New USA Career-High Rankings, Jan. 5, 2015

Each week I will bring you a list of USAmerican players who have reached a new career-high ranking (CHR). This list is not necessarily exhaustive but covers at least 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.

Happy New Tennis Year!

Congratulations to all those who are listed in the first edition of New Career High Rankings (CHRs) for 2015!  This new year brings a new policy to On the Rise (a Tennis Blog): in order to not bore us all with quite so many players who move up 1 or 2 spots without actually playing, we are limiting our lists to players who:

1) Are inside the Top 1000
2) Players who have increased their point total from their previous CHR.

So any player with, say, 3 points won't get moved up just because another player with 3 points dropped down. But you'll still get to see most of your faves a bit higher up who have thusly benefited!  This will provide a HUGE incentive for players to break into the Top 1000, which is another reason I'm doing it. Because nobody wants to get a CHR and not be recognized for it by On the Rise (a tennis blog). Nobody.

New WTA career-high rankings, January 5, 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
Jennifer Brady	217	219*	+2		12/22/2014
CiCi Bellis	253	254*	+1		12/22/2014
Katerina Stewart	354	359*	+5		12/22/2014
Alexa Guarachi	519	522*	+3
Nadja Gilchrist	571	576*	+5
Ellie Halbauer	601	605	+4	604	12/22/2014
Rianna Valdes	752	755	+3	753	12/22/2014
Alexandria Stiteler	766	769*	+3
Ingrid Neel	792	795*	+3
Kelly Chen	815	817*	+2
Nicole Frenkel	819	821*	+2
Olga Morozova	856	858*	+2
Daniella Roldan	887	891*	+4
Emma Higuchi	891	895*	+4
Natalie Suk	898	902*	+4
Kristina Smith	961	963*	+2
Terri Fleming	973	976*	+3

Left off: Arconada, Dolehide, Ho, Tehrani, and 8 others who didn't fit the new criteria. Sorry, ladies!

By the way, Jessica Ho is probably the epitome of whe we've instituted this new policy: she debuted in the rankings in October thanks to qualifying for the Rock Hill, SC $25K event and earning 1 point. Though she lost in the first round, that was the third tournament in 12 months in which she'd earned a point -- which qualified her for her first WTA ranking. However, she has not added a point since then, and yet has been on this list EVERY SINGLE WEEK since that rankings debut. That's 12 weeks, 12 CHRs, and no additional points. It had to stop, people!

Even so, we have 17 women who crept up without adding points. And kudos to them. :)

New ATP career-high rankings, January 5, 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
Jarmere Jenkins	190	193	+3	192	12/15/2014
Dennis Novikov	288	291*	+3		12/22/2014
Connor Smith	326	328*	+2

Congrats to these three gentlemen and scholars (all three went to college, although for varying lengths of stay)!

Left off: none