Roblez and Gaspare Carprara, with Roblez winning his first Masters. Sean Mendez and Andrei Lebydenko also made the 3rd round before losing to Timmy Toy (a mild upset over Sean Mendez) and world #1 Tony Archer respectively. Joaquim Arbizu also took part but was knocked out in the 2nd round by Timmy Toy.

Week 13 was the next Masters at Miami. Teo was upset by Frank Maydon in the 2nd round and he loses yet more ranking points in the first half of the year. #7 seed Marcello Borsellino won this tournament, beating #5 seed Putignani in the finals. Sean Mendez and Andrei Lebydenko were also both upset in the 2nd round by unseeded Luca Granda and Nikalaos Metaxas respectively.

Week 15 was the final WTC Group match for Sweden against Bolivia. Remember how I said it should be an easy win? I was wrong as Sweden was upset 3-2, behind the strong play of world #158 Francisco Olbera. Olbera is a 32 year old former world #3 but there’s really no reason for both Teo and Mendez to lose to him. Still, Sweden top the group and will face Spain in the QFs. Spain currently field world #25 Lucas Coscino (who has a 3-1 record over Teo) and world #23 Adam Preto for singles and former world #1 Antonio Filho plays doubles. It will be a tough match.

Teo had a distinct lack of form so he took part in the Hassan II 250 event, where he was seeded #2. Shock upset in the 2nd round though as he loses to world #82 Shao Hoo-gwo, who admittedly had a good tournament as he reached the SFs before losing to #5 seed Frank Maydon.

Teo is still ranked #20 although I expect that to drop a little more. Where to from here? He won’t be taking part in Monte Carlo in light of his current state of play and will be looking towards finding form for the clay Masters coming up.

Ghazi Mehmett

Ghazi took part in 4 tournaments during this period, all FT3 events. In Israel, he reached the SFs of the singles draw, before losing to Ivo Almayda 6/3, 6/3. In Ghana, he again reached the SFs before losing to Joaquin Amelgueta 6/2, 6/3. The Hungary FT3 was disappointing as he was dumped in the 2nd round. He made up for that in a France FT3, as he reached the finals before losing to Lugomir Sekanic 6/3, 6/4.

The most recent result should push Ghazi somewhere into the bottom half of the 400s. He will probably take part in a few more FT3s to see how he does before considering whether to move up to FT2s in the 2nd half of the year.

Claude Curtayne

Claude took part in just 1 amateur tournament during this period and he won it comfortably. I suspect he’s actually ready for FT3s but I think I will let him take part in 1 more amateur tournament first before making the switch. Currently ranked #1525 in the world.

MarkBGregory

04-06-2016, 06:18 AM

Juan Jose Elezgueta

A difficult start to the season has just about levelled out for the Argentinian, and he's now par for the course: he finished last year ranked 119th, and he's dragged himself back up to 118th with three decent performances at Challenger level.

Week 9 saw him take part in the CH2 on the clay of Meknes, Morocco. Unseeded, he took out 6th seed Joao Rodriguez in the first round and eased past Frank Luxa in the second, before a comprehensive 6-0 6-1 defeat to top seed Gregorio Yapo stopped his run in its tracks. Two weeks later he was in Chile at another CH2, and once again got drawn against Joao Rodriguez in the first round. This time he lost 4-6 7-5 6-2.

Undeterred, a CH2 in Marrakesh two weeks later finally bore fruit. Again coming from an unseeded position, Elezgueta took out the second seed in the first round, the fifth seed in the quarters and the sixth seed in the semis before finally losing 7-6(7) 6-3 to top seed Giotto Mansi in the final.

Elezgueta then entered the Monte Carlo Masters this week, and did nicely to come through qualifying and win his first round match before coming up against 4th seed and world #6 Feliciano Putignani in the second. A decent performance from the Argentinian, but an expected defeat in the end, 7-5 7-6(2). I sense he's not far away from breaking through to the elite.

Igor Borowski

Borowski's ranking has been boosted by three wins at World Team Cup level since the Australian Open, adding 75 vital points to his ranking. Despite being two years younger, the Belarussian isn't far behind Elezgueta at 157th right now.

He's entered two tournaments aside from the WTC since the AO, reaching the SFs of a CH2 in Japan Indoors, seeded #3, and last week reaching the QFs of a CH3 in America as fifth seed, losing to eventual champion Stuart Legh, seeded 4th.

Christian Kulle

Kulle continues to rise through the Futures ranks, having played two tournaments since the last update and winning both. At a FT3 in Tunisia, he came through unseeded to the final and beat Jurgen Adler 6-0 6-0(!), and a few weeks later stepped up a level to FT2 in his homeland of Sweden. Seeded seventh, he came through again to the final before beating second seed Duana Brockless 6-2 6-2.

law90026

04-07-2016, 10:27 PM

Year 323 Week 17 to 26

Teo Rask

At a 250 event in Bucharest, Teo restored a little stability to his season by reaching the finals as the #1 seed before losing to #2 seed Feliciano Rebellin in the finals, 4/6, 6/1, 6/2. Rebellin is a 22 year old that is rising up the ranks quite quickly and is talented (9.42 rating), so not really too upset about the loss although a win would have been even better of course.

Then 2 successive 1st round exits at the Madrid and Rome Masters made me seriously consider pulling Teo from singles play and start focusing on becoming a trainer. Just poor overall. A bunch of FOFC players took part but Lebydenko and Elezgueta were all knocked out in the 1st round as well. Sean Mendez made a good run though, reaching the QFs and claiming the scalp of world #7 Putignani in the 3rd round before losing to unseeded Jean Paul Demercastel, the 30 year old who just won’t go away! The tournament was won by world #2 Arnaldo Pirovano, who crushed Feliciano Rebellin in the finals. See what I mean when I say Rebellin is a talented player?

In Rome, besides Teo, Sean Mendez was also upset in the 1st round, losing to #11 seed Danil Mamine. That’s the problem in the smaller Masters tournaments where there are only 16 seeds, it becomes a crapshoot for everyone else. Lebydenko made the 2nd round before losing to world #1 Tony Archer. Joaquim Arbizu lost in the first round to Burt Tinker. Success for the tournament goes to Elezgueta, who reached the 3rd round before falling to world #3 Dotto. This was a tournament won by world #2 Pirovano, so back to back Masters titles for him and he beat world #10 Sarmiento Roblez in the finals.

In order to find some form before the French Open, Teo then took part in the 250 Power Horse Cup. However, the #2 seed lost in the QFs to Magui Pitillas, so another early’ish exit for him.

Then, a pleasant surprise for Teo in the French Open. Seeded #22, he cruised in the first round, beating a qualifier 6/0, 6/2, 6/1. In the 2nd round, he faced a former junior world #1 in Matthias Huber 7/5, 6/1, 7/5. This set up a match against #14 seed Antonio Lopezcastro and Teo won easily 6/4, 6/0, 6/1, to reach the 4th round. It’s always nice to get further than expected in a major tournament and Teo shows that he shouldn’t be written off just yet. In the 4th round, Teo was up against world #8 Gianluca Barrafuldi but was unable to upset him, losing 6/4, 6/1, 6/2.

Elsewhere, Sean Mendez reached the 3rd round before losing to world #7 Putignani. Lebydenko also made the 3rd round before losing to the hottest player on tour right now, world #2 Arnaldo Pirovano. Joaquim Arbizu had an unlucky draw as he was up against #15 seed Feliciano Rebellin in the 1st round and was beaten there. Elezgueta made it to the 2nd round before losing to world #6 Bill Comfort.

The French Open was won by the #13 seed Aleksei Yatskay, a player who has bounced around the top 10 to 15 positions in the world. He beat world #2 Pirovano in the finals, who has been crazy good during this clay season.

Ghazi Mehmett

2 tournaments for Ghazi during this period. In singles, he was knocked out in the 1st round of a FT3 but made the SFs of the other FT3. In doubles, he reached the QFs for both FT3 tournaments. He is at #499 in the world right now.

Claude Curtayne

Claude won another amateur tournament in week 18 and reached the doubles SFs for that same tournament. He then tried to move up to a FT3 tournament but his low ranking meant that he faced the #2 seed early on and he was knocked out in the 2nd round. He will probably play 1 more amateur tournament to get his ranking below #1000 before taking part in FT3s again, just to try and get a ranking in tournaments. Currently ranked #1071 in the world.

Brian Swartz

04-07-2016, 11:22 PM

MarkBGregory

04-08-2016, 09:03 AM

Thanks Law for summing up Elezgueta's results in the big events. A small catch up from my side of things too:

Juan Jose Elezgueta

As Law said, it's been a good clay court season for Elezgueta. Having reached the 2nd round of the Monte Carlo Masters, The Argentinian made it through qualifying for the Madrid Masters before being beaten in R1, but his big result came in Rome. Again coming through qualifying, he secured an amazing 7-5 6-3 victory over world #14 Aniceto Lopezcastro in the second round before an inevitable defeat to former world #1 Valentino Dotto.

Since then, Elezgueta made the second round of Roland Garros (the first time he had entered a big event directly), and then the third round of Wimbledon, having beaten 27th seed Lucas Coscino in the second round. This week, week 30, Elezgueta is playing in a CH+ event in Colombia, and has reached the semi-finals so far. He's now 74th in the world.

Igor Borowski

As Borowski is a hard court specialist, it's been a quiet clay season for the Belarussian. He's remained a firm contender on the Challenger circuit, but he results have slowed slightly, with his best result coming at a CH3 on Grass, his least favourite surface, in Week 23. He's heading over to Masters action in Canada and Cincinnati before the US Open. Ranked 142nd.

Christian Kulle

Kulle's made the most of a selection of Futures events in his home country, reaching the semi-finals and picking up the title at two Swedish FT1 events. Outside of Sweden he's been a little less successful, but this week he's currently into the semis of an FT1 in Israel. Ranked just outside the top 400, there's still a little ways to go to know whether or not he'll make it big.

