This Week’s WATCH List: Who’s Achieved Their Career Highs?

Another week, another WATCH List – the weekly feature that purports to show every challenger-level player (i.e. those ranked between ATP #80-350) who’s achieved a career high as of the latest rankings period.  Warning: this list is not guaranteed to be complete or accurate.  But best faith attempts have been made.  Feel free to shout at me in the comments if you see something has gone awry, amiss or (especially) askew.  Akimbo’s OK, though.  You don’t have to tell me if this week’s list has gone akimbo.

Anywho, here it is: 

Player	NATIONALITY	Age	New High	Prev High	Why?
Go Soeda	JAPAN	26	90	91	Others lost points
Andreas Haider-Maurer	AUSTRIA	24	95	96	Others lost points
Julian Reister	GERMANY	25	100	102	W Monza
Albert Ramos-Vinolas	SPAIN	23	108	109	R2 Houston ATP
Ryan Harrison	USA	18	128	130	Others lost points
Rogerio Dutra de Silva	BRAZIL	27	137	154	W Pereira
Tatsuma Ito	JAPAN	22	135	162	W Recife
Franco Skugor	CROATIA	23	147	149	R1 Houston ATP (Q’ed)
Robert Farah	COLOMBIA	23	177	178	Others lost points
Facundo Bagnis	ARGENTINA	21	178	190	QF Pereira
Augustin Gensse	FRANCE	27	179	180	Others lost points
Maxime Teixeira	FRANCE	22	190	191	Others lost points
Cedrik-Marcel Stebe	GERMANY	20	218	219	Others lost points
Kenny de Schepper	FRANCE	23	242	251	R2 Monza
Jonathan Eysseric	FRANCE	20	257	258	Others lost points
Artem Smirnov	UKRAINE	23	262	263	Others lost points
Javier Marti	SPAIN	19	263	294	SF Pereira
Kristijan Mesaros	CROATIA	22	264	287	W Croatia F5
James Lemke	AUSTRALIA	23	266	278	W Australia F4
Gastao Elias	PORTUGAL	20	267	269	R2 Recife
Marcel Zimmerman	GERMANY	26	299	301	R2 Croatia F5
Jan-Lennard Struff	GERMANY	20	316	329	F Spain F10
Christian Lindell	SWEDEN	19	325	336	R2 Recife
Gerard Granollers-Pujol	SPAIN	22	326	331	R1 Casablanca ATP (Q’ed)
Guillermo Rivera-Aranguiz	CHILE	22	336	342	F Chile F1
Karlis Lejnieks	LATVIA	23	347	351	QF Switzerland F3

My finely crafted analysis is as follows: it’s a pretty youngish bunch this week (average age: 22.42).  Lindell, Marti and Harrison are the teens, while the gramps of the group are Gensse and Dutra da Silva at age 27.  France and Germany lead the way with four players each nabbing a career high at the moment.  Interestingly, Artem Smirnov is this month’s ITF Featured Player.  So go have a gander at that if you’re interested in learning more about him.

p.s. if you’re interested in those muckety-mucks higher up in the Top 80, our friends at Shank Tennis usually give it a good whirl.



The WATCH List – Who’s Achieved Their Career Highs?

It’s time again for that most beloved of weekly features (that I haven’t done in a month), the W.A.T.C.H. list.  For those who’ve forgotten, WATCH is a very clever acronym I made up that stands for Who’s Achieved Their Career Highs? Here’s how it works: I list who’s achieved their career highs. Elegant in its simplicity!

Something else you should know: I only list those players whose rankings are between #80-350, as they’re the ones most likely to show up in Challenger draws from week to week.  Our friends at Shank Tennis used to kind of cover me when it came to those merry ranksters in the Top 80, but since I haven’t held up my end of our tag-team bargain lately, they are under no obligation to hold up theirs.  (Although, to be fair to myself, only two new sets of ATP Rankings have come out in the last month or so, as the week-and-a-half formats of Miami and Indian Wells wreak havoc with the schedule.)

But enough of this procedural prattle. Here’s this week’s list:

