[Brian Swartz]

January

We're still the week before the Australian Open, but the important pieces appear to be set for it. Nicolas Perez won the Qatar Open (250), beating Dogic along the way, which moves him just into that key #4 spot where he'll be able to avoid the perils of Hart/Meikeljohn until the semis. Solberg is playing this week but that shouldn't matter, since he already has a fill of 250-level titles. If he holds that spot, he should improve points significantly this year simply by getting better draws.

For me, Sri Lanka promptly lost their first three against Sweden before rallying for a more respectable 3-2 loss in the first round of WTC group play. Naturally a loss is still a loss. Ali Solberg was responsible for most of the drama. He went five sets with both players, defeating Kasaravalli and then losing to Chiba in a true epic. 9-7 in the 5th and it took several match points to break through.

Then Sushant Chiba had a warmup event in Chennai. He played well, defeating No. 12 Stachovsky in the SF before getting flattened 6-3, 6-1 by Meikeljohn in the final. So that's a pretty good picture of where he is.

Amrik Kasaravalli has high form due to last year's push at the end of the year, the Anil Cup, and the WTC. He headed to CH1 Noumea, his one chance to probably be seeded at the AO if he won. Just ahead of him there was Bruno Niedzweicki. It looked to be a match of those two ... and yet both were dumped in the SF by similar players going in opposite directions. Veteran Argetine Ernest Melingeli, seeded 6th and ranked 60-somethingth, is still a good athlete and has an elite serve, but somewhat weak from the back. Breaks figured to be rare but instead there were several in the first set. Including Amrik being broken to love after getting back on serve at the end of it. From there it was a dogfight, but eventually he fell short 6-4, 4-6, 6-3. It was the proper result, an even matchup on paper with Melingeli the fresher player. On the other side came the champion, German Santino de Jesus, a meteoric riser who is up to 60th with the victory. He's an example of the trend that having an 8.0 or better player used to mean Top 32 or nearly there; now it means little more than comfortably in the Top 100. You might hear Santino's name again, or the sport might swallow him up. In any case, Kasaravalli only gets a small boost and figures to be second or third on the list of spoilers instead of being seeded. A lot will depend on his draw in Australia. He made the second round last year, and could easily be out in the first to a high seed or make a deeper run to the third round depending on how it shakes out. He's right on the edge, the tipping point, in the fight with several others. Getting securely out of Challengers quickly will require some luck and taking advantadge of his opportunities. As an example, William Todhunter, 32nd at the start of the year, is down to 40th. And might very well bounce back up, or keep falling. It's a really fluid, dynamic situation, and now Kasaravalli is smack dab in the middle of it.

Nasir Chittoor and Satyagit Guha have not played any formal events in the new year, electing to train. They'll be out again next week. I thought about qualifying in the AO for Chittoor, but decided he's not quite ready yet. Close - I'd probably do it if I was managing Fitzpatrick, but not there in my case. I also came to a decision. Both players have 4.2 endurance and rising, which means I pretty much need to have them playing doubles and singles every week or else they're wasting fatigue and losing potential XP. Yet the hit-and-miss nature of practice tournaments at the futures level cannot be avoided. So for now, I'm going to give them some HC practice events to hold the line there, no clay, and grass/indoors - the less-used surfaces - for the others. The impact of this will lessen over time but it is helping to get better results from practice, and I can go back into clay when the ranking rises and results become more stable. This is probably pretty much how the next few months will go for them in between the odd futures tournament, and with amateur points dropping off now ranking progression is going to slow a bit.

Coming Up

The first Slam of the year naturally, the Australian Open. All of those good, improving players means a lot of sleepers in the draw. Aside from Hart & Meikeljohn at the top, I really don't think anyone can be certain they'll even make the second week. I expect a lot of early-round chaos all year in the big events. And how far will Sushant Chiba fall? Pretty much needs to make the semis, a tall order, to maintain his place. Earlier, and he could drop as far as the low teens after being in the final last year.