Brian Swartz

04-10-2016, 08:30 AM

It's fascinating to me how hyper-competitive the 'first page' is in this world, especially right now. Archer was #1 not long ago at all, and is now down to fourth. Four players within less than 800 points fighting for the top spot, and it seems almost random who takes it at any given point in time. None of them has as many points as #3 in my universe! :eek:

law90026

04-10-2016, 11:38 PM

I think Teo is just in a bad slump. Not that this helps since you can't really do anything about it other than hope he starts playing better, but he shouldn't have started declining yet, at least not enough to notice. He should be right at the end of his prime.

That might actually make it worse, since I thought this would be his last really good year, a chance to maybe finish in the Top 15, make the quarters at a Slam somewhere, that kind of thing. Next year the aging process will probably start making him drop a bit. *sadface*

Heh it's all good. Teo is playing at his level so I'm not too disappointed. I think this will be his 3rd year where he finishes around the #20 position and it's been a decent run. World 2 is crazy competitive I suspect so that doesn't help.

Still there's a lot I learnt from managing Teo and hopefully I get a good generated player when I use my credits to create a player!

Any tips for that process?

law90026

04-10-2016, 11:39 PM

Brian Swartz

04-11-2016, 02:21 AM

hopefully I get a good generated player when I use my credits to create a player!

Any tips for that process?

You're basically guaranteed to get a good player, they just may not be great. More on that in a bit here. I always create a new player on Sunday of Week 52. The first thing you have to do is fire an existing one, since you can't create a new one without an empty spot in your roster. This can make things a little interesting if you have enough credits to create more than one player, since if you want to try for someone better you have to fire someone first, and then if the RNG doesn't treat you well you're kind of sunk due to somebody else hiring whoever it is you got rid of. Doing it at the beginning of the week lets you use that week for xp before you enter any tournaments. A small thing, but grab every advantage you can. IIRC the players start off at exactly 20 form so you'll have time to put in a few practice weeks before you need to do your first junior tournaments.

You have three things you can control in terms of how good the player is. Name and nation obviously don't matter here. I don't remember the exact terminology the game uses, but I'll be creating a new player in less than two weeks now so this stuff is fairly fresh in my mind having done it a few times.

** Aging -- Three settings, something like Peak Early, Peak Normal, or Peak Late. I always choose the one that gives a low aging factor, for longevity(and poor juniors/early development of course as the tradeoff).

** Best Attribute -- You can choose one of strength, speed, endurance, talent, to have a better chance to get a good 'roll' on. I think those are the only ones in there but I would double-check it as I don't recall for certain. I go with endurance. As has been discussed it is in my opinion the most important. Having said that in a fast world I would consider whether talent may be more important for you.

** Worst Attribute -- You also have to choose one that has a better chance of being lower. I have always chosen one of the athletic ones, strength and speed. I think speed is probably the best choice here as strength is probably a little more important but you could argue that either way.

Finally, cross your fingers :P.

Prospective Results

I've created four players so far, with at least one more coming soon -- I have the credits to do two more at the end of the year here, so if the first one goes bad I have a 'backup' so to speak. Three of them are players I'm managing right now, the fourth wasn't quite as good so I jettisoned them. Here's how they came out on the TESS scale:

** Anil Mehul -- 8.9 TE(4.4 Talent, 4.5 Endurance), 6.6 SS(3.4 strength, 3.2 speed), 95% aging. Best of any of them in endurance and aging factor, but relatively 'meh' talent and athleticism.

** Girish Girsh -- 8.7 TE(4.4 Talent, 4.3 Endurance), 6.1 SS(2.9 strength, 3.2 speed), 96% aging. Girsh was the most developed(most starting skill and service) so that mitigated at least somewhat the fact that he was a little more limited. He also had a higher mentality(3.8), Mehul was at 3.4.

** Shyam Senepathy -- 8.8 TE(4.5 Talent, 4.3 Endurance), 5.7 SS(3.5 strength, 2.2 speed), 96% aging. I haven't written much about him because he's the one that I 'threw back'. This was mostly because of the low speed around the court. Another 3.4 mentality here. He's not terrible by any stretch, mismanagement has him barely inside the Top 300 at age 20, but he could have been good -- just not quite as good as the others.

** Prakash Mooljee -- 8.9 TE(4.7 Talent, 4.2 Endurance), 6.8 SS(3.5 Strength, 3.3 Speed), 97% aging. On the TESS scale he is the best I've turned out; on the other hand he was the least developed in terms of skill/service, sort of the other end of that process from Girsh. He's doing very well though. Mentality came out at 3.4 again.

Conclusions

The game promises a strong but not necessarily world class player, and I think these results bear that out. There has been a great degree of consistency in an admittedly very small sample size. From reading the forums years ago on the subject, it is or at least was possible to get a really fantastic player significantly better than this, but quite rare. I imagine it's also probably possible to get one somewhat worse. I do think you can expect to get players who are better than the ones you can hire in a busy world(unless you are consistently lucky and quick) this way.

law90026

04-11-2016, 03:14 AM

That's great info thanks!

law90026

04-11-2016, 04:41 AM

Year 323 Weeks 27 to 46

Teo Rask

Teo entered Wimbledon in week 27. In Round 3, he faced off against #11 seed Danil Mamine and beat him 6/4, 6/2, 7/6(5), which set up a 4th round match against #7 seed Gianluca Barrafuldi. This led to a titanic match, which Barrafuldi won 7/5, 6/4, 4/6, 3/6, 10/8. A close match and no shame in the loss and overall a good tournament for Teo as he reached another 4th round of a Grand Slam this year. Tony Archer won the tournament, beating #12 seed and UK national Milton Aguilar in the finals. Sean Mendez reached the 4th round before losing to Tony Archer, Andrei Lebydenko reached the 3rd round before losing to #6 seed Bill Comfort while Elezgueta reached the 3rd round before losing to Tom Liekmar.

Week 29 was the 250 Swedish Open and Teo reached the SFs before losing to #1 seed Adam Preto 7/5, 6/3.

The 250 event at Gstaad was the next tournament Teo entered in and he reached the finals before losing to #2 seed Ene Colon 6/4, 6/3 in the finals.

The Canadian Masters was a wash-out as Teo lost in the first round to #14 seed Feliciano Rebellin. This tournament was won by #4 seed and now world #1 Marcello Borsellino, who beat #5 seed Feliciano Putignani in the finals. Gianluca Barrafuldi was a major roadblock for Britrock as he beat Sean Mendez in the first round then Lebydenko in the 2nd round in an odd scheduling quirk.

Over at the Cincinnati Masters, Teo made it to the 2nd round before losing to #11 seed Gaspare Caprara (who has since entered the world top 10), 6/3, 6/4. The tournament was won by #8 seed Sarmiento Roblez, beating Caprara in the finals. A first round loss for Mendez against a qualifier sums up how tough a year he has had, while Lebydenko lost in the 2nd round to #15 seed Stephen Peters.

At the US Open, Teo played to his #21 seed, reaching the 3rd round before losing to #9 seed Caprara (yes him again!). It was a drubbing as Teo lost 6/2, 6/0, 6/2. Mendez also reached the 3rd round before losing to unseeded Nikolaos Metaxas (a player that Teo has lost to on multiple occasions as well), while ntndeacon’s Arbizu reached the 3rd round before losing to #16 seed Stephen Peters. Arbizu actually beat Lebydenko in the 2nd round as well in a clash of FOFC players. Digamma’s Kanjeric also had a nice run as he battled through the qualifying rounds and reached the 2nd round of the main draw before losing to #13 seed Danil Mamine. Caprara won his first Grand Slam here, beating Borsellino in the finals.

In the WTC Cup QFs, Sweden were humiliated 5-0 by Spain as Teo and Mendez were outclassed by Spain’s Uson and Preto. Not much to be said here.

Then to the 250 event at St Petersberg where Teo won his first title of the year, beating #7 seed Ruslan Aznabaev in the finals.

At the Malaysian Open, Teo reached the SFs before losing to #2 seed Feliciano Rebellin, who would go on to beat #1 seed Aleksei Yatskay in the finals as well.

Teo bowed out in the 2nd round of the Shanghai Masters, losing to #7 seed Dotto. Losing is putting it kindly, it was a 6/1, 6/0 massacre. #8 seed Ferdinan Duran won the tournament, beating #5 seed Caprara (yes him again!) in the finals. It was a tournament of upsets as #1 seed Borsellino was knocked out in the 2nd round by wildcard Metaxas, #2 seed Pirovano lost in the 3rd round to unseeded Uson and #4 seed Tony Archer lost to unseeded Mjaj Aghavelian in the 2nd round (who also beat Dotto in the QFs). Lebydenko also had his part to play as he upset #12 seed Yatskay in the 2nd round before losing to Duran in the 3rd round. Mendez went out in the 2nd round though, also to Duran.

Teo then defended his title at the Stockholm Open, beating #2 seed Mathieu Trottier in the finals 6/1, 6/2, for his 2nd title of the year.

In the final tournament of the year, Teo was knocked out in the 2nd round of the Paris Masters, losing to #9 seed Gianluca Barrafuldi. It wasn’t as close a match as their titanic showdown in Wimbledon, Barrafuldi winning comfortably 6/3, 6/4 this time. #3 seed Tony Archer won the tournament, beating #6 seed Roblez in the finals. Mendez reached the 2nd round before losing to world #1 Borsellino while Lebydenko was knocked out in the 1st round by unseeded Agia.

With that, Teo’s season ends and he finishes at #22 in the world (barring any other players losing points during the last few weeks of the year), which is about where I thought he might end up after the first half of the year. In line with expectations and it will be interesting to see if Teo can hang on to a top 30 spot next year (I suspect he can if I continue to let him focus on singles rather than start to dabble in doubles and preparing to become a trainer).

Ghazi Mehmett

The problem with Futures tournaments is that they are such a random bag of players it’s really hard to tell how a player will do. Ghazi played in 5 FT3 tournaments during this stretch and won 1, came in 2nd once and reached 3 QFs. I guess that means he’s not quite ready to move up to the FT2 level but it’s also hard to improve the ranking without playing the bigger Futures events. Patience I tell myself. He still has 1 or 2 tournaments before the year ends so I suspect he ends up somewhere in the 300s when all is said and done.

