[Brian Swartz]

Excellent!

Another bit of history was made. As expected, Sri Lanka dominated Lithuania for a second time, winning 4-1 again to move up to Level 3 for the 2038 season. Anil Mehul dropped only a single game in his two matchs(combined), Chittoor five in each of his but never came close to losing a set, while once again the doubles were a competitive loss.

Monday: A. Chittoor d. D. Gedgaudas, 6-3, 6-2, 6-0
Tuesday: A. Mehul d. J. Smimov, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0
Wednesday: J. Smimov/D. Gedgaudas d. A. Mehul/P. Nilima, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-2
Thursday: A. Mehul d. D. Gedgaudas, 6-0, 6-0, 6-1
Friday: A. Chittoor d. J. Smimov, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1

An impressive six bagel sets. This was never a contest. Sri Lanka is now up two spots to 67th in the world. We are now in the final week of 2037. Next week the first group matches get under way for the new year.

Each tier or level consists of 16 nations, divided into 4 groups. A round-robin schedule has a tie contested with each of the other three nations in a group, after which the top two nations from each group advance to the quarterfinals. As mentioned, making the semifinals ensures a spot in the playoff with a chance to move up to the next level/tier. As far as going into the playoffs having to win to stay up, I hadn't looked at that yet since it never concerned Sri Lanka before -- this is the first time we have competed at anything above the lowest level! It appears that the four lowest-ranking nations that don't make it out of the group stage are sent. Not the four lowest-ranking in the group performance, but in terms of their world ranking. So basically making it out of the group will ensure at least staying on the same level next year.

Sri Lanka has been drawn in Group 1 of Level 3. The opponents will be China(48th), Nigeria(39th), and Ukraine(47th). Ukraine has a veteran who was Top 50 until recently(Yevgeni Tupikov, 56th) so they will certainly not be as much of a pushover as most of last year's opponents. China should be very beatable, both of their singles players were in the 150 range. Nigeria made the L3 final last year, losing narrowly to India 3-2 in a playoff to move up. Their best player, Guillame Vittoz, is ranked 86th in the world at the moment and could give either one of our players problems.

I think Sri Lanka will make it out of Group 1 but it will not be a walk-over and a third-place finish is not out of the question. There will be a lot more tense moments this season in the World Team Cup.