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Brian Swartz · 08-02-2018, 03:20 PM

Three Decades Between the Lines
The Career of Anil Mehul

Anil Mehul's defines Sri Lanka tennis achievement. When he arrived, we were nothing, the lowest of the low. In fact, this dynasty did not even exist. I began posting it over three years ago IRL, and 22+ in game terms(2038). That was back during the Gorritepe regime, an era long-since forgotten. It seemed best to me to recount his fortunes and the nations' together, because they are intertwined. His story is our story.

Mehul made no real waves as a junior. His highest rank was 15th, keeping him well off the radar. Of course at this time I was still in the early stages of working out my strategy, and some of my scheduling decisions were not the best.

There's a limit to how far the records for the WTC go back. I think it's set at 40 years, which at this point is just over half the tour's lifetime. Sri Lanka had some early, minimal participation in the World Team Cup during the infancy of the tour but had not been involved for decades. That changed in 2037, when Mehul and Amrik Chittoor, a surprisingly good 'naturally' generated player who would eventually make a brief foray into the Top 50 in his own right, reached sufficient heights to get the nation back in the fray. Both players were just out of their teens, but that didn't stop them from spearheading a strong march through the Level 4 tier. Nobody won more than a single rubber against them. Ecuador, Lithuania, and Egypt all fell 4-1 in the knockout rounds, then Lithuania again by the same score in the knockout rounds. Meanwhile Mehul reached the Top 100 for the first time. By the time the WTC Playoff rolled around at the end of the year, he was up to 80th.

In 2038 we met our first serious obstacle, in the form of Austria and Julian Hammerstein, a massively powerful player physically who crushes us in both singles encounters en route to a 3-2 defeat in the Level 3 semifinals. That was just enough to get us into the promotion playoffs though, where we easily beat Nigeria 4-1. Both us and Austria moved up, while Mehul's years of struggling in the low double digits were at an end. He finished the year at 37th, already a national record.

** 2039: we won our group again easily, and were cast aside 4-1 once again by Austria, this time in the quarterfinals so the ascent was stalled. We'd have to remain in Level 2 at least one more year. Hammerstein and Mehul were 16th and 15th, both clearly on their way to bigger and better things ... especially the former.

** 2040 began with an impressive run punctuated by a 7-5 fifth-set win over #4 Perry Hogue to the AO semifinals, where Mehul was beaten by one Antonin Iglar, who had won the US Open the previous fall. He was only seeded 5th here, but by year's end he would be #1 and would stay there for quite a while. Anil's solo career would, of course, long be defined by his matchups with the Czech great. In the WTC, a bad showing by Chitoor led to a 3-2 defeat at the hands of the Slovak Republic in the final round of group play, but we still advanced to the knockout rounds. There we performed much better, losing just a single rubber in winning the Level 2 title. The main reason for this was the arrival of my second created player, Girish Girsh. By the end of the season, Mehul was 7th in the world, Girsh in the Top 50, and Peru was brushed aside 4-1 in the promotion playoff. Sri Lanka had arrived at the top tier.

** 2041 saw Mehul rise to #2, just ahead of deposed champ Bjorn Benda of Germany, and well behind Iglar. He was nearing his prime, and would settle in there for quite some time. Girsh was #11, three years younger at 23. And yet the WTC was not kind to us. A 3-2 loss to Spain's 'dual Davids' -- Almagro(3rd) and Alvarez(6th) were still among the world's best -- followed a 3-2 defeat to the Czech republic. In that one, Mehul suffered a rare WTC blemish, losing in five to Iglar after leading 2 sets to 1 ... all by tiebreak. We won the doubles, but with #10 Cestmir Marcek the other Czech player, we could make no inroads against them. Two of the elite in our group was just terrible luck.

** The next year I had occasion to hate the scheduling algorithm again, though for different reasons. Germany played spoiler behind Benda, still the best player in the world on clay. All three knockout rounds they had the dirt in their favor, leading to 3-2 wins over the Czech Republic(semis) and in the final(us).

** Another 3-2 loss to the Germans on clay followed in 2043, this time in the quarterfinals. I was not amused. Overall we were better than them by now(Girsh was up to #5 and we were at worst the equal of anyone), but the deck was stacked against us. Meanwhile Mehul surged just past Iglar with a strong finish to the season, finishing #1 by virtue of a 5-7, 7-6(3), 6-4 win in the World Tour Finals. It was a truly storybook ending to the season in that sense.