Claude Curtayne

Claude won another amateur tournament in week 28 and that officially pushed him into the top 1000 in the world and it was a full slate of Futures tournaments for him thereafter. Results were also erratic for him, as he was knocked out in the first round once, reached 1 QF, reached a SF and won 1 FT3. He’s ranked #587 in the world and I think he gets close to the #500 spot before the year ends.

Vittorio Annunzo

Vittorio’s junior career is coming to an end and he will finish somewhere in the 30s at junior level. He started the year in the teens and so it’s disappointing he has dropped so far in the junior rankings, although that doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the grand scheme of things. He did take part in an amateur tournament in week 46 and reached the 3rd round there so he has his first official ranking point and is ranked #2387 in the world!

Brian Swartz

04-11-2016, 06:52 AM

Ghazi played in 5 FT3 tournaments during this stretch and won 1, came in 2nd once and reached 3 QFs. I guess that means he’s not quite ready to move up to the FT2 level but it’s also hard to improve the ranking without playing the bigger Futures events. Patience I tell myself.

On the last sentence, you are telling yourself the right thing :). I took a closer look at Ghazi, and he basically seems to be playing about at his ranking; i.e., he does well when he's highly seeded, but when he's down around 5th or 6th in an event he's generally not taking down the players ranked above him. That would tell me stay where you are at for a while longer; playing bigger Futures events won't help(more consistently winning/getting to the finals of FT3's will :)). And once that happens you can move up. At 7.81, I would expect him to have a much better futures year upcoming that the one he just got done with. The only other thing, which you may already be doing, is looking at the schedule of events each week. If there are a lot of big futures, you may be able to get away with a FT2 on occasion since the field will get diluted. But on the lighter weeks they will be backed with players in the Top 300 or better and that wouldn't be useful. .02.

That's great info thanks!

You're welcome.

law90026

04-11-2016, 07:52 AM

And Dotto has been fired by his manager! Plus the top 2 players in the world are both managed by the same player, Loxu. Craziness all round.

Brian Swartz

04-13-2016, 01:07 PM

Must have moar updates! :P

law90026

04-14-2016, 02:04 AM

Must have moar updates! :P

Heh been busy and the world moves so fast! Update on my guys coming up but no update on year-end stuff because we are already in week 12!

law90026

04-14-2016, 02:04 AM

Year 324 Weeks 1 to 11

Teo Rask

The retirement tour has begun. Teo can probably still hang around for 2 to 3 more years and maintain a top 50 position (I think) but, let’s face it, he’s never going to win a Masters or a Grand Slam. So rather than drag it out, I’ve decided this will be Teo’s last year. With that, I can elect not to play a single Masters event which have been a real drain on his ranking points the past 2 years. Put it this way, if you’re not in the top 16 in the world, you’re likely to be knocked out early’ish in these events unless your talent level is really high so it’s a double whammy for Teo from that perspective.

In week 1, Teo played for Sweden again, along with Sean Mendez, against a young German team. While the Swedes both beat 40th ranked Tom Liekmar, they also both lost to rising start Matt Huber and Sweden loses their first match in the WTC 3-2.

Off to the Qatar 250 event and Teo reached the QFs before losing to #2 seed Adam Preto.

At the Australian Open, Teo was knocked out a round early as he was upset in the 2nd round by unseeded Dominik Bigos, who is a 22 year old up-and-comer (9.44 rating). Andrei Lebydenko was knocked out in the 3rd round by #12 seed Danil Mamine while Sean Mendez made it to the 4th round before losing to #2 seed Sarmiento Roblez, who went on to win the tournament by beating #4 seed Gaspare Caprara in the finals. Joaquim Arbizu also reached the 3rd round before losing to #6 seed Marcello Borsellino. Dragi Kanjeric (digamma’s guy) was knocked out in the 1st round by another unseeded player while Igor Borowski was knocked out in the first round by #17 seed Burt Tinker.

At the 2nd round of WTC matches, Teo won both his singles matches as Sweden swept Brazil 5-0.

Teo then went on an indoor tournament spree, taking part in back-to-back-to-back 250 events in France, San Jose and France again. He had a series of good results, coming in 2nd (losing to #2 seed Feliciano Rebellin), 2nd (losing to #1 seed Burt Tinker) and 1st (beating #2 seed Arnold Jarvilaturi) respectively. This pushes him up to #19 in the world.

Teo then skipped the first Masters of the year but went on to win a doubles FT3 tournament to keep his form up.

Ghazi Mehmett

Ghazi has played 3 tournaments during this period, 1 FT2 and 2 FT3s. Results have been quite good as he reached the SFs of the FT2 and won 1 of the FT3s although he was knocked out in the 2nd round of the other FT3. Up to #384 in the world and he has reached the finals of another FT3 event in week 12.

Claude Curtayne

Claude has only played in 2 FT3s during this period, winning one and coming in 2nd in the other. His high form as a result of good results means that he could play less tournaments overall which is good for his long-term growth. Up to #444 in the world and it looks like he will be a better professional than Ghazi based on how quickly his results have come although it’s early days yet of course.

Vittorio Annunzo

Vittorio has also had a successful start to his professional career. He played in 2 amateur tournaments, winning 1 and coming in 2nd in the other. His ranking is fluctuating around the #1000 mark so his next tournament may be a futures event, depending on how things pan out. I’m hoping for an amateur tournament to be honest but we’ll see how that goes.

law90026

04-17-2016, 10:15 AM

Year 324 Weeks 12 to 31

Teo Rask
So I made a boo boo and misunderstood what it means to miss the Masters events. I had thought, for some bizarre reason, that skipping a Masters event meant that I was banned from taking part in a Masters event the next year. Turns out I get 0 points and it still counts. Ah well.

Teo continues to head towards becoming a trainer and he's going to be a 5.3 to 5.4 trainer at the end of this year I think.

In the 3rd round robin WTC match against Estonia, Teo again lost both singles and Sweden lost 3-2. They end the group in 3rd place, which is a tad disappointing. Sean Mendez split his singles matches.

Off to a 250 clay event at Hassan where Teo lost in the QFs to #6 seed Valenti Agia, 6/2, 6/2.

A slightly better tournament after that as Teo entered a 250 event at Bucharest and was seeded #1. Unfortunately, he lost to #3 seed Matthieu Trotter in the finals, 4/6 6/3 7/5 (http://rr2.rockingrackets.com/index.php?page=tournament&extra=620162&subpage=draw&subsubpage=singles&round=5&addb=match&addv=57108f2c89f3e4.86965985).

At Estoril, another 250 clay event, Teo faced off against #7 seed Elezgueta in the QFs and youth prevailed, 6/1 3/6 6/2 (http://rr2.rockingrackets.com/index.php?page=tournament&extra=620165&subpage=draw&subsubpage=singles&round=3&addb=match&addv=5710b4ae32ac04.66869954).

At the Power Horse Cup, another 250 clay event, Teo lost to #6 seed Burgermeister 6/3, 6/2 in the QFs.

Further disappointment in the French Open, where Teo had reached the 4th round last year. This year, as the #21 seed, Teo lost in the 2nd round to Ruslan Aznabaev, 7/6<sup>5</sup> 3/6 6/7<sup>2</sup> 7/5 6/4 (http://rr2.rockingrackets.com/index.php?page=tournament&extra=620170&subpage=draw&subsubpage=singles&round=2&addb=match&addv=57118c5153ce71.36082313). Sean Mendez and Andrei Lebydenko both reached the 3rd round before losing to #1 seed Roblez and #11 seed Uson respectively. Arbizu also reached the 2nd round before losing to #10 seed Preto. Elezgueta unfortunately lost in the first round when he was drawn against #27 seed Mansi. Kanjeric will rue this as a missed opportunity as he was knocked out in the 1st round as he lost to another qualifier there.

#5 seed Pirovano won the tournament, beating #8 seed Yatskay in the finals.

First grass tournament of the year at Halle and Teo made the SFs before losing to old rival Tom Liekmar.

At Eastbourne, Teo was knocked out in the QFs by unseeded John Elliot.

Wimbledon resulted in a 3rd round loss to #13 seed Feliciano Rebellin. Sean Mendez lost in the 3rd round to #14 seed Sean Peters while Andrei Lebydenko had a shock 1st round loss to unseeded David Villa. Arbizu lost to #9 seed Preto in the first round. Elezgueta had a good tournament though, reaching the 3rd round before losing to John Elliot, who also beat Kanjeric in the first round. Borowski also lost in the first round.

Wimbledon continues to be #7 seed Tony Archer's favourite Grand Slam as he won his 4th consecutive title here, beating #12 seed Mjej Aghavelian in the finals.

At the Swedish Open, Teo was the #2 seed and he reached the finals but lost to the #1 seed Stephen Peters. This is actually Teo's 3rd finals in the past 4 years but he's only won 1 of them.

At Bogota, Teo was seeded #4 but lost to #6 seed Giotto Mansi in the SFs.

Teo is still ranked #24 in the world at this time.

Brian Swartz

04-17-2016, 10:24 AM

Teo continues to head towards becoming a trainer and he's going to be a 5.3 to 5.4 trainer at the end of this year I think.

How do you figure? He's in the 4.2-4.3 range right now, will take a LONG time for him to get that much higher.

I had thought, for some bizarre reason, that skipping a Masters event meant that I was banned from taking part in a Masters event the next year. Turns out I get 0 points and it still counts. Ah well.

Correct answer here is actually 'both', if you finished in the last year's top 30(check).

law90026

04-17-2016, 10:50 AM

How do you figure? He's in the 4.2-4.3 range right now, will take a LONG time for him to get that much higher.

Oh shit, my spreadsheet formula had an error! Well that makes me look even more foolish then!

MarkBGregory

04-17-2016, 12:34 PM

Year 324 Weeks 12 to 31

At Estoril, another 250 clay event, Teo faced off against #7 seed Elezgueta in the QFs and youth prevailed, 6/1 3/6 6/2 (http://rr2.rockingrackets.com/index.php?page=tournament&extra=620165&subpage=draw&subsubpage=singles&round=3&addb=match&addv=5710b4ae32ac04.66869954).

I was VERY shocked at this result, it was actually Elezgueta's first ATP 250 event, and he performed admirably against arguably quite a weak field. He continues to hover a little though, making not much progress - currently 79th in the world. I begin to doubt whether he'll ever get to the top 32...