Player	NATIONALITY	Age	New High	Prev High	Why?
Go Soeda	JAPAN	26	91	104	W Pingguo
Andreas Haider-Maurer	AUSTRIA	24	96	113	W Caltanissetta, SF Barletta
Lukas Rosol	CZECH REPUBLIC	25	123	131	SF Barletta
Matthias Bachinger	GERMANY	24	133	151	F Pingguo
Franco Skugor	CROATIA	23	149	150	Others lost points
Rogerio Dutra de Silva	BRAZIL	27	154	157	QF Barranquilla
Robert Farah	COLOMBIA	23	178	182	QR2 Miami, R2 Barranquilla
Augustin Gensse	FRANCE	27	180	185	SF Marrakech, QF St. Brieuc
Jurgen Zopp	ESTONIA	23	189	194	SF Bath
Facundo Bagnis	ARGENTINA	21	190	227	W Barranquilla
Maxime Teixeira	FRANCE	22	191	267	W St. Brieuc, F Marrakech
Matteo Viola	ITALY	23	192	208	F Caltanissetta, R2 Barletta
Sebastian Rieschick	GERMANY	25	208	209	Others lost points
Victor Estrella	DOMINICAN REPUBLIC	30	210	211	Others lost points
Cedrik-Marcel Stebe	GERMANY	20	219	234	SF Pingguo
Laurent Rochette	FRANCE	23	236	240	QF St. Brieuc
Fernando Romboli	BRAZIL	22	245	246	Others lost points
Phillip Bester	CANADA	22	247	250	Others lost points
Kenny de Schepper	FRANCE	23	251	280	R2 St. Brieuc, F France F5
Jonathan Eysseric	FRANCE	20	258	263	R2 Caltanissetta
Artem Smirnov	UKRAINE	23	263	289	W Ukraine F3
Valery Rudnev	RUSSIA	23	267	272	W Russia F2
Harri Heliovaara	FINLAND	21	272	285	R2 Pingguo
Florian Reynet	FRANCE	24	273	275	SF Turkey F9, R2 Croatia F3
Daniel Cox	GREAT BRITAIN	20	274	290	R2 Bath
Adam Kellner	HUNGARY	24	275	321	W India F3, SF India F2
Dusan Lajovic	SERBIA	20	276	362	W Italy F3, W Italy F2
Kristijan Mesaros	CROATIA	22	287	313	W Croatia F3
Jan-Lennard Struff	GERMANY	20	329	350	W Spain F9
Gerard Granollers-Pujol	SPAIN	22	331	349	W Portugal F3, QR2 St. Brieuc
Christian Lindell	SWEDEN	19	336	342	R1 Marrakech (qualified)

Special congrats to Japan’s Go Soeda for finally cracking the Top 100 after sniffing at the outer edges of it for three years. Same for Austria’s Andreas Haider-Maurer, who’s been Top 500 since 2006 and Top 250 since 2009.

That’s all for now – see you next month week!

The WATCH List – Special VD Edition! Who’s Achieved Their Career High This Week?

No, you goons – this is not a special edition for those who’ve contracted certain romance-related diseases. Rather, it’s a special Valentines Day edition of my weekly list detailing Who’s Achieved Their Career Highs (although some would call Valentines Day itself a romance-related disease. I abstain from comment on the grounds that it might incriminate me).

So what makes this Valentines Day edition so special? Nothing really. Only that’s it’s made with love and dedicated to you, dear reader. *gags on sappy sentiment* Also, I’ve added an “age” column. You’re welcome. You know the rules by now, right? Only those ranked #80-350 make my list, unless I’m feeling particularly in an inclusive mood (who knows? On Valentines Day, you may get lucky). For those Titans of the Top 80, you must confer with our friends over at Shank Tennis.

All right! Enough of this tomfoolery. Let’s get to this week’s WATCH List!

Player	Age	NATION	New High	Prev High	Why?
Grigor Dimitrov	19.75	BULGARIA	84	85	Q’ed, R1 R’dam
Benoit Paire	21.75	FRANCE	120	136	Q’ed, R2 R’dam
Alexander Kudryavtsev	25.25	RUSSIA	141	147	SF Bergamo
Tim Smyczek	23.10	USA	158	168	QF San Jose
Matthias Bachinger	23.90	GERMANY	161	163	R2 Bergamo
Robert Farah	23.25	COLOMBIA	183	184	Q’ed, R1 San Jose
Jurgen Zopp	22.90	ESTONIA	198	211	SF Bergamo
Sebastian Rieschick	24.99	GERMANY	225	228	R2 Quimper
Facundo Bagnis	20.95	ARGENTINA	231	238	Q’ed, R1 Brazil
Andres Molteni	22.92	ARGENTINA	236	246	QF Colombia F2
Alexander Lobkov	20.33	RUSSIA	252	253	Others lost points
Fritz Wolmarans	24.93	S. AFRICA	254	255	Others lost points
Amir Weintraub	24.42	ISRAEL	255	259	R2 Quimper
Phillip Bester	22.35	CANADA	260	268	R2 Caloundra
Clement Reix	27.35	FRANCE	265	270	R2 Quimper
Karan Rastogi	24.35	INDIA	284	328	W Cambodia F2
Javier Marti	19.10	SPAIN	295	308	R2 Spain F5
Kenny de Schepper	23.70	FRANCE	297	370	F Quimper
Ludovic Walter	28.10	FRANCE	304	315	R2 Quimper

Notable things to note:

The average age of this week’s WATCHers is 23 years old and 4 months. The youngest player achieving a career high today is Javier Marti at 19 and 1 month, while the oldest is former Duke University standout (two-time ITA All-American) Ludovic Walter at 28 and 1 month (warning: all age numbers are achieved by rounding off, for the most part, and are thus approximations).

