New USA Career-High Rankings, October 13, 2014

Each week I will bring you a list of USAmerican players who have reached a new career-high ranking. This list is not exhaustive but covers at least all players in the Top 1000.

New WTA career-high rankings, October 13, 2014

Player name	New CHR	Last wk *= previous   CHR	+  from last week	Pvs CHR If prior to last wk	Date achieved If prior to last wk
Madison Brengle	88	96*	+8
Jennifer Brady	322	323*	+1
Tori Kinard	341	375	+34	369	9/22/2014
Caitlin Whoriskey	384	387*	+3
Alexa Guarachi	584	587*	+3
Nadja Gilchrist	642	644*	+2
Julia Elbaba	686	688*	+2
Michaela Gordon	755	760	+5	759	9/29/2014
Alexandria Stiteler	810	813*	+3
Ingrid Neel	833	834*	+1
Kelly Chen	860	861*	+1
Rianna Valdes	821	909*	+88
Kristina Smith	1137	1141*	+4
Jessica Failla	1157	1161*	+4
Kaitlyn McCarthy	1160	1164*	+4

The three biggies this week are Madison Brengle, Tori Kinard, and Rianna Valdes.  Brengle made her first WTA quarterfinal thanks to 3 wild qualifying wins and the a retirement (Begu) and walkover (Ivanovic). Unfortunately, she met eventual champ Pliskova in the quarters, but she won 4 games in each set and clearly wants to hang around the Top 100 for a while.

Kinard saw her jump with two wins in Osaka qualies. She lost in the final round of qualies to Romanian Ana Bogdan (after winning the first set 6-1). Kinard has quite a few points (37 of her 108) to defend over the rest of the year, and then nothing until April. If she can get a couple of nice results in ITFs this fall, she'll enter 2015 in great shape to make a push toward the top 200.

Finally, Valdes' jump came thanks to a run to the semis at Hilton Head Island, including upset wins over Yergina plus the #3 and #7 seeds.

One other note: I neglected to include Ingrid Neel last week when she burst into the rankings at #834 after winning the Amelia Island $10K event as a qualifier.. Fortunately someone ahead of her dropped down, so we can fully appreciate the 16-year-old here.

New ATP career-high rankings, October 13, 2014

Player name	New CHR	Last wk *= pvs CHR	+  from last wk	Pvs CHR If prior to last wk	Date achieved If prior to last wk
Steve Johnson	41	42*	+1
Jack Sock	51	60	+9	55	8/18/2014
Bjorn Fratangelo	255	277*	+22
Jared Donaldson	267	275*	+8
Daniel Nguyen	344	348*	+4
Dennis Nevolo	350	351*	+1
Dennis Novikov	424	432*	+8
Peter Kobelt	577	592*	+15
Alexander Sarkissian	616	622*	+6
Kyle McMorrow	660	665*	+5
Collin Altamirano	740	744	+4
Spencer Papa	878	888	+10
Deiton Baughman	934	944*	+10
Ryan Shane	1026	1031*	+5
Justin Shane	1096	1103*	+7
Tommy Paul	1130	1134*	+4
Michael Grant	1132	1136*	+4
Taylor Harry Fritz	1134	1138*	+4
Hunter Harrington	1182	1191	+9	1187	7/21/2014
Nathan Pasha	1182	1191	+9	1187	7/7/2014
Farzin Danny Amiri	1220	1230	+10
Carl Eguez	1266	1270	+4
Reilly Opelka	1415	1419*	+4
Clay Thompson	1621	1625*	+4
Aron Hiltzik	1623	1628	+5

25 guys this week is a very nice number (last week was 28) even if most of the jumps came thanks to others falling. Steve Johnson *would* be in the Top 40 for the first time, if not for a guy who's not on the list: Sam Querrey, who jumped 14 spots over 3 weeks to reach his 2014-high ranking.  Still, every new high at this level is a great thing, particularly for a guy whose career high prior to this April was #97.

Jack Sock is even more impressive, even though he lost a couple of winnable matches in the past couple of weeks.  But for a guy who has gotten a bunch of crap over the last year or so, it's looking quite likely he'll finish in the Top 50.  Impressive.

Finally, a gold star for Bjorn Fratangelo, for reaching the Tiburon quarters and getting up to #255. He's pretty much a shoo-in for Australian Open qualies, and has further to climb this fall.  What will be really interesting will be to see how he matches up (and plans his schedule) during the clay season in 2015.  The surface fits him and he's motivated to do well on it.  Will he play European events while his countrymen play on the green stuff?  If so, challengers or some qualies? Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's just be happy for his recent run!