MarkBGregory

04-18-2016, 11:30 AM

I thought I'd add to law's update with a little more information about my players' progress since the beginning of the GW year.

Juan Jose Elezgueta

It's been a year of rise and fall so far for Elezgueta, but generally progress is being made in the right direction.

Elezgueta finished last year just outside the top 80, and had a tricky few opening weeks of the season. As a clay court specialist with grass secondary, Elezgueta avoided the Australian Open having been knocked out in the first round last year, but did very little by way of compensation. A hard court CH2 was played in Week 2 just to keep form up, but the Argentinian was unseeded and fell to 5th seed Dominik Bigos 6-2 6-4 in the second round. In Week 5, he entered a clay court CH2 in Colombia with higher expectations, but a tough first round draw against 5th seed Pierre-Yves Poidebard led to a disappointing 6-1 3-6 6-4 defeat. Despite the difficult performance, Elezgueta rose to just within the top 80.

Then things started to pick up. A CH2 title was clinched in Week 9 in Morocco, with 5th seed Elezgueta gaining revenge against top seed Poidebard with a 6-3 6-4 victory in the final. Elezgueta stayed in Morocco for another CH2 in Week 13, reaching the final again before losing to unseeded American Evan Farthing. In Week 16, just before the Monte Carlo Masters, Elezgueta headed to Brazil for another CH2, in which he reached the semi-finals as the second seed before losing to 4th seed Tiago Yoshida, a big junior rival of his, 3-6 6-3 7-5. By the end of Week 16, Elezgueta has risen to a career high ranking of 60th.

A first round victory at the Monte Carlo MST event the following week was enough for some more points, and a defeat to third seed Gaspare Caprara in round two was hardly surprising. Then, the highlight of the year: Elezgueta's first foray into ATP 250 territory landed him a semi-final berth as the 7th seed at the Estoril Open, having beaten top seed Teo Rask along the way. A semi-final defeat to #5 Antonio Campelo of Portugal followed, as did a new career high: 53rd.

Elezgueta only reached the 1st round of the Roland Garros GSL and dropped points thanks to his second round appearance in the previous year. Another foray into ATP 250 territory at the Queen's Club afforded a quarter-final appearance as the 10th seed, before a narrow 7-5 7-6(1) defeat to 4th seed Valenti Agia ended his hopes. Then a second consecutive third round appearance at Wimbledon held his ranking steady, the highlight being a victory over 18th seed Ene Colon, 3-6 6-4 6-1 7-6(5). Post-Wimbledon, thanks to a big points drop before RG, he was at 74th in the world.

But the position has been somewhat recovered in more recent weeks. A meagre second round finish at the Olympics was more of a novelty than a highlight, but two consecutive clay court CH1 events have paid dividends, with a title in Sam Marino in Week 34 as the third seed, beating top seed Joaquim Arbizu in the final, and a semi-final appearance the following week in Italy, losing 6-1 6-1 to Italian Fabio Fagnini, who was enjoying the home advantage. Elezgueta currently sits in 65th in the world.

According to the 10-point scale, his rating is 9.49.

Igor Borowski

It's been a great year so far for 21-year-old Borowski, who started the year ranked roughly 130th but is now 89th.

The year started poorly though, with only WTC performances standing out amongst poor singles results across the board. 1 win in Week 1 at the WTC was followed by a second round exit at a hard-court CH2 in Brazil - entered as a wildcard, Borowski lost 2-6 7-6(7) 6-2 to eighth seed John Elliot in the second round. A straight-sets first round defeat to #17 Burt Tinker in the Australian Open GSL in Week 4 was followed by two more WTC victories in Week 6 and another CH2 second round defeat in Week 7, losing unseeded to second seed Gregorio Yapo 6-2 6-3. By the end of Week 7, Borowski had slumped to outside the top 150, and before he was back in competitive action again, he fell as low as 171st.

But three consecutive weeks boosted his ranking phenomenally. A CH2 in Mexico was won from an unseeded position after defeating the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 7th seeds en route to the title, and the following week he did it again, this time as the top seed, defeating third seed Charlie Armour 6-7(3) 6-2 6-1 in the final. After that, another two wins in the final round robin of the WTC not only gave him 50 more points but also secured Belarus' place in the knockout stage. In three weeks, Borowski had risen from outside the top 170 to inside the top 120, and it wouldn't stop there.

Week 20 saw a CH1 in Korea, and Borowski fulfilled his 7th seeding before losing to top seed Dominik Bigos 6-3 7-6(4). The following week he was at a CH2 in Uzbekistan, and reached the semi-finals from an unseeded position after defeating second seed Dominik Fetsko in the second round before losing to third seed Jan Dieter Eckener 7-6(3) 6-4. After several weeks of practice, Week 27 saw a disappointing first round exit at Wimbledon GSL before an even more disappointing first round exit at a US CH3 to fourth seed William Holden. At this point, Borowski was hovering just outside the top 100.

Then came the breakthrough, with four successful point-securing weeks in Weeks 30, 33, 36 and 38. Seeded second at a Canadian CH2 in Week 30, he reached the final before losing again to Eckener 6-2 6-3, before a semi-final appearance at a Chinese CH1 ended in defeat to unseeded Elroy Huffaker (one of my former players) 7-6(3) 2-6 7-6(4) despite Borowski winning 111 points to 112. A CH3 victory in Thailand completed an excellent spell, before two more WTC wins gave Belarus a spot in the Level 3 semi-finals and 50 more ranking points for Borowski.

According to the 10-point scale, his rating is 9.37. He's the highest-ranked 21-year-old in the current rankings, which is a very good sign.

Christian Kulle

Kulle has absolutely dominated the Futures circuit this year, and has deservedly broken into the top 200 at the tender age of 20.

Apart from one semi-final appearance in Week 1, Kulle's record at Futures events reads thus: Week 6 FT1, WIN; Week 10 FT2, WIN; Week 13 FT1, WIN; Week 17 FT1, WIN; Week 22 FT1, WIN; Week 31 FT1, WIN. Not bad at all, and the reason why eventually it became necessary to play some Challengers.

In Week 25, Kulle rather ambitiously took part in a CH1 on Grass (his least favourite surface) and unsurprisingly lost in the first round. However, his efforts since have been better: a second round and a quarter-final appearance at two hard court CH3s in the States, and even a victory at a Kazakh CH3 a couple of weeks ago, winning unseeded and beating the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 6th seed en route to victory.

Kulle now sits 169th and will probably not play any Futures level tennis for a good long while - unfortunately. The transition has been relatively smooth but must continue apace, as the Swede has a very high aging factor which may let him down in the long run.

According to the 10-point scale, his rating is 9.18.

Harald Babbel

Babbel is only 15, but is progressing well. He's ranked 133rd in the junior rankings, which makes him the highest ranked 15-year-old, although he's due to turn 16 in two weeks. He made a couple of JG3 finals but has won three JG4 events, and I'm attempting to turn him into a grass court specialist with a clay court secondary.

Brian Swartz

04-19-2016, 04:30 PM

You have some very good players -- much better than any of mine are, even accounting for the fact that they are aging quicker. I would expect Elezqueta and Borowski to move up quite a bit next year.

law90026

04-19-2016, 09:33 PM

You have some very good players -- much better than any of mine are, even accounting for the fact that they are aging quicker. I would expect Elezqueta and Borowski to move up quite a bit next year.

It's true, they are very good. Elezgueta is the 20th best player based on the rating scale so he should have a very good year coming up.

law90026

04-20-2016, 03:00 AM

End of a Career

And that’s it for Teo Rask. I’ve fired him after struggling with the decision for a few days.

I didn’t want to keep him hanging around for another couple of years because he wasn’t really going to get anywhere in terms of his career but I couldn’t convert him to a trainer yet because of the 30 year old age requirement. On top of that, I had identified a trainer candidate that would immediately be a 5+ trainer. So it was time to bite the bullet and bid adieu to Teo.

Teo peaked as a top 20 player and has been hanging around the high teens and low twenties for the past 3 years or so. He finishes his career with more than $4million in earnings, a 760-300 win record, 9 250-level tournament wins, 3 500-level runner-up positions and 11 250-level runner up positions. He also reached the QFs of the French Open once and made a few 4th round appearances at the French Open and Wimbledon. It’s been a decent career for him I think but he was always held back by his relatively low athleticism and mentality.

So what’s next?

Claude Curtayne looks decent at this time, having reached a high of #271 in the world. He will be playing Challengers next year in all likelihood.

Vittorio Annunzo also looks ok, reaching #519 in his first year in the pros. Another year of Futures tournaments for him next year.

I had dropped Ghazi Mehmett earlier in the year and picked up a new 14 year old, Argentinean Ariel Ruano. He’s got decent talent and endurance as well as -5% aging factor so let’s see if he can be developed into a good player.

I also picked up 37 year old Jose Fernandez de Prada, who has maxed out serve and doubles. I’m just waiting for another 2k experience or so to convert him into a trainer. After that, either I spend my credit to create a player or I see if there are any good young players available at the time.

On to Year 325!

Brian Swartz

04-20-2016, 07:01 AM

Sounds like a good plan. Did pretty well with Teo for what you had to work with.

MarkBGregory

04-20-2016, 10:58 AM

A quick note before the year 'officially' ends:

Bit of a milestone coming up. Igor Borowski and co (but mainly Borowski) are in the WTC Playoffs to win promotion to Level 2 this week. They're up against Zimbabwe. Belarus are ranked 31st in comparison to Zimbabwe's 41st, and it's being played on Hard which is a huge advantage for us. However, 66th-ranked Barry Button, 30yo, is the main danger, and with both Button and Borowski playing two singles rubbers AND the doubles, it could be a matter of who matches up the best out of that leading pair.

MarkBGregory

04-22-2016, 01:53 PM

Weeks 1-11

I'll start this update with Igor Borowski, because he has leapfrogged Elezgueta to become my highest-ranked player. The good news: Borowski and co. secured an easy 4-1 victory over Zimbabwe in the WTC Playoffs in Week 51 to reach Level 2, with Borowski winning both his singles rubbers and his doubles match. However, Level 2 has been tough so far, with Belarus losing both matches, despite Borowski winning 3 out of 4 singles matches.

