New USA Career-High Rankings, Jan. 12, 2015

Each week I will bring you a list of USAmerican players who have reached a new career-high ranking (CHR). This list covers all players in the Top 1000. Any player outside the Top 1000 will not be included unless they actually have earned at least one point from their previous career-high ranking. See all the CHR-related posts.


New ATP career-high rankings, January 12, 2015

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
Jack Sock	41	42*	+1		11/3/2014
Dennis Novikov	287	288*	+1
Connor Smith	325	326*	+1

Really not much to say  here. I mean, Jack Sock did this while recovering from hip surgery. I promise a bigger and better men's chart next week! PROMISE!!

**UPDATED**

My most sincere belated apologies to Bjorn Fratangelo and Jared Donaldson, both of whose career highs last week I completely skipped due to a rush to publish or a dearth of sleep or just laziness. In fact, those two talented youngsters had the biggest men's jumps of the week, thanks to qualifying for and, in Fratangelo's case, winning a match in the main draw of the Noumea Challenger.

So here is their own personal chart:

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
Bjorn Fratangelo	243	262	+19	255	10/13/2014
Jared Donaldson	252	257*	+5		11/17/2014

New WTA career-high rankings, January 12, 2015

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
CoCo Vandeweghe	37	38*	+1		8/11/2014
Madison Brengle	84	91	+7	88	10/13/2014
Taylor Townsend	100	103	+3	102	11/3/2014
CiCi Bellis	251	253*	+2
Tornado Alicia Black	406	408	+2	407	10/6/2014
Rianna Valdes	749	752*	+3
Alexandria Stiteler	765	766*	+1
Ingrid Neel	789	792*	+3
Kelly Chen	814	815*	+1
Nicole Frenkel	818	819*	+1
Olga Morozova	855	856*	+1
Daniella Roldan	886	887*	+1
Emma Higuchi	890	891*	+1
Natalie Suk	897	898*	+1
Kristina Smith	959	961*	+2

Left off: Arconada, Dolehide, Tehrani, Failla, and 7 others.

There are three big stories this week, and all are in the Top 100!

Big Story the First, of course, is the debut of Taylor Townsend into the Top 100! She had spent the last 20 weeks hovering just outside it (ever since her second round run in Cincinnati) but had not quite gotten over the hump. A three-set win in the first round of Auckland was what did it. She then had to face top seed Caroline Wozniacki and lost but gave a decent accounting of herself (even going up 5-2 in the second before dropping the set -and match - in a tiebreak). Slowly but surely, Taylor!

Big Story the Second: The Woman, The Myth, The Absolute Legend - Madison Brengle! The 24-year-old Delawarian (Delawarite?) (that is a Taxi reference for you youngsters) won three matches to qualify for the premiere event in Brisbane, and then took out sister qualifier Lesia Tsurenko. She then had to face world #52 Kaia Kanepi and lost but gave a decent accounting of herself (even going up 5-2 in the second before dropping the set - and match - in a tiebreak). A year ago she was ranked #145 and the Top 100 seemed like a bit of a pipe dream. No longer.

Big Story the Third: CoCo Vandeweghe!! She took out two recent Top 20 players in Roberta Vinci and Kirsten Flipkens, both in three sets, to reach the Auckland quarterfinals. She then had to face #4 seed Barbora Zahlavova Strycova and lost but gave a decent accounting of herself (even going up 5-2 in the second before dropping the set - and match - 7-5).

Unfortunately CoCo, like Madison Keys and Sloane Stephens, will finish outside the seed cut-off for the Australian Open. All three of those women will be hoping for a remarkably kind draw, but chances are NOT all three of them will get what they want.