[Brian Swartz]

Nothing worth reporting generally happens in the two-week break between Monte Carlo and Madrid - no disrespect intended to the many low-level players and their managers diligently working on bringing them up as best they can. But for me and my most valued charge, a most critical moment has come so I thought this an appropriate time to share my thought process on it.

The Great Transition: Challenger Hero Analysis

It has become time to look at what I consider to be one of, if not the most important and difficult decisions that a manager can make on a rising player of world-class quality. Challenger Hero is my term for the point at which a player forgoes doubles competition (except in practice events of course) in terms of concentrating soley on singles ones. This is the single most significant transitory moment in their career. From the time endurance rose high enough to support it, a period of several years now, the best option has been to play both singles and doubles constantly to maximize XP gain. Even boosting their rankings with the official tournaments has been done with the goal of giving them better, more effective practice events; these have been the focus and most of the time form has been kept minimal, with ranked tournaments only usually considered when needed to keep it at 15 or above and then returning to practice.

By making the transition to Challenger Hero mode, or the singles-only approach, a player is announcing that they soon will be ready for the elite group of the Top 32 players in the world. Continuing their development is still the goal, but they've reached a point at which it actually delays their development in the long-term to continue in both disciplines, because they will soon be good enough to play significant matches in the biggest events and gain from the increased XP they offer.

Taking a closer look at what the numbers mean for this, at any given period of, say, six months, only a handful at most of players will be able to graduate from Challenger to what I call Elite (sounds cooler than Top 32). A handful of the 168 at the Challenger level, so we're talking the top 2-3% or less of that group. What makes this decision very difficult to optimize the timing on is that you actually need to go for it slightly before you are ready. Playing deep in doubles every week as Chittoor & Guha have been doing allows for only one event every month and a half, roughly, or perhaps eight successful ones per year. That's just not enough points to move up - you need about twice that tournament frequency and going singles-only is a requirement to do that without form going sky-high at which point performance will plummet, defeating the purpose.

Make the push too early and you'll struggle along without being able to complete the move, having left being potential gained experience if you had waited. Too late, and you're behind the curve in terms of getting up into the Elite ranks where you can play in the bigger events. Moving then from the general to the specific, Nasir Chittoor is presently rated 8.00, but his next two trains which will be done before Wimbledon, will put him at 8.15. So let's say we split the difference and call him 8.07.

** Note: all of these rankings and ratings were taken during week 17, so they're slightly dated. That's when I did the analysis here.

Above the Line

24. Guillermo Valturri (86%, 7.94)

25. Valery Stachovsky (84%, 8.05)

27. Constantino Gonzoles (88%, 8.48)

28. Isa Solheim - no longer playing singles

29. Fabrizio Abinati (84%, 8.01)

30. Gregory Gulley (89%, 8.19) - plays doubles with Jung

31. Seamus Hughes (83%, 8.18) - focusing on doubles w/Hart.

32. Joao Narciso (96%, 8.09)

Narciso is basically the gatekeeper here and has been for about a year now. Chittoor has, for all intents and purposes, nearly caught him. Gonzoles should stay up for sure, he's much better than the rest. Gulley is questionable but I'd expect to pass the others (in terms of simply being a better player who'd expect to beat them more often than not) before year's end. So viewed from that perspective, we have roughly a half-dozen openings (with Solberg and Chiba, later Hart, eventually joining that group but who knows when - this is more short-term). As has been discussed, this is quite a good situation in terms of the possibilities - often there are fewer than this. Now, who are the key competitors for those positions, and how does Nasir compare to them?

Below the Line

33. Helmut Edlund (96%, 8.03)

34. Willy Weigl (97%, 8.00)

37. Peter de Boer (98%, 8.26)

38. Pieter de Boer (98%, 8.08)

40. Pedro Perez (93%, 8.23)

45. Jaak Christ (97%, 8.09)

48. Tommy Fitzpatrick (99%, 8.05)

51. Mark Smith (100%, 8.02)

There's some others such as Gronhag around here in the 8.0 range, but most are slightly below it.

Analysis

I think we can pencil in the the first de Boer, Perez, and Fitzpatrick (who is due for another upward shift) for three spots. After that it's a free-for-all. By the fall, Nasir should have a slight and increasing advantadge on everyone else and be around 8.2. In order to be in a position to make a serious charge at the end of the year/early next year, he needs to be accumulating points NOW.

All other things being equal I'd prefer to wait a few months longer and then start making the push, so that I'd have bit more of a clear advantage by the time I get his ranking high enough. However, all other things are not equal. In the summer, when the biggest chunk of Challenger events are available and therefore the potential competition is the most spread out, we've got to be ready to take advantage of it - and waiting another year would be WAY too long. So I'll settle for being just a hair unready over the alternative. I judge the cost of waiting to be a fair bit higher than the cost of going all-in at the present time. .

Therefore I am taking the plunge; Chittoor is entering Challenger Hero Mode and will be exclusively or nearly-so be playing singles events, timed to maximize his form and performance for optimal ranking points gain. That means that once form drops below 20, it's time to find a new event to play so that he'll be in the peak performance range and have the best chance of success. This will continue until breaks into the Top 32, hitting the next tier with all of the adjustments that attend to Elite status. Time to break through that wall ... or fail trying. Right now he's at a career-best 67th, with 750 points; he'll need to nearly double that total which means several more tournaments need to be won. The chase is now on in earnest.

The professional tour should consider themselves warned: The Anilophiles Are Coming!! Chittoor has … company. He is not the greatest of this group, and he will be far from alone.