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Old 05-17-2019, 03:25 AM   #1005
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
Challenger Comparison

Now we'll look at some historical examples of this transition for improving players.

** John Hart - 4, 21y 8w to 21y 44w
** Nicolas Perez - 14, 19y 21w to 21y 46w

Here's our current and future #1s to show a difference ... and a similarity. How long you spend in Challengers is of course a choice, up to a point. You can always 'play up' and accept exits earlier from tournaments, which appears to be the path taken by Hart here. Meanwhile Perez was handled more like my players have been, as you'll see - except that he got there faster because he's like really good and stuff. But both of them won their last challenger just before turning 22, and then started making their mark on the top level. Obviously the sooner you can do that, the sooner you start getting the benefits of playing Slams/Masters and the xp bonuses those get. So my guys:

** Anil Mehul - 3, 20y 16w to 21y 34w
** Girish Girsh - 10, 20y 21w to 21y 46w
** Prakash Mooljee - 17, 19y 40w to 21y 45w
** Ritwik Dudwadkar - 16, 20y 24w to 22y 22w
** Sushant Chiba - 21, 20y 14w to 22y 3w
** Amrik Kasaravalli - 16, 21y 9w to 23y 23w

I've said before I didn't know what the heck I was doing when I brought Mehul up. Imagine what he'd have accomplished if I did! Here's some pretty compelling evidence of it. He would not win his first pro-level title - a 500 - for almost two full years after this last challenger victory. I got impatient at this level. It's easy, but counterproductive, to do so. I would later get better at it.

Prakash Mooljee started younger, but didn't get through this any sooner than his predecessors. I remember him just being remarkably solid in futures, but the stall admits no exceptions. Dudwadkar waiting the longest by a good margin - and yet by my calculations actually reached the highest peak as a pro. Chiba had more early success than the others, but still had to stick around for almost two years. And Kasaravalli? Well, you can see here that he was a full year or more behind the others by the end of it.

Nasir Chittoor had a 12-week headwind going into futures, and that ended up dropping by half. With the stiff competition he's up against, I don't expect him to particularly set any speed records. That competition includes two fellow Sri Lanka Reapers that are ahead of Chittoor and Fitzpatrick at the moment - though we'll catch them in time I'm still quite confident. He'll probably be close to 22 by the time he gets out. The next two years will be vital as he's just reached physical maturity so right now is where Mehul's going to make his greatest impact as a trainer. It's time to rack up as much XP as possible, and go from good to great.
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