Borowski has entered three tournaments so far this year, reaching the 2nd round of the Australian Open, reaching the semi-finals of an ATP 250 indoors (Open 13, France) and most recently Indian Wells, where a tough draw saw him lose to world #6 Andres Uson 6-4 6-1 in the second round. He's up to 47th in the world though, and I think he'll break the top 32 by the end of the year.

Juan Jose Elezgueta is having a similarly good season but has made less progress purely because he's defending a fair amount of points. He's risen from 68th to 58th since the start of the year, reaching a couple of Challenger semi-finals, either side of a first round defeat at the Australian Open, before a big runner-up run at the Copa Claro in his home nation, his best ever result at ATP 250 level. For the first time in his career, Elezgueta has a full roster of 18 tournaments, so his ranking is a true one. I still think he needs a spell of good luck to get close to the top 32 this year - it's now or never, I feel, given his age factor is already down to 96% aged 23.

Christian Kulle's first tournament of the year was a disaster, losing in round one of a CH1 in New Caledonia, but since then he's done well - qualified successfully for the Australian Open before a narrow first round defeat, before a CH2 semi-final in Bergamo was followed by a final appearance this week (and a likely defeat, match is happening in the next GW day) in Japan. I think it'll be another year before Kulle gets close to the elite.

Harald Babbel has another year after this one of junior eligibility, but he's already ranked 32nd in the junior rankings despite only playing one tournament at JG2 level or above. Still looking to replace him with a better model if the opportunity arises...

Brian Swartz

04-22-2016, 02:50 PM

it's now or never, I feel, given his age factor is already down to 96% aged 23.

Looks like a good start for you. My players have peaked at about 91% FWIW, so I think you still have some time. My guess is he will probably peak at age 24-25 instead of 26-27 for players with a lower aging.

MarkBGregory

04-28-2016, 06:57 AM

Weeks 11-45

Time flies in this world. I've been super busy with work and just about managed to keep up with tournament registrations. For the first time today I've got a few moments to update you all on the goings on. It's been one hell of a year.

Igor Borowski and Juan Jose Elezgueta have been yo-yo-ing all year to be my number one player. Borowski is around a year and a half younger, remember, currently 22y27w, while Elezgueta has recently hit 24y2w. As a reminder, Elezgueta has Clay court favouritism with Grass secondary, while Borowski has Hard court favouritism with Indoor secondary.

As you can imagine, Borowski retained his lead ahead of Elezgueta in the rankings throughout the Hard court season, while Elezgueta regained the advantage during the clay and grass seasons. In Week 11, Borowski reached the 2nd round at Indian Wells, and then Week 13 saw him go one better in Miami, reaching the third round. He defeated 23rd seed Sean Mendez 6-7(5) 6-4 7-5 in the second round before losing to 10th seed Bill Comfort. Two WTC Level 2 victories added another 70 points onto his ranking, pushing him up to 54th by the end of Week 15. During this time Elezgueta played entirely practice tournaments, and sat just behind Borowski at 56th.

Then came the clay court season. Between Weeks 16-23, Elezgueta played two 250s, two MSTs and one Slam (in Paris, of course). Meanwhile, Borowski satisfied himself with two CH1 appearances. Elezgueta's first 250 was nothing special, reaching the second round, but a massive title in Week 18 in Bucharest scored him 250 points and a huge rankings boost just before the Masters events. Elezgueta came through unseeded to win the title, beating 5th seed Ruslan Aznabaev, second seed Nwankwo Ba, third seed Stuart Legh and fourth seed Matthieu Trottier in the final. Not exactly an easy one to win, but a huge result for the Argentinian. Both Masters events in Madrid and Rome were a slight letdown thanks to tough draws, with Elezgueta only reaching the 2nd round unseeded both times. Roland Garros was also tough, resulting in another 2nd round appearance and a static ranking. In the meantime, Borowski reached the final of a CH1 on Hard in Busan in Week 20, before winning a Grass court (?!) CH1 in Nottingham in Week 24. Directly before Wimbledon, Elezgueta was ranked 48th, while Borowski's challenger performances had taken him ahead of Elezgueta to 45th.

Wimbledon saw Borowski outperform Elezgueta again, reaching the third round compared to Elezgueta's second round appearance. Elzegueta's redemption came thanks to some excellent scheduling in the latter half of the year, mixing high-level Challengers up with 250 events to propel the Argentinian into the top 32 for the first time:

Elezgueta wanted to continue playing competitively post-Wimbledon after a slightly disappointing result, so he entered a CH+ in Germany and went on to win it as the top seed, beating Spaniard Lucas Coscino in the final. A week later, Borowski took part in a CH1 in Spain, but only reached the second round.

Elezgueta continued to impress, reaching the final of the 250 Kitzbuhel Cup in Austria unseeded, beating world #19 Guadalfajara in the quarters before losing 6-2 6-0 to world #4 Pirovano in the final. This result was followed by another 100-point haul after a CH1 victory in San Marino in Week 34. Meanwhile, Borowski was taking part in the Canadian and Cincinnati Masters in Weeks 33&34, making the 2nd round of the former and the third round of the latter. By the end of Week 34, Borowski was ranked just inside the top 40, while Elezgueta was ranked just ever so slightly higher.

Elezgueta forewent the US Open and has since played two CH events, levels 1 & 2, and won both, leaving him now ranked 33rd in the world. However, it gets more exciting for Borowski at this stage:

Borowski also decided not to enter the US Open due to high form, and instead focussed on the Masters events at the end of the year. A QF appearance at a CH+ preceded a 2nd round appearance in Shanghai - another disappointment, as far as talent goes - but then came the performance of his career. Borowski, as a qualifier, reached the semi-finals of the Paris Indoor Masters.

Borowski's route to the semis:

QR1: BYE
QR2: bt Francisco Olbera WR 168 6-2 6-4

R1: bt [Q] Falko Gimelstob WR 41 6-4 6-2
R2: bt [1] Sarmiento Roblez WR 1(!!) 6-1 3-6 6-3
R3: bt [11] Giotto Mansi WR 11 7-6(5) 1-6 7-6(4)
QF: bt [12] Burt Tinker WR 12 7-6(1) 7-6(4)
SF: lost to [3] Andres Uson WR 3 6-2 6-1

WHAT A RUN!! Yes, you read correctly, Borowski defeated the world number one in Paris. What a legend!! The result propelled Borowski from 44th to 30th in the world, and depending on end-of-season result, I may well have two players in the top 32 come the start of next year. The only way is up for Borowski at this stage!

Now, breathe...

Christian Kulle has had a year of gradual improvement, with focus on the occasional Challenger tournament but otherwise training, practice, training, practice... Rinse, lather, repeat. Kulle was RUP at a CH2 in Week 15, made the semis of a CH2 in Week 21, qualified for Wimbledon but was beaten in the first round in Week 27, before another RUP appearance at a CH3 in Week 28. Week 33 saw a SF appearance in at a CH1, and Week 35, he was again a finalist at a CH3. He didn't actually win a Challenger event until Week 42, where he came through unseeded to collect the trophy at the CH2 in Tiburon. He's currently ranked just outside the top 100.

Meanwhile, Harald Babbel has just turned 17 and will be in his final year of junior eligibility next year. He's currently ranked 24th in the junior rankings.

law90026

04-28-2016, 10:49 AM

Really nice performances!

britrock88

05-03-2016, 01:38 PM

I'm enjoying the interaction between your guys and mine both on the court and in the Swedish/Argentinian rankings for WTC matches. Keep up the good work!

law90026

05-05-2016, 08:08 AM

So it’s been too long since I updated. Here we go with a quick summary of what’s happening in world 2.

Grand Slams Update

So the last update was at the end of year 322 and we are currently actually in week 36 of year 326. Without going into too much detail, here’s what happened.

In Year 323, the Australian Open was won by Feliciano Putignani, who beat out Gaspare Caprara in the finals. This marked the transition from the Dotto era into a new hyper-competitive era which saw the #1 spot change hands multiple times. At the French Open, Aleksei Yatskay beat Arnaldo Pirovano in the finals. Wimbledon remains the favourite hunting ground for Tony Archer as he won his 3rd straight title, beating home favourite Milton Aguilar in the finals. Caprara did manage to win his first Grand Slam this year as he beat Marcello Borsellino in the finals of the US Open.

In Year 324, Sarmiento Roblez won the Australian Open, again beating out Caprara in the finals. The French Open was won by the previous year’s runner-up Pirovano, who beat Yatskay in a finals rematch. Tony Archer won his 4th consecutive Wimbledon title, beating (then) rising star Mjej Aghavelian in the finals. Carprara defended his title at the US Open, beating Andres Uson in the finals.

In Year 325, Roblez defended his Australian Open title, beating Putignani in the finals. Adam Preto won his first (and thus far only) Grand Slam at the French Open, beating Pirovano in the finals. For those keeping score, that’s 4 straight finals for Pirovano (he made the finals in Year 322 as well) but only 1 title at Roland Garros. The Archer era at Wimbledon came to an end this year as Andres Uson won his first Grand Slam, beating rising star John Elliot in the finals. Veteran star Marcello Borsellino won his first Grand Slam at age 28 by beating Uson in the finals, who comes in as a runner-up again.

In Year 326, Caprara finally won his first Australian Open title, beating Roblez and preventing a three-peat. Giotto Mansi was the surprise winner of the French Open as the #10 seed, beating another surprise finalist in #23 seed Pierre-Yves Poidebard. World #1 Caprara won his first Wimbledon title this year, beating last year’s runner-up Elliot in the finals.

Top 10

1. Gaspare Caprara, 26 years old, 13910 points: I’ve mentioned him a while back as a future world #1 and, true enough, he has reached the pinnacle. He has been the world #1 for 87 weeks and won 4 Grand Slams and 9 Masters titles to date. By far the best player in the world with a 10.43 rating, he has a good long reign at the #1 spot ahead of him.

2. Andres Uson, 25 years old, 10000 points: Uson is a distant 2nd although things could have been different if he had managed to win a couple more Grand Slams in the past year. He has 1 Grand Slam so far along with 2 Masters titles. Rated at 10.01.