Ludovic Walter quimping it up at the Quimper Challenger in France

Walter is an interesting case, having not even achieved a pro ranking until after his college days were over in 2006 at age 23. I suspect that, with college ball being an increasingly viable route for top talents and the age of the Top 100 skewing ever older, we’ll start to see many more players in the “Ludovic Walter” mold in the future.

Anyway, congrats to all who’ve achieved career highs this week. And to all the rest of you, I hope you achieve various highs of your own on this Valentines Day.

The WATCH List – Who’s Achieved Their Career Highs This Week

You know the drill by now, right?  Please tell my you know the drill by now; I don’t want to have to explain the drill again.  Ah, well.  *copies and pastes last week’s explanation in a fit of laziness*

This here list comes out every Monday and consists of Who’s Achieved Their Career Highs (acronym: WATCH, geddit?) that particular week for those players ranked between 80-350 in the world (since that’s the level at which most challenger competitors are ranked, you see).  If you’re interested in people ranked higher than #80, then you’re a) at the wrong site and b) gonna hafta wait for the lazy layabouts over at Shank Tennis to publish their look at rankings for the week.  We sort of do this thing in tandem, you know.  With absolutely no planning or interaction whatsover (which only makes it more impressive – kind of like a blind person driving). 

Here’s this week’s list:

Player	NATIONALITY	New High	Prev High	Why?
Somdev Devvarman	INDIA	80	94	F Jo’burg
Milos Raonic	CANADA	84	94	R2 Jo’burg
Rui Machado	PORTUGAL	85	87	R2 Santiago
Jesse Huta Galung	NETHERLANDS	112	116	R2 Jo’burg
Izak Van der Merwe	SOUTH AFRICA	141	154	SF Jo’burg
Jerzy Janowicz	POLAND	149	157	SF Courmayeur
Tatsuma Ito	JAPAN	162	175	SF Burnie
Matthias Bachinger	GERMANY	163	167	SF Courmayeur
Bastian Knittel	GERMANY	167	169	R2 Courmayeur
Robert Farah	COLOMBIA	184	185	Others lost points
Augustin Gensse	FRANCE	185	189	Others lost points
Nikola Ciric	SERBIA	193	194	Others lost points
Marius Copil	ROMANIA	205	279	W Kazan
Jurgen Zopp	ESTONIA	211	219	QF Kazan
Sebastian Rieschick	GERMANY	228	232	R2 Courmayeur
Facundo Bagnis	ARGENTINA	238	242	R1 Santiago
Laurent Rochette	FRANCE	240	244	R1 Courmayeur
Fernando Romboli	BRAZIL	244	245	Others lost points
Alexander Lobkov	RUSSIA	253	255	R2 Kazan
Fritz Wolmarans	SOUTH AFRICA	255	261	R2 Jo’burg
Romain Jouan	FRANCE	258	263	R2 Courmayeur
Amir Weintraub	ISRAEL	259	263	Others lost points
Phillip Bester	CANADA	268	270	R2 Burnie
Clement Reix	FRANCE	270	271	R1 Courmayeur
Jonathan Eysseric	FRANCE	276	297	F France F1
Ilya Belyaev	RUSSIA	277	284	QF Kazan
Maxime Teixeira	FRANCE	283	314	W France F1
Pablo Carreno-Busta	SPAIN	300	319	F Spain F3
Daniel Cox	GREAT BRITAIN	323	325	Others lost points
Rodrigo Guidolin	BRAZIL	350	352	R2 Brazil F6
Joshua Milton	GREAT BRITAIN	353	354	Others lost points
Laurynas Grigelis	LITHUANIA	366	398	QF Courmayeur
Dusan Lajovic	SERBIA	378	403	R1 Zagreb

I extended my arbitrary list parameters beyond the Top 350 this week so I could include Laurynas Grigelis and Dusan Lajovic, simply because I like them.  It’s my list, and I can extend it if I want to. 

Do I have any stunning list analysis?  Not really.  Feeling kind of listless today, really.  But obviously the fallout from the Jo’burg draw having so many Challenger warriors (and ATP neophytes) advancing past the first round had big repercussions at the top of the list (and into the Top 80). 

Anyway, it’s a pretty long list.  You’re probably tired from reviewing it all.  So I’ll let it speak for itself this week.  If you spot any errors or omissions, please let me know in the comments as always.  Thanks!

