How'd we do? ATP 2014 version

At the end of 2013, three of us Team USA twitter fans - Baseline Bagels, Lang, and I - compiled our predictions for how the ATP season would play out for American men. With the season now over, here's how we did (I didn't ask the others to include the players' final rankings, just their order among other Americans):

Player (11/24/14 rank)	jokelley	Lang	Baseline Bagels
1. Isner (19)	Isner (15)	Isner	Isner
2. Querrey (35)	Querrey (30)	Querrey	Sock
3. Johnson (37)	#jacksock (75)	Sock	Querrey
4. Sock (42)	Harrison (80)	Harrison	Young
5. Young (57)	Smyczek (90)	Smyczek	Smyczek
6. Smyczek (115)	Klahn (95)	Young	Harrison
7. Kudla (121)	Young (100)	Kudla	Kudla
8. Ram (140)	Kudla (105)	Williams	Johnson
9. Klahn (148)	Johnson (110)	Sandgren	Klahn
10. Krajicek (152)	Williams/ Sandgren (120)	Baker	Sandgren

Other players:

11. Russell (161)
12. Odesnik (171)
13. Kuznetsov (181)
14. Harrison (190)
15. Buchanan (191)
16. Jenkins (213)
17. Williams (223)
18. Ginepri (225)
19. Donaldson (260)
20. Fratangelo (265)
46. Sandgren (648)

It's pretty clear who did best, but it's always best to use some objective metric. So stealing using Tennis Grandstand's metric (one point off per position missed, with the worst result replaced by the overall second-worst result - Lang and I were 10 off for Harrison), we have:

1. Baseline Bagels: 32
Pretty much a virtuoso performance. 8 of the 10 correct, missing Ram and Krajicek (and fatally underestimated Sam Querrey!), but got Isner, Kudla, and