3. Marcello Borsellino, age 29, 6220 points: Teo Rask used to be whipped by Borsellino and he continues to play strongly despite being the oldest man in the top 10. He finally won his first Grand Slam last year and has 4 Masters titles as well. Still the 4th best player in the world with a 9.97 rating.

4. Sarmiento Roblez, 26 years old, 5780 points: Roblez has actually reached the #1 spot before and held it for 39 weeks. He looks to be on his way down now since he has a 105% aging factor but it’s been a good career for him, with 2 Grand Slams and 6 Masters titles. Rated 9.69.

5. Mjej Aghavelian, 26 years old, 4970 points: A player that was on the way up as Teo Rask was on the way down, Mjej hasn’t won any major tournaments thus far although he did reach a Wimbledon finals in Year 324. Rated at 10.18, he still has time to win some titles.

6. Giotto Mansi, 26 years old, 4810 points: A one-time Grand Slam winner, Giotto Mansi is a relatively surprising top 10 player based on his rating (9.37). Let’s see if he can maintain his position this year.

7. Dominik Bigos, 25 years old, 4265 points: Rated at 9.78, Bigos is a top 10 player based on talent. Has not won any Majors yet though.

8. Burt Tinker, 25 years old, 3805 points: Another top 10 player based on talent (9.75 rating) who has not won a Major yet.

9. John Elliot, 24 years old, 3765 points: A potential top 5 player based on the fact that he’s the youngest player in the top 10 at this time and a 9.58 rating. Also no majors although he has reached a Wimbledon finals.

10. Adam Preto, 27 years old, 3245 points: Probably on the way out of the top 10, Preto has won 1 Grand Slam and 1 Major in his career. 9.49 rating.

As always, there’s a host of younger players that are making their way up the ranks. One of the most obvious potential top 10 players is Mark’s Igor Borowski (9.78 rating) and Christian Kulle (9.74 rating). Another one to look out for is 23 year old Kulovano (9.56 rating), 21 year old Weinberg (9.52 rating) and 21 year old Botosov (9.49 rating).

MarkBGregory

05-06-2016, 03:38 PM

I'm enjoying the interaction between your guys and mine both on the court and in the Swedish/Argentinian rankings for WTC matches. Keep up the good work!

It's been an interesting year or so in game! Enjoying Borowski's rise and Kulle is just outside the top 32 now after a 250 win in his home country. Elezgueta has become static, won't break through now really.

MarkBGregory

05-06-2016, 05:03 PM

With my last update coming after Week 45 in Year 325, I'll give a recap of what's been going on with my players in what has been roughly a year's worth of in-game action.

Juan Jose Elezgueta is really being hit hard by his 105% aging factor. The Argentinian has just turned 25, and started the year in 32nd in the world rankings - on the cusp of mandatory Masters entries, but also too high for Challenger entries - a tough place to be. During the course of the year, he's not dropped below 37th in the world, but he's also not been higher than 32nd. Stagnation at its very worst. Igor Borowski started the year in 33rd, and is now 23 years old. He's got a huge year ahead of him, as he currently sits 17th in the world after a gradual climb. Meanwhile, Christian Kulle has shot up the rankings from just inside the top 100 to 38th with a couple more weeks left to go. A year younger than Borowski but with a higher aging factor, this could be a big year for the Swede coming up too. Here's how it all went down:

Week 1 saw both Borowski and Elezgueta take part in the first round of the World Team Cup. Belarus were enjoying their second season at Level 2, and took on China in their first round match, with Borowski winning both his singles and his doubles match and leading Belarus to a 4-1 victory. Elezgueta meanwhile let Argentina down a little bit, struggling on the elected hard courts and losing in straight sets to Czech Dominik Bigos and then in five to Radek Stepanek, with the Argies also going down 3-2.

In Week 2, Christian Kulle enjoyed an unseeded title at a CH2 in Brazil, beating second seed Tiago Yoshida, another player who had come through the ranks with Elezgueta, in the final.

Week 4 saw all three players enter the Australian Open. Elezgueta was seeded 31st, while Borowski was seeded 32nd. Kulle, unseeded, was drawn against third seed Sarmiento Roblez and predictably lost, although going down 6-0 6-2 6-4 wasn't too disheartening. Elezgueta disappointed, having perennially struggled here, going out 6-2 6-4 6-4 to Hugh Heffernan of the States. Borowski fulfilled his seeding and made the third round, before losing to 8th seed Dominik Bigos in straight sets. Not a pretty tournament in general for my guys.

Week 6 saw Elezgueta and Borowski back in WTC action. Belarus took on The Netherlands, and Borowski won his first singles match easily and his doubles rubber, but fell 6-4 6-3 5-7 6-7(4) 6-3 to Sjors Versloot, who came up in the same age group as Elezgueta, leading to an eventual 3-2 defeat for the Belarussians despite leading 2-1 after the doubles. Elezgueta redeemed himself slightly on the grass courts of Germany, narrowly losing in five to Jan Dieter Eckener, the world #22, but beating world #30 Matthias Huber in straight sets to cap a 4-1 victory for the Argentines.

Week 7 saw Elezgueta and Kulle back in action, with Elezgueta competing in a 250 in Chile, while Kulle attempted a 250 of his own in Croatia. The Swede was drawn against 7th seed Tom Liekmar in the first round and narrowly went out 7-6 3-6 6-3, while Elezgueta, as seventh seed, reached the quarters before top seed Adam Preto finished him off in three sets. Kulle then entered another 250 in Week 8 in the US and went one better, reaching the second round, before taking a set off top seed Burt Tinker, but an unsuccessful couple of attempts at 250 level meant it was back to Challengers - for him for a while at least.

In Week 9, Elezgueta headed to Copa Claro, a 250 in which he had made the final last year. As fifth seed, the Argie ran into the man he lost to in that final, top seed Alexei Yatskay, and once again was defeated, 6-4 3-6 6-4. Meanwhile, Igor Borowski went unseeded to Memphis for an indoor 500 event, and was inches away from being the only non-American in the semis after a 6-4 2-6 6-3 defeat to third seed Stuart Legh.

Week 11, of course, was time for Indian Wells. Only Borowski entered, but he did well. As 32nd seed, he snuck a bye through the first round and beat Ning An in the second. Unseeded Mitch Renon was next - a player who had beaten 6th seed Arnaldo Pirovano in the previous round, and Borowski won comfortably 6-2 6-4 to set up a fourth round clash with 17th seed Juan Larran. As a clay court specialist, Larran, despite being slightly more skilled, was not enjoying the hard courts, and Borowski snuck a 7-5 7-6 win to reach the quarters. World #2 Andres Uson awaited and an inevitable 6-3 6-2 defeat followed.

In between Masters events in Week 12, Kulle headed to Sarajevo for an indoor CH2. As second seed, Kulle beat Tom Liekmar 6-1 6-2 in the final to wrap up some more vital points.

All three players were in action during Week 13. Kulle won another Ch2 Indoors (beating Ning An in the final), while Elezgueta won a CH2 in Morocco as the top seed, beating Gregorio Yapo in the final. Borowski, as expected, was at the Masters event in Miami, and was seeded 30th, coming through the first two rounds before 14th seed Feliciano Rebellin beat him 6-4 6-2.

Kulle's reputation and rise in rankings had seen him gain a place representing Sweden in the WTC third round robin match in Week 15. Sweden are also in the Top Level, like Argentina, and so it was big news for Kulle, who ended up winning both of his singles matches despite losing 3-2 overall against Latvia. Despite the result, the Swedes still qualified for the next round (winning just one of their three RR matches), while elsewhere Elezgueta could only summon one victory as Argentina slipped to a 3-2 defeat and exited the competition. Meanwhile, Borowski once again won both his singles matches in a 3-2 defeat to Serbia - but again, one victory and solid performances in defeat saw the Belarussians qualify for the knockout stages.

Then came the clay court season, and, hopefully, some respite for the struggling Elezgueta. The Argie entered the Monte Carlo Masters in Week 17 in an attempt to get his season back on track, but a rough draw saw him meet Sarmiento Roblez in the second round and go down without much of a fight.

To preserve form, Igor Borowski was forced to play some clay court 250 events, and one of those came in Week 19 in Munich. Borowski was seeded second and surprised a few by fulfilling that seeding to reach the final, before eventually losing to Matthias Huber 3-6 6-3 6-2.

In Week 20, Kulle went under the radar a little with a CH1 title in Korea, but it was finally Elezgueta's time to make waves in a big draw. Elezgueta entered the Madrid Masters unseeded, and in the second round he defeated 11th seed Burt Tinker in straight sets before securing a quite astonishing 6-4 3-6 6-3 victory over world #3 Sarmiento Roblez, whom he had lost to just three weeks ago in Monte Carlo. The Argie then met fellow non-seed Evan Farthing in the quarters but went down 6-4 6-4.

Elezgueta again showed his colours in Rome in Week 21, beating world #4 Marcello Borsellino in the second round, but couldn't back it up with victory against Aleksei Yatskay in the third, losing 6-2 6-7 6-3. Kulle again was in Challenger action, at a CH2, and lost to Arnold Jarvilaturi in the final.

After a couple weeks off, Borowski continued to capitalise on the weaker draws in the weeks before major tournaments by entering another German clay court 250, the Power Horse Cup, in Week 22. This time the Belarussian was top seed, but he unfortunately went down in the semis to fifth seed Tvrdislav Jovisevic 5-7 6-2 6-4.

Week 23 saw Elezgueta enter Roland Garros. On the back of some impressive performances in clay court Masters events, I was hopeful of a decent return. But Elezgueta just missed out on a seeding and was drawn yet again against Sarmiento Roblez in the first round, their third encounter in six weeks, and fourth in total. This time there would be no shock, with Roblez triumphing in straight sets.

A week before Wimbledon, in Week 26, Borowski entered a grass court 250 - another surface on which he's not hugely comfortable - to grab some form before the main event. Again, things went well, with Borowski seeded third, and the Belarussian reached the semis before losing 6-4 6-3 to Dominik Bigos.