On edit: Hmmm. I should point out the abundance of young ‘uns on this week’s list, as it’s fairly noteworthy – lots of guys around 20 years old on this one.  It also occurs to me that I should start putting “Age” as a column on the list.  Maybe next week.  In the meantime: Raonic, Janowicz, Copil, Bagnis, Lobkov, Eysseric, Belyaev, Cox, and Lajovic are all 20 years old.  Carreno-Busta and Grigelis are 19.

The WATCH List – Who’s Achieved Their Career Highs This Week

Since it’s been a proper fortnight since the last rankings were released (or perhaps an improper one, depending on how you spent it), plus a 10 hour ATP delay, I’ll review my arbitrary parameters for the WATCH list. 

This here list comes out every Monday and consists of Who’s Achieved Their Career Highs (acronym: WATCH, geddit?) that particular week for those players ranked between 80-350 in the world (since that’s the level at which most challenger competitors are ranked, you see).  If you’re interested in people ranked higher than #80, then you’re a) at the wrong site and b) gonna hafta wait for the lazy layabouts over at Shank Tennis to publish their look at rankings for the week.  We sort of do this thing in tandem, you know.  With absolutely no planning or interaction whatsover (which only makes it more impressive – kind of like a blind person driving). 

Anyway, here’s this week’s list:

Player	NATIONALITY	New High	(Prev High)	Why?
Blaz Kavcic	SLOVENIA	83	(96)	2R Oz Open
Grigor Dimitrov	BULGARIA	85	(105)	2R Oz Open
Rui Machado	PORTUGAL	87	(89)	others lost pts.
Milos Raonic	CANADA	94	(152)	R16 Oz Open
Ryan Sweeting	USA	98	(110)	SF Honolulu
Jaroslav Pospisil	CZECH REPUBLIC	134	(136)	FQR Oz Open
Benoit Paire	FRANCE	137	(142)	2R Oz Open
Ryan Harrison	USA	138	(170)	W Honolulu
Vincent Millot	FRANCE	149	(160)	1R Oz Open
Martin Klizan	SLOVAKIA	154	(155)	2R Heilbronn
Andrej Martin	SLOVAKIA	160	(177)	SF Singapore
Yuichi Sugita	JAPAN	162	(164)	QR2 Oz Open
Bastian Knittel	GERMANY	169	(208)	W Heilbronn
Tatsuma Ito	JAPAN	175	(176)	QF Singapore
Bernard Tomic	AUSTRALIA	182	(199)	3R Oz Open
Robert Farah	COLOMBIA	185	(188)	QR2 Oz Open
Nikola Ciric	SERBIA	194	(196)	others lost pts.
Fernando Romboli	LEGEND	245	(287)	F Bucaramanga
Fritz Wolmarans	SOUTH AFRICA	261	(269)	QR2 Oz Open
Amir Weintraub	ISRAEL	263	(268)	SF Israel F2&3
Phillip Bester	CANADA	270	(275)	2R Honolulu
Florian Reynet	FRANCE	277	(280)	QR2 Oz Open
Harri Heliovaara	FINLAND	286	(339)	W GB F2, 2R Reunion
Rafael Camilo	BRAZIL	287	(305)	F Brazil F4
Ze Zhang	CHINA	288	(296)	F China F2
Mao-Xin Gong	CHINA	294	(334)	W China F2
Javier Marti	SPAIN	308	(332)	QF Spain F2&3
Pablo Carreno-Busta	SPAIN	319	(340)	W Spain F2
Daniel Cox	GREAT BRITAIN	325	(326)	QF China F2
di Wu	CHINA	348	(378)	FQR Singapore

Some things worth noting: first, Shanky and I aren’t the only rankings tag team going this week: Slovakia’s Martin Klizan and Andrej Martin, China’s Ze Zheng and Mao-Xin Gong, and Spain’s Javier Marti and Pablo Carreno-Busta all achieving career highs right next to each other.  Do you think they plan that? Like matching doubles outfits?  Doubtful, but remarkable nonetheless. 

Also, though Ryan Harrison did a great job in taking his first ever Challenger title this week, he is still the second-ranked Ryan in the United States.  Which is good, as it gives the young American something yet to shoot for.  Don’t want the lad to be without any further goals, now do we?

Finally, four of this year’s Challenger Tennis Players To Watch made this week’s list: Romboli, Marti, Carreno and Cox.  And six of them – Kavcic, Dimitrov, Raonic, Paire, Harrison, and Klizan – are from last year’s bunch.  So I feel fairly good that – out the fifty or so PtW’s of the last two years, 20% of them are still WATCHworthy (at least for this week, anyway).