[Brian Swartz]

Sri Lanka Rankings Update

Girish Girsh -- 3rd to 1st singles. Somewhat better than last year at 82-10, Girsh's first 80-win season and 4 wins, 2 losses better than a year ago. He's definitely past his best play now, but so is all of his competition except for Caratti, who will begin his decline soon. The conflict with Iglar and Caratti will define how much time he can spend in the top spot, and ultimately his legacy will be determined by that over the next year or two.

Anil Mehul -- 1st to 4th singles. Mehul's season ended at 73-17, his worst mark in the past five seasons. He's in the 'hanging on to what he can' part of his career now. It's quite strange to have the guy who won two Slams plummet to 4th, but he failed to reach a single Masters final and was beaten far more often than usual by inferior players. As much as it could have been a much better year, it could also have been a lot worse.

Prakash Mooljee -- 44th to 19th singles, 304th to 197th doubles. Mooljee is dead-even with where Girsh was at the same age(19th), and much better than Mehul managed(31st). He's only got three challengers, one not even listed, to replace this year. This season will be about how quickly he can rise, defined by how well he controls his encounters with players outside of the Big 4. Girsh stumbled at this stage of his career, moving only to 13th. I think Mooljee has a long-shot chance at the Tour Finals, but he needs to progress quickly.

Shreya Ujjaval -- 57th to 29th singles, 157th to 52nd doubles. Ujjaval proved that he is indeed too good not to break through, recovering nicely from a disappointing season two years ago to become the highest-ranked doubles player in Sri Lanka history! He's also become an unprecedented fourth national player to reach the elite(Top 32) status. He can still get better for probably close to another two years, and will likely flirt with the Top 10 at some stage.

Shyam Senepathy -- 166th to 85th singles. An impressive rise this year, more than I expected. I don't think Senepathy really has much more in him though, but we'll see.

Ritwik Dudwadkar -- 209th to 100th juniors. He wasn't nearly as dominant as Mooljee was at this age(2 losses compared to 7) but he's still doing pretty well. There are 15 players, including one Jakob Heinen, younger and higher-ranked ... but none of them are in the Top 50. He's about where he should be, and we'll see how the continuing gradual shift from service to skill serves him as he makes the jump to tier-3 soon.

Manager Ranking -- 2nd(unchanged), 39.9k points to 43.1k. Not nearly the jump I had last year, but more of what I'd expect. I'm now just about exactly halfway between 1st and 3rd, a major gulf in each direction.