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Old 03-07-2016, 01:52 AM   #284
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
Before I get to the AO, as mentioned Prakash Mooljee had a tier-1 futures that same week. He managed to get to the semis in doubles, and unsurprisingly bashed through the singles basically unchallenged to move to just outside the top 200. He'll have one at most futures tournaments left, and will get to take over a month off now due to the doubles success. Depending on what's available in what will be early March, he also may take on his first challenger event at that point.

At the start of the year I forgot to take a look at the most probable rivals in his age brackets, which I intended to do. So I'll just throw that in here now. At just over 19 and a half, Mooljee can reasonably compared to others in the under-20 bracket. I'll list any of them currently in the Top 300. It's a quick-and-dirty way to do things, but will give a general sense of the top candidates which is really all that can intelligently be done at this early stage of things.

Hot-Shot Teen Prospects

62. Hector DeBlock(BEL). The dominant junior in Mooljee's class has shown why, and isn't slowing down so far. He's quite talented and has a better serve than almost anyone else his age but has hit the challenger wall hard at this point, able to win tier-2 and below events but not doing anything further up except for a bit on clay. DeBlock is a pretty good athlete and quite good mentally, but his stock relative to the rest of the group I think will fall as he's a quick-riser with the attendant limitation on longevity. The real shocker here is that he's gotten this far this fast, it's rare to see a teenager in the Top 100. For that reason alone he bears close watching.

142. Sava Cirakovic(CRO). Even more meteoric in terms of his career path, Cirakovic has not seen as much early success as DeBlock but he's still doing quite well. Stronger but less mentally tough, his dedication is very good and could see him ending up as the better player in the long run. Too early to tell yet.

182. Tristan Benitez(ARG). Weak but very quick, Benitez is a clay-court specialist and lacking in terms of the will to work on his game. Not a long-term threat in my opinion, but his baseline skill is as well developed as Mooljee's, and he's a few months younger.

183. Blagota Cojanovic(CRO). Fast, pretty dedicated, and strong mentally, Cojanovic is the first on this list that doesn't figure to flame out easily. I like Mooljee's game a fair bit better right now and he's even more committed so that advantage should increase, but Cojanovic should be a very relevant player in this age group if he's handled reasonably.

194. Jonathan Ardant(FRA). A poor man's Cojanovic basically, and managed by the same person. Most notably he's considerably slower and has lower endurance as well.

211. Prakash Mooljee(SRI). A pretty good place to be in, sixth on the rundown, and I definitely expect it to improve. I don't see a transcendent talent like Iglar or Bahana anywhere here; the third top Sri Lankan to come through my tutelage -- and I've learned much from the experience of the first two -- has a combination of endurance, athleticism, and technique that should eventually propel him past the others. Cojanovic is the one with the best chance, and DeBlock's early emergence will keep on top for a while, but I don't think either of them can stop Prakash once his skills are complete.

224. Gael Monfils(FRA). Strong and the most 'clutch' player I've literally ever seen(as in, 5.0 mentality!!), Monfils is also only average in footspeed and not a lot better in terms of working on the practice courts. Technically solid but not more ... he'll be around for a while but just doesn't quite have the total package.

And that's it. This group of seven is likely to bump into each other every now and then over the next couple of years in challengers, but that's just a prelude of course. It'll be interesting to watch how many of them actually make it through that trial.

Last edited by Brian Swartz : 03-07-2016 at 01:53 AM.
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