Week 27: Wimbledon. Everyone entered. Kulle and Elezgueta, unseeded. Borowski seeded 25th. Kulle was drawn against Dominik Bigos in the first round, and the Czech completed the treble over my players with a straight sets victory, 6-3 7-6 6-3 - not a heavy loss by any means for the youngster. Elezgueta secured a morale-boosting first round victory against 30th seed Tomek Barys to make the second round, where he beat Armando Cuenca with ease before he too lost to Bigos in round three - although it was tight, 6-3 6-4 1-6 6-7 6-2. Borowski dropped just seven games in his opening two matches, before a 7-5 6-4 5-7 7-5 victory over rising star Adrian Weinberg took him into round four. His campaign ended in straight sets against Mjej Aghavelian.

Directly after Wimbledon, Elezgueta took part in the CH+ he had won last year in Week 28, successfully defending his title as the top seed. In Week 29, both Kulle and Borowski were back in action, with Kulle disappointing by only reaching the QFs of a CH1, while Borowski made another 250 semi-final on the grass of Newport, losing to top seed John Elliot.

Week 30 saw Kulle make up for his poor performance the previous week with a CH2 title in Canada as top seed, while in Week 31, Borowski, as second seed, once again made an American 250 semi-final before losing to an America, this time third seed William Holden.

With Kulle and Elezgueta recovering their form in practice events, Borowski was left to solely focus on the Masters events preceding the US Open. In Week 33, the Belarussian entered the Canada Masters unseeded, gaining instant revenge against 14th seed Feliciano Rebellin for his Miami defeat in Week 13 in the first round with a 6-7 7-6 6-2 victory. Matthias Huber was dispatched, again in three sets, in the second round, before two tiebreaks settled a rematch against John Elliot, which the Belarussian won. It was only 4th seed Marcello Borsellino who stopped the run of the Belarussian, and only just, with a 6-4 6-7 6-3 win.

Week 34 was Cincinnatti, and Borowski still couldn't find a seeding. Up against Sarmiento Roblez, the Belarussian went down in straight sets.

A quick flirting with a hard court 250 - the Winston Salem Open - for Elezgueta achieved a quarter-final finish in Week 35, before Slam time in Week 36 saw all three players enter. Elezgueta and Kulle remained unseeded, while Borowski picked up the 20th seeding. Kulle showed his chops in the first round, taking out 25th seed Stephen Peters 3-6 6-3 6-4 6-4, while Elezgueta also won, beating Borowski's old junior rival Santino Gott 7-6 6-3 7-6. Borowski eased past a qualifier in straight sets. Round two saw Borowski and Kulle easily through again, dropping just five and seven games respectively, but Elezgueta fell in four to 18th seed William Holden. The third round was the end of the line for both Kulle and Borowski, with Kulle being disapatched by Feliciano Rebellin and Borowski taking a set off world number one Gaspare Caprara before going down 4-6 7-6 6-1 6-2.

Week 38 saw the WTC quarter-finals, with both Sweden and Belarus in action. Kulle finally got the chance to team up with britrock's Sean Mendez, despite it being on clay, and the pair both secured wins over Polish Krzyzstof Hendzel which helped scrape Sweden through 3-2 over Poland. Borowski's Belarus, meanwhile, faced Estonia, and Borowski was the hero on clay(!), winning both his singles matches (one against world #19 Arnold Burgermeister) and his doubles match to put Belarus in contention for promotion to the highest tier with a 3-2 victory. Great stuff.

The semi-finals weren't far away, but Week 39 saw Kulle again in action, stepping back up to 250 level. The Swede made the quarters of the St Petersburg Open (unseeded) before losing to Aleksei Yatskay (anyone feel like everyone has been losing to literally the same players all year???), while Elezgueta picked up another Challenger title on clay as the top seed.

Week 40 saw the WTC semis. For Kulle and Sweden, it was a nightmare. Mendez, ranked 34th, and Kulle, ranked 46th, took on Roblez, ranked 4th, and Caprara, ranked 1st, of the United States. On Clay. Without too much detail, Sweden lost 5-0. For Borowski and Belarus - utter heartbreak. Borowski again was the hero in Singles, winning both his matches against Slovakian opposition, but a 7-5 3-6 6-4 2-6 8-6 defeat in the doubles was the deciding factor. Never mind; Belarus still could earn promotion if they win their playoff at the close of the season.

Elezgueta has taken part in tournaments in every week since Week 40, in order to bolster his form before the close season. It's been a bit of a letdown, with a CH2 title followed by a first round exit at the Shanghai Masters. A 250 semi-final appearance was then followed by a 500 first round exit: quite demonstrative of Elezgueta's season - too good for Challengers but not good enough to make it big. Borowski just entered the Shanghai Masters and was one place away from a seeding. Unfortunately, he lost to unseeded Falko Gimelstob in round one anyway, his worst performance for a long time. The real story of the last couple weeks was Christian Kulle' debut 250 title in Sweden - as sixth seed, he beat second seed Arnold Burgermeister in the semis before a 7-6 4-6 7-5 victory (from 0-3 down in the decider) against Fabio Fagnini sealed things.

I got carried away there. Hope you enjoyed the round-up. Borowski with a semi-final appearance (from qualifying) to defend at the Paris Masters next week, before huge WTC playoffs to come for Belarus. ALLEZ!

law90026

05-06-2016, 07:32 PM

Great write-up!

ntndeacon

07-06-2016, 02:15 PM

My younger players, Dragos Patrescu of Romania , just entered the legends of Romania. Getting up to a high of 32 in singles and 97 in doubles.

law90026

08-17-2016, 11:16 AM

Soooooo a long belated update? I'm still playing the game and currently have players on both RR2 and RR10. RR2 is the most competitive world and there is a real difference in terms of how far your players can go between the 2 worlds.

RR2

My last update was year 326. It's now year 338 so it's an entirely new generation of players.

My current #1 is 27 year old Dean Ho from Singapore. He's the current world #3, an achievement I'm really proud of on RR2. Over his career thus far, he has won 3 Masters titles (2 in Monte Carlo, 1 in Canada) and was a runner up in the recent Australian Open. He has also been a runner-up in 4 other Masters events. There is an outside chance that he might make to #1 in RR2 if everything breaks his way.

The interesting thing about Dean and this adds credence to what MarkBGregory posted in the other thread re player selection is that Dean had high talent and endurance at his peak but his athletic ability was average/mediocre. However, he was able to overcome this with strong training and a really high mentality.

My #2 is 20 year old Daniel Anatasov of Bulgaria, currently ranked #262 in singles. It's his 2nd year out of the juniors and he should be able to make the breakthrough into the top 200 by the next year. However, I don't have super high hopes for him overall.

2 juniors round out the crop, 17 year old Argentinian Jose Luis Estete and 15 year old Fernando Madruga.

I have 20 days to go for my VIP package on RR2 and I'm contemplating whether to re-up. It was a lot easier a few weeks back when it seemed like my players were headed nowhere but the recent success of Dean suggests that it may be worth competing on this world still.

RR10

So we start RR10 with a summary of my former #1 player Evgeni Katenin of Russia. He's now 30 years old and had a 104% aging factor so he's deteriorating fast now, although he did manage to be a top 10 player for quite a few years. He was a former #1 junior and peaked at #3 in the world. Currently he's #21 but he's been losing early'ish in most Majors so the writing is clearly on the wall.

In terms of his wins, he won 1 US Open (and was runner-up in another), won 3 Masters (Miami, Canada and Shanghai) and had significant achievements in mostly hardcourt tournaments. What was frustrating for his career was that, at his peak, he was consistently matched up with a world #1 player, Shyam Sandy, and he was rarely able to beat him. If the draws had been slightly more favourable, I suspect Evgeni would have won more.

Then we go on to my current top players, world #4 Rio Cavaleiro and #7 Edmundo Alcoforado, both from Brazil. Based on Brian's ranking system, they would be the 2nd and 4th best players in the world. Both are 23 but with high aging factors so their peak is fast approaching, if not already past.

Rio has, to date, won 1 Masters (Cincinnati), was runner-up in a French Open, a World Tour Finals and 2 Masters.

Edmundo has had a little less success so far but his time seems to be coming, with recent SF appearances in the French Open and Australian Open.

Final player is 22 year old Heath Kidwell from the US, ranked #40. He's slowly moving up the ranks and should make the top 32 by year's end I suspect.

law90026

08-17-2016, 09:52 PM

RR2
So apparently I'm prescient. Dean Ho has become world #1 in RR2, although it's largely due to a relatively weak top 10 crop at this time I suspect (the really good players are older and weaker and the newer generation hasn't made it push yet). Still, I'm going to take it as an achievement!

The jump from #3 to #1 arises because Dean won the US Open, his first Grand Slam title. There were signs he was close when he came in 2nd in the year's Australian Open and it's good to see him push through and win the final Grand Slam of the year.

He achieved this by cruising through the first 3 rounds without dropping a set. In the 4th round, he faced off against #23 seed Beccatini and he won 6/4, 7/6(3), 4/6, 6/3. It was a close match, closer than the scoreline indicated. The QFs was another tough one as he faced off against #5 seed Gareth Sprunt, an American playing on homesoil, but Dean won 7/6(6), 4/6, 6/2, 6/4. The SFs was against #18 seed Jorgen Bjornstrand and this was a straighforward win, 6/3 6/2 7/5. The finals opponent was #20 seed Octavi Armamino, who had beaten world #1 Maxim Kot in the SFs in a crazy 5-setter (7/5 3/6 7/6(4) 3/6 7/6(4)) but it took a lot of him and Dean beat him comfortably, 6/4 7/6(9) 7/5. Dean was lucky since a lot of seeds were knocked out but you can only beat who is in front of you!

RR10

Over at RR10, the most recent tournament was the Monte Carlo Masters, where #4 seed Rio Cavaleiro reached the finals before losing to #3 seed Falco Campisi. Falco had also despatched #5 seed Edmundo Alcoforado in the SFs.

The clay season is about to begin in RR10, as we have the Madrid and Rome Masters coming up then the French Open. I have some hopes that the 2 Brazilians will be able to make some noise during this stretch.

law90026

09-11-2017, 02:12 AM

A reboot

I took a long hiatus from RR10 after my 2 Brazilians began to slowdown and only recently started playing again. This time I'm on RR6.

