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A New Star on the Horizon
As I mentioned a bit ago, it was now time for a new youngster in my Sri Lanka stable, as it were. After seven and a half years, I pulled the trigger and fired Amrik Chittoor, presently considered the third-best player the country has ever had. He's going nowhere in singles right now(actually slid a couple spots from 91st to 93rd this year) but more importantly of course there was the need to have another top player coming up to follow Girsh.
It's been long enough that I had a couple cracks at it, which is a good thing since the first player I found wasn't very good. The second was better though. Prakash Mooljee is the latest young stud, and he looks to be the best athlete I've ever managed, a hair stronger and faster than Mehul, and also has a bit more natural talent than any of the others, even Chittoor. He's not quite as strong mentally but is between Girsh and Mehul in terms of dedication to the practice courts. The biggest flaw is that he's pretty raw, a little behind in his development comparatively speaking. Still, I think he should definitely be able to reach the Top 20 at some point. He'll also develop a little faster and decline a little sooner than the others, but definitely is still a pro-focused player instead of junior-focused, which is what I'm looking for.
I'm altering my approach with Mooljee a bit compared to the others. First, I'm going for an even familiarity across all four surfaces. This is probably suboptimal for his personal achievement -- specialists tend to do somewhat better by getting a lot of points on their favored surface -- but I want to eventually be able to avoid situations like the recent loss against Austria in which they had a sizable advantage due to our weakness on clay. I also may mix in amateur events while he's still a junior from time to time, something I've never done before. I think they are a better fit for younger players, I'll probably just skip them and go straight to futures once he turns pro. Most of the events still need to be juniors though to keep him at an appropriate ranking -- otherwhise the competition for practice tournaments won't be good enough.
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