New USA Career-High Rankings, August 10 & 17, 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 generally will not be included unless they have earned at least one point since the prior ranking period. See all the CHR posts.

Note: For the next few iterations of New USA Career-High Rankings, I'll be going biweekly. This post is for the last two weeks; the next post will be August 31 (first day of the US Open) and then I'll have one immediately after the US Open.  After that, we will see.

New WTA Career-High Rankings, August 10, 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
Ellie Halbauer	425	428*	+3
Alexa Graham	544	562*	+18
Lauren Herring	676	730*	+54
Sophie Chang	825	832*	+7
Kristina Smith	830	862	+32	857	7/13/2015
Maegan Manasse	846	853	+7	850	7/27/2015
Brynn Boren	848	870	+22	863	4/13/2015
Malika Rose	880	909	+29	906	7/27/2015
Francesca Di Lorenzo	891	n/a	n/a
Yuki Chiang	924	n/a	n/a	995	4/13/2015
Andie Daniell	927	928*	+1
Tina Tehrani	940	944*	+4
Karyn Guttormsen	960	1021*	+61
Ashley Kratzer	1158	n/a	n/a	1211	6/8/2015

New WTA Career-High Rankings, August 17, 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
Danielle Lao	288	292	+4	291	7/20/2015
Nicole Frenkel	456	459	+3	458	8/3/2015
Alexa Graham	539	544*	+5
Lauren Herring	669	676*	+7
Brynn Boren	825	848*	+23
Karyn Guttormsen	934	960*	+26
Frances Altick	825	848*	+23

It's been the case all summer: all the women's career-high rankings have come via ITF events. In fact, I believe Irina Falconi's jump after qualifying for and winning a match at Eastbourne in June was the last case of a WTA event rocketing an American woman to a new CHR.

Women's college tennis is definitely the theme here. 12 of the 14 women who achieved new CHRs on August 3 are college-affiliated (including two who have committed to attend college) while 5 of the 7 August 10th CHRs are college-affiliated women. The only ones who aren't so affiliated are Ashley Kratzer (16), Alexa Graham (17), Nicole Frenkel (17), and Ellie Halbauer (18).

Week of July 27:

Gatineau $25K: Up Quebec way, Halbauer and qualifier Malika Rose (Oklahoma State) each earned a point for playing (and, unfortunately, losing) their first round matches.

Rome $25K: Tina Tehrani (Georgetown) was a Lucky Loser and got a point for playing her first round match.

Hong Kong $15K: Yuki Kristina Chang (Pepperdine) qualified and won two main draw matches.

Di Lorenzo signed to play
for OSU. (c) Ohio State Univ

Austin $10K: In the heat of Texas, a huge tournament for newly 18-year-old Francesca Di Lorenzo, who Tennis Recruiting, Di Lorenzo (of New Albany, Ohio) has been the top college recruit the past two years - she ended up choosing Ohio State. She'll have some a decoration for her dorm room!
got her first, second, third, fourth, and fifth pro match wins -- as a wild card -- to capture the title.

Di Lorenzo's opponent in the final was UGA's Lauren Herring, while she beat #2 seed Alexa Graham in the semifinals. Others who won a match in Austin were Kristina N. Smith (UC Irvine), Brynn Boren (USC), and Kratzer, who reached her first pro quarterfinal.

Tunis $10K: Karyn Guttormsen (Oklahoma State) won two matches to reach the quarterfinals.

Week of August 3:

Lexington $50K: Frenkel was the luckiest of losers in this third and final stop in the US Open Wild Card Challenge series of $50Ks. First, she was drawn to face the #1 seed in qualies, but she got a bye when that player was promoted to the main draw. Then, she won her opening qualifying match when her opponent retired after 7 games. THEN she lost her next match, in the final round of qualies. Then, by virtue of 3 withdrawals, she got into the main draw in the same section as the other two Lucky Losers, Jacqueline Cako and Sophie Chang, whom she subsequently beat to make the quarters.

Fort Worth $10K: Frances Altick (Vanderbilt) was the finalist here, as a qualifier, and earned 7 points for that effort. Graham, Herring, and Boren all won their first round matches.

Tunis $10K: Guttormsen got a point for winning her first round match.

