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Old 05-17-2019, 03:19 AM   #1004
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
Challenger Overview

Ok so to minimize the impact of the text walls I'm about to throw, I'm splitting this into two parts.




Here's our circle image again.

** Black-Red = Amateurs (1001+)
** Red-Yellow = Futures (201-1000)
** Yellow-Green = Challengers (33-200)
** Inside Green = Elite (1-32)

I've always thought the Challenger name was quite good and appropriate for what essentially is tennis's top developmental stage, high minor league, best of the semi-pro, or whatever you want to call it. Here is the first point where you've actually accomplished something. Average-to-good futures players can be bought for a dime a dozen on the open market. You don't have to work at it to reach that level. As an example, Anil Manohar, my aging still-around-just-because-I-don't-feel-like-firing-him trainer, was hired in at 27, nearly 28 years old. That was almost 36 years ago in-game; he's now 63 and change. His career-high singles ranking was 238th, and I just picked him up as the best-looking Sri Lankan near his prime. Didn't even know I was going to make him a trainer, I don't think I even knew what trainers were, but I soon realized that high futures were his peak. Most of the players generated by the game can make it well into that level of play, but getting to Challengers requires a little more work. Not a lot more, but some. Most of the players who get there, do so because a human manager took an interest at some point relatively early in their career and worked on them. So I see it as the first stage where you start to see the fruits of your labor in merely getting there.

It's also the stage that requires the most patience. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, hits a speed bump of some length here. Even King Kaspar didn't steam through it like it was nothing, spending over a year and a half I think. Generally speaking, you need close to a 7.0 rating to graduate futures and get here, and roughly an 8.0 to escape to the Elite level of the Top 32. That's probably more like 8.2 or 8.25 right now of course - these things change with tour competitiveness. That's part of the reason why you spend significant time here; it's a lot harder to go from 7.0 (good) to 8.0 (excellent) than it is to go from 5 to 6 or whatever. For world-class players, you are generally at physical peak and therefore gaining XP at the fastest possible rate, but it still is a significant hill to climb.

Another reason is this is the stage where the field shrinks the most. Futures are a third of the entire pro field of competitors; Challengers a mere fifth of that; and to escape to Elite, you have to be among the best sixth (6.25, to be precise). No other tier has that harsh of a ratio. And finally, going Elite means running into the very best players a significant amount of the time. There are few 'cheap' rankings to gain once you get up that far.

All of which is to say that this is essentially where the men are separated from the boys. The high end of Challengers is basically where things switch from independently developing your abilities to putting the pedal to the medal and really going for as many wins/ranking points as you can get, i.e. a more focused performance mentality when you hit roughly the Top 50.

Last edited by Brian Swartz : 05-17-2019 at 03:25 AM.
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