The players
19 year old Omar Al-Sadat from Isreal: Currently ranked #293 after completing his first year in the pros. He probably won't get too far in the grand scheme of things but is a placeholder until I find a replacement youngster to train.

14 year old Luca Caliari from Switzerland: My recent junior pick-up from the newgens with a potential TESS rating of 16! Banking on him to do well in the long-term.

I'm keeping an eye on a created player that was abandoned but still on the hiring freeze clock at this time, will see if I can pick him up.

law90026

09-11-2017, 09:59 PM

So in week 16, we bid farewell to Omar Al-Sadat and pick up 14 year old Richard Large from the UK.

Omar is likely to be an ok player, I suspect he will easily be top-50 but I'm not convinced he becomes a top-10 player. His TESS was in the 13.9-14.2 range while Richard comes in at 15.3. We will see if the decision is the correct one over time.

At the time of his firing, Omar had hit #244 in the world and was around the top 150-160 players in the world in terms of ratings. He had won a bunch of FT3 tournaments and if I still had a VIP account, I would have kept him on.

Anyways, here we go!

law90026

09-12-2017, 12:39 AM

State of RR6

Top players:

1. Vincent Caladrini, 24, Italy (8.9 rating): The current world #1 is the winner of the last 2 Grandslams, the US Open in year 368 and the Australian Open in year 369. The crazy thing is that his manager has fired him!

2. N. Vavasour, 27, USA (9.04 rating): The former world #1 is still pretty much in his peak and will be challenging for the top spot again, which will probably be made easier by the fact that Caladrini no longer has a manager for at least a few weeks. Winner of 3 World Tour Finals, 3 Grand Slams and 10 Masters.

3. Franz Palmquist, 29, Sweden (8.69 rating): The 29 year old is probably heading down the rankings at some point but is still the 3rd best player in the world at this time. Winner of 7 Grand Slams and 8 Masters titles and had previously spent a total of 94 weeks in the #1 spot.

4. Zhai Zhao-ji, 28, Singapore (8.56 rating): Another older player that is maintaining his position in the rankings, currently the 4th best player in the world still. 1 Grand Slam and 1 Masters title to his name.

5. Matt Flashman, 24, USA (8.41 rating): The 9th best player in the world in terms of ratings but he's pushed his way up the rankings to begin challenging for a top 4 position. One of the younger players in the top 10, his future looks bright.

6. Harald Helm, 31, Germany (8.44 rating): The oldest man in the top 10, the 31-year old is still going strong surprisingly and is the 7th best player in the world. Another former world #1 (62 weeks), he has won 4 World Tour Finals, 5 Grandslams and 15 Masters.

7. Will Nunn, 29, USA (8.4 rating): A player that is slowly slipping out of the top 10, he's currently the 10th best player in the world in terms of ratings. Should be out by the end of the year unless he has a really good year. Winner of 1 Grandslam.

8. Dimas Rivera, 29, Argentina (8.35 rating): The 29 year old is probably the 12th best player in the world so another likely candidate to slip out of the top 10 by year's end. 2 Masters titles for his career.

9. Zhai Xiao-xuan, 27, Singapore (8.53 rating): Close to 28 years old now, he's the 2nd Singaporean in the top 10. Rated as the 6th best player in the world but he and world #4 Zhao-ji may be making a transition to doubles at some stage.

10. Lev Prianichenkov, 24, Russia (8.37 rating): The other younger player in the top 10, he's the 12th best player in the world and, if nothing goes wrong, should move up higher this year with all the veterans slowly making way.

Other notables:

#20 Enric Aguirrebengoa, 27, Spain (8.38 rating): The 11th best player in the world has slipped to #20 in the rankings, in part because his manager is on holiday mode.

#24 Kayin Kukah, 28, Nigeria (8.43 rating): Rated the 7th best player in the world but he has made the transition to doubles so his ranking will continue to slip. He's well-poised to cause upsets in major tournaments where he takes part though.

#69 Heinrich Kuhnemund, 21, Germany (8.32 rating): The best rated youngster in the game (14th best) but his manager has dropped him. Not sure what happens for Heinrich from here on out but whoever picks him up will be pleased.

As can be seen, the top 10 is very veteran-heavy so it's ripe for a transition shortly and Caladrini will likely take advantage of that with multiple majors in the future.

law90026

09-20-2017, 01:51 AM

Year 369 recap:

The first Grand Slam of the year was won by world #2 Vincent Caladrini, a routine straight-set win over #6 Matt Flashman.

The Indian Wells Masters was won by homecrowd favourite #2 Nigel Vavasour, who beat Sweden's Franz Palmquist 5/7, 6/4, 6/1.

In Miami, Vavasour won again, this time beating Caladrini 0/6, 6/4, 6/2, a really nice recovery from a piss-poor first set.

In Monte Carlo, #3 Zhai Zhao-ji from Singapore beat #1 Caladrini 7/6(4), 4/6, 6/4.

In Madrid, #7 Zhai Xiao-xuan from Singapore (I assume supposed to be Zhao-ji's brother?) won the title, beating #5 Harald Helm from Germany, 6/3, 3/6, 7/5.

Rome saw Zhao-ji beat Caladrini in another Masters finals, this time 6/3, 6/4.

In the French Open, Xiao-xuan reached the finals as the #7 seed but lost to #12 Dimas Riveria from Argentina in a close finals, 6/1, 6/4, 3/6, 6/7(5), 6/2.

Wimbledon saw the world's top 2 players in the finals and #1 Caladrini beat #2 Vavasour routinely, 6/4, 7/6(3), 7/5. Caladrini's 2nd Grand Slam for the year.

The Canada Masters saw a re-match of the Wimbledon finals and another relatively easy win for Caladrini over Vavasour, 6/2, 7/6(3).

The Cincinnati Masters allowed Vavasour to get some revenge over Caladrini, the homecrowd propelling him to a tough 6/2, 6/7(4), 6/4 win.

In the US Open, #6 Matt Flashman took the crown, defeating Caladrini in 5 sets in the finals, 6/7(1), 7/6(6), 6/3, 1/6, 6/4.

The Shanghai Masters saw a return to winning ways for Caladrini as he beat Vavasour easily, 6/2, 6/4.

The Paris Masters saw a close finals between Caladrini and Vavasour, Caladrini again winning 6/4, 4/6, 7/6(9), in a nail-biter. Truly a passing of the torch here as the former dominant world #1 Vavasour has lost consistently to Caladrini this year.

A similar result in the World Tour Finals as Caladrini got the better of Vavasour again, 6/7(6), 6/4, 6/3.

Player watch:
Luca Caliari is ranked in the top 200 in the junior rankings at age 15+. He's progressing decently although it's frustrating to see crazy high exhaustion at times making him miss entire practice weeks.

Richard Large is progressing a little slower it feels and that's party because I had to wait about 14 weeks to get him off the "free agent" heap. That may be a factor in terms of his overall progression because of less effective training. Ranked in the top 600 at this time.

My former player Omar Al-Sadt was picked up by another trainer and, in year 370, is knocking on the doors of the top 100. I'm going to claim some credit for his progress ;)

law90026

09-25-2017, 10:49 PM

Year 370 update:

The Australian Open was won by #1 Vincent Caladrini, 7/5, 7/6(2), 6/1, over #4 Franz Palmquist. The veteran did well to reach the finals but was clearly outclassed there.

In Indian Wells, Caladrini continued his good start to the year with a 3/6 6/2 6/2 win over #2 Nigel Vavasour.

Caladrini then made it 3 out of 3 majors with a 6/7(5) 6/3 7/6(4) win over #10 Jeremy Clayton from the US, who couldn't ride the home support for an upset win. Really close game though.

Monte Carlo saw #4 Biju Majoo from India beat #8 Enric Aguirrebengoa 7/5, 6/3 in the finals. Majoo has had a bit of a strong rise this year and this also shows Aguirrebengoa is back to competing again after being #20 last year.

#4 Majoo then won Madrid convincingly, crushing #2 Matt Flashman 6/1, 6/0 in the finals! 2 clay Masters on the trot for the Indian, let's see how that plays out at the French Open.

Rome saw #1 Caladrini beat fellow Italian and unseeded Frantisek Brezeanu (ranked #22 in the world at the time) in the finals, 7/5, 6/2. Nice run for Brezeanu, who is 29 years old, but probably just a random result taking advantage of homecourt advantage.

The French Open saw #3 Majoo win the finals convincingly over Spaniard #23Simon Varay, 6/0, 6/3, 6/4. To most fans, the true finals was in the semis, where Majoo beat Caladrini 6/4 3/6 6/7(4) 6/4 6/1. Varay is a 23 year old who is rising steadily up the ranks.

Wimbledon was where #2 Matt Flashman beat #1 Caladrini in the finals, 2/6 6/4 6/4 6/4. It's Flashman's 2nd Grand Slam title.

Over to Canada where #1 Caladrini won his 4th Masters of the year over #4 Lev Prianichikov 6/3, 6/4. First Majors finals for the Russian this year, who has moved up to #5 in the world.

#2 Matt Flashman then used the home support to deny Caladrini his 5th Masters title for the year, beating him 6/3 2/6 7/6(3) at Cincinnati. That's 2-0 for Flashman over Caladrini in major tournament finals this year.

Of course, when it counted the most, #1 Caladrini defeated #2 Flashman in the US Open finals, winning 6/3 1/6 4/6 6/4 7/6(4). Just 2 points separated the top 2 players in the world and this gives Caladrini his 2nd Grand Slam for the year.

Shanghai was a repeat of the US Open, with #1 Caladrini beating #2 Flashman 6/4, 6/4 in the finals and claiming his 5th Masters and 7th major title for the year.

However, Paris was won by Flashman, who beat #5 Sam Spitz from Australia 6/2, 6/4 in the finals. Caladrini missed this tournament because he was banned as a result of missing it last year.

At the time of this post, the WTF Finals are still on-going and it's likely to be a match-up between #1 Caladrini and #3 Majoo in the finals as Flashman crashed out in the round robin stages.