Maegan Manasse (Cal) and Andie Daniell (August 3) moved up thanks to others moving down, as did Danielle Lao (USC) and Nicole Frenkel (August 10).

New ATP Career-High Rankings, August 10, 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
Frances Tiafoe	272	274*	+2		7/27/2015
Eric Quigley	302	305*	+3
Andre Dome	426	437*	+11
Clay Thompson	588	687*	+99
Mico Santiago	707	723	+16	719	6/22/2015
Alex Rybakov	849	854*	+5		7/27/2015
Felix Corwin	1407	n/a	n/a
George Goldhoff	1429	1565	+136	1458	7/29/2013
Zachary McCourt	1868	n/a	n/a

(Not included: Dominic Cotrone (1096, +3), Reilly Opelka (1103, +6), John McNally (1553, +2), Liam Caruana (1562, +3), Zeke Clark (1562, +3), Anderson Reed (1718, +4), and Denny Fafek, Grayson Goldin, Zeke Hindle, Sameer Kumar, Stephen Madonia, Wyatt McCoy, John Patrick Mullane, Gabe Tishman, and Caleb Troy -- all #1745, +2.

New ATP Career-High Rankings, August 17, 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
Denis Kudla	78	81	+2	79	8/3/2015
Bjorn Fratangelo	106	116*	+10	110	8/3/2015
Austin Krajicek	113	132	+19	114	5/4/2015
Mitchell Krueger	239	241*	+2		8/3/2015
Frances Tiafoe	271	272*	+1
Eric Quigley	297	302*	+5
Winston Lin	993	1067*	+74
Dominic Cotrone	1018	1096*	+78
A.J. Catanzariti	1586	1991	+405	1868	7/27/2015

Not included: Kyle Koch (1400, + 7), John McNally (1548, +5), Liam Caruana (1556, +6), and Zeke Clark (1556, +6).

On the other side of the spectrum, the men had a number of non-college guys make the lists the past two weeks, led by Denis Kudla, Bjorn Fratangelo, Mitchell Krueger, and Frances Tiafoe.

Week of July 27:

USA F23/Edwardsville: A great week for Clay Thompson (UCLA), who reached the final (falling to Evan King (Michigan)). Thompson is now 25-8 this year including qualies, piling up points despite playing a limited schedule. His first foray into challengers this year was a loss the week of August 10 in the Aptos qualies (to Noah Rubin (Wake Forest) no less). Curious to see if he stays with Futures this fall or whether he is ready to try to make it on the challenger circuit.

Also in Edwardsville, wildcard Felix Corwin (Minnesota) entered the rankings (congratulations!) after reaching the quarters, getting his first two career main-draw wins. Mico Santiago joined him in the quarters, while George Goldhoff (Texas) won his first round match.

CAN F6/Saskatoon: Andre Dome (Cal Poly) reached the semis while Zack McCourt (Princeton) got his first career win. Welcome to the rankings, sir!

Week of August 3:

Washington, DC: At this ATP 500, Eric Quigley got a qualies win, which meant 4 points.

USA F24/Decatur: Dominic Cotrone (Florida State) qualified, won a match, and then beat #2 seed Ramkumar Ramanathan in the 2nd round. A.J. Catanzariti (Texas A&M) qualified and then beat fellow qualifier Will Stein (TCU) for a point.

CHN F12/Fuzhou: The only player to pick up wins outside North America toward new CHRs was Winston Lin (Columbia), who qualified in China and then got to the quarters - his 3rd of the year.

Week of August 10:

Montreal: Denis Kudla beat Ryan Harrison and James Duckworth to qualify, but then fell to Donald Young in the first round.

Aptos Challenger: A big one for two guys who were vying for the USTA wild card to the US Open (turns out they both got one). Fratangelo and Austin Krajicek (Texas A&M) played in the semis (Krajicek won in 2) and now have career-high rankings. These guys (plus Jared Donaldson) are the ones most likely to make the next American Top 100 debut. The last player to do it, I believe, was Bradley Klahn back in November 2013. Prior to that were Tim Smyczek (September 2013), Jack Sock (July 2013) and Steve Johnson (June 2013). Please correct me if I'm wrong!

In the August 3 rankings, Alex Rybakov rose due to others falling; while Mitchell Krueger and Quigley did the same thing for the August 10 rankings. Both weeks, Tiafoe rose thanks to others falling.