** Iglar struck back on both fronts in '44, as the Czech Republic narrowly beat us 3-2 in the WTC Final, while the Czech dominated the singles scene to take back the #1 spot. By more than 5000 points. Particularly annoying was his opening-day comeback victory in the WTC, where Girsh held a two-set lead but couldn't close.

** 2045 began a golden era for Sri Lanka in the World Team Cup, the likes of which have never been seen before. The next four years we won the world championship(the United States had previously won three in a row, as had Spain), and eight out of the next ten(Spain had done 7 in a decade before). So on both counts we were just ahead of history. The Czechs were the next to interrupt it, with Tomas Niklas defeating Girsh 9-7 in the 5th on the final day for a 3-2 semifinal count in '49. Three years later, with Mehul now a doubles player past his prime, we had only #2 Prakash Mooljee among the elite and an indoor match Germany tripped us up. Again it was 3-2 in the semis, and again we bounced back with the rise of Dudwadkar to win the next two. All in all, there was a 12-year period(from '45 to '56) in which we never failed to be crowned in consecutive years. Only the rise of France's Kaspars ended that streak.

** Mehul was the top singles player for that first title, then surpassed as he started to decline the next year and Girsh became our best. He actually wasn't on the final team at all for he fourth one in '48, as he was making the transition to doubles. He would be back though for the '50 return to glory, spearheading our doubles team then and for more than a decade afterwards. Two years later, at 33 he was one of the most accomplished doubles players in the world(ranked 3rd). He would remain at that level for a couple seasons, making #1 for a brief time, but once again the hands of time came for him and by his late 30s he could no longer be a significant player even in that discipline and long-time partner Lars Kroese sensibly moved on.

** Grand Slams - 8 singles titles(T-7th all-time), 4 doubles.
** World Tour Finals - 3x winner(singles)
** Masters - 8 singles titles, 8 doubles
** 500 - 7 singles titles, 1 doubles
** 250 - 10 singles titles, 1 doubles

** Total Win/Loss - 1351-365(.787 pct) singles, 567-261(.685 pct) doubles.

** WTC Record(as requested) - 118-10(.922 pct) singles, 42-43(.494 pct) doubles

Analysis

Antonin Iglar in his generation, along with several others, rank above Anil Mehul in the historical record. He's a third-tier all-time great, someone on the very periphery of the conversation when you are talking about the best ever. 1st tier(Kaspar/Gorritepe), 2nd tier(Sullivan/Prieto/Iglar/Horesign), and then a big group of players on which he is just one. Anil does rank as the clear #1 on the Sri Lanka legends list. It's not a huge list of players who have been #1 in singles and doubles, but it's not exceptionally rare either. 9th on the all-time money-list, T-7th in Slam victories, though he didn't win as many Masters as one would expect; half of his eight in that one brilliant year when he unseated Iglar. Total weeks at #1 is just over a year at 60.

Where Anil really stands out is in legacy and longevity. Nobody has ever done as much for their nation has he has. The WTC numbers are sort of a microcosm; the singles record is quite sparkling, doubles not so much, but the most impressive thing is the volume. He played in 20 years worth of ties over 24 seasons with a couple of brief breaks in there. Qualifying for a top nation for that long made him almost as reliable as death and taxes. He also holds three age-related records, which is more than any other player save Martin Prieto, who played in the early, pre-form days. Oldest singles winner of Masters event(32y 20w), oldest Olympics gold medalist in doubles(38y 19w), and oldest WTC doubles champion(43y 37w). Ultimately it's now how high Mehul's peak was, but how long he just kept coming back, year after year, that sticks with you. This last year he was 1-5 in doubles appearances, and the one win barely in five sets. But there was never any question that he was still the best we had, and as long as that was the case he would still be there each time.

More than any of my other players, he really appeared to have the heart of a champion. In the battles with Iglar(17-36 overall), he won more than he had a right to given the gap between the players in athleticism particularly, even while still being clearly inferior in the big picture. He just kept coming, and rarely lost a match in which he was a clear favorite. The other players have been more of a mixed bag, with Girsh somewhat of an underachiever and Mooljee/Dudwadkar having periods of excellence and periods of disappointment. Anil was a consummate professional 9 times out of 10 or more, making him the ideal figurehead as he moves into the trainer phase.

08-02-2018, 03:20 PM	#838
Brian Swartz Grizzled Veteran Join Date: May 2006	Three Decades Between the Lines The Career of Anil Mehul Anil Mehul's defines Sri Lanka tennis achievement. When he arrived, we were nothing, the lowest of the low. In fact, this dynasty did not even exist. I began posting it over three years ago IRL, and 22+ in game terms(2038). That was back during the Gorritepe regime, an era long-since forgotten. It seemed best to me to recount his fortunes and the nations' together, because they are intertwined. His story is our story. Mehul made no real waves as a junior. His highest rank was 15th, keeping him well off the radar. Of course at this time I was still in the early stages of working out my strategy, and some of my scheduling decisions were not the best. There's a limit to how far the records for the WTC go back. I think it's set at 40 years, which at this point is just over half the tour's lifetime. Sri Lanka had some early, minimal participation in the World Team Cup during the infancy of the tour but had not been involved for decades. That changed in 2037, when Mehul and Amrik Chittoor, a surprisingly good 'naturally' generated player who would eventually make a brief foray into the Top 50 in his own right, reached sufficient heights to get the nation back in the fray. Both players were just out of their teens, but that didn't stop them from spearheading a strong march through the Level 4 tier. Nobody won more than a single rubber against them. Ecuador, Lithuania, and Egypt all fell 4-1 in the knockout rounds, then Lithuania again by the same score in the knockout rounds. Meanwhile Mehul reached the Top 100 for the first time. By the time the WTC Playoff rolled around at the end of the year, he was up to 80th. In 2038 we met our first serious obstacle, in the form of Austria and Julian Hammerstein, a massively powerful player physically who crushes us in both singles encounters en route to a 3-2 defeat in the Level 3 semifinals. That was just enough to get us into the promotion playoffs though, where we easily beat Nigeria 4-1. Both us and Austria moved up, while Mehul's years of struggling in the low double digits were at an end. He finished the year at 37th, already a national record. 2039: we won our group again easily, and were cast aside 4-1 once again by Austria, this time in the quarterfinals so the ascent was stalled. We'd have to remain in Level 2 at least one more year. Hammerstein and Mehul were 16th and 15th, both clearly on their way to bigger and better things ... especially the former. 2040 began with an impressive run punctuated by a 7-5 fifth-set win over #4 Perry Hogue to the AO semifinals, where Mehul was beaten by one Antonin Iglar, who had won the US Open the previous fall. He was only seeded 5th here, but by year's end he would be #1 and would stay there for quite a while. Anil's solo career would, of course, long be defined by his matchups with the Czech great. In the WTC, a bad showing by Chitoor led to a 3-2 defeat at the hands of the Slovak Republic in the final round of group play, but we still advanced to the knockout rounds. There we performed much better, losing just a single rubber in winning the Level 2 title. The main reason for this was the arrival of my second created player, Girish Girsh. By the end of the season, Mehul was 7th in the world, Girsh in the Top 50, and Peru was brushed aside 4-1 in the promotion playoff. Sri Lanka had arrived at the top tier. 2041 saw Mehul rise to #2, just ahead of deposed champ Bjorn Benda of Germany, and well behind Iglar. He was nearing his prime, and would settle in there for quite some time. Girsh was #11, three years younger at 23. And yet the WTC was not kind to us. A 3-2 loss to Spain's 'dual Davids' -- Almagro(3rd) and Alvarez(6th) were still among the world's best -- followed a 3-2 defeat to the Czech republic. In that one, Mehul suffered a rare WTC blemish, losing in five to Iglar after leading 2 sets to 1 ... all by tiebreak. We won the doubles, but with #10 Cestmir Marcek the other Czech player, we could make no inroads against them. Two of the elite in our group was just terrible luck. The next year I had occasion to hate the scheduling algorithm again, though for different reasons. Germany played spoiler behind Benda, still the best player in the world on clay. All three knockout rounds they had the dirt in their favor, leading to 3-2 wins over the Czech Republic(semis) and in the final(us). Another 3-2 loss to the Germans on clay followed in 2043, this time in the quarterfinals. I was not amused. Overall we were better than them by now(Girsh was up to #5 and we were at worst the equal of anyone), but the deck was stacked against us. Meanwhile Mehul surged just past Iglar with a strong finish to the season, finishing #1 by virtue of a 5-7, 7-6(3), 6-4 win in the World Tour Finals. It was a truly storybook ending to the season in that sense. Iglar struck back on both fronts in '44, as the Czech Republic narrowly beat us 3-2 in the WTC Final, while the Czech dominated the singles scene to take back the #1 spot. By more than 5000 points. Particularly annoying was his opening-day comeback victory in the WTC, where Girsh held a two-set lead but couldn't close. 2045 began a golden era for Sri Lanka in the World Team Cup, the likes of which have never been seen before. The next four years we won the world championship(the United States had previously won three in a row, as had Spain), and eight out of the next ten(Spain had done 7 in a decade before). So on both counts we were just ahead of history. The Czechs were the next to interrupt it, with Tomas Niklas defeating Girsh 9-7 in the 5th on the final day for a 3-2 semifinal count in '49. Three years later, with Mehul now a doubles player past his prime, we had only #2 Prakash Mooljee among the elite and an indoor match Germany tripped us up. Again it was 3-2 in the semis, and again we bounced back with the rise of Dudwadkar to win the next two. All in all, there was a 12-year period(from '45 to '56) in which we never failed to be crowned in consecutive years. Only the rise of France's Kaspars ended that streak. Mehul was the top singles player for that first title, then surpassed as he started to decline the next year and Girsh became our best. He actually wasn't on the final team at all for he fourth one in '48, as he was making the transition to doubles. He would be back though for the '50 return to glory, spearheading our doubles team then and for more than a decade afterwards. Two years later, at 33 he was one of the most accomplished doubles players in the world(ranked 3rd). He would remain at that level for a couple seasons, making #1 for a brief time, but once again the hands of time came for him and by his late 30s he could no longer be a significant player even in that discipline and long-time partner Lars Kroese sensibly moved on. Grand Slams - 8 singles titles(T-7th all-time), 4 doubles. World Tour Finals - 3x winner(singles) Masters - 8 singles titles, 8 doubles 500 - 7 singles titles, 1 doubles 250 - 10 singles titles, 1 doubles Total Win/Loss - 1351-365(.787 pct) singles, 567-261(.685 pct) doubles. WTC Record(as requested) - 118-10(.922 pct) singles, 42-43(.494 pct) doubles Analysis Antonin Iglar in his generation, along with several others, rank above Anil Mehul in the historical record. He's a third-tier all-time great, someone on the very periphery of the conversation when you are talking about the best ever. 1st tier(Kaspar/Gorritepe), 2nd tier(Sullivan/Prieto/Iglar/Horesign), and then a big group of players on which he is just one. Anil does rank as the clear #1 on the Sri Lanka legends list. It's not a huge list of players who have been #1 in singles and doubles, but it's not exceptionally rare either. 9th on the all-time money-list, T-7th in Slam victories, though he didn't win as many Masters as one would expect; half of his eight in that one brilliant year when he unseated Iglar. Total weeks at #1 is just over a year at 60. Where Anil really stands out is in legacy and longevity. Nobody has ever done as much for their nation has he has. The WTC numbers are sort of a microcosm; the singles record is quite sparkling, doubles not so much, but the most impressive thing is the volume. He played in 20 years worth of ties over 24 seasons with a couple of brief breaks in there. Qualifying for a top nation for that long made him almost as reliable as death and taxes. He also holds three age-related records, which is more than any other player save Martin Prieto**, who played in the early, pre-form days. Oldest singles winner of Masters event(32y 20w), oldest Olympics gold medalist in doubles(38y 19w), and oldest WTC doubles champion(43y 37w). Ultimately it's now how high Mehul's peak was, but how long he just kept coming back, year after year, that sticks with you. This last year he was 1-5 in doubles appearances, and the one win barely in five sets. But there was never any question that he was still the best we had, and as long as that was the case he would still be there each time. More than any of my other players, he really appeared to have the heart of a champion. In the battles with Iglar(17-36 overall), he won more than he had a right to given the gap between the players in athleticism particularly, even while still being clearly inferior in the big picture. He just kept coming, and rarely lost a match in which he was a clear favorite. The other players have been more of a mixed bag, with Girsh somewhat of an underachiever and Mooljee/Dudwadkar having periods of excellence and periods of disappointment. Anil was a consummate professional 9 times out of 10 or more, making him the ideal figurehead as he moves into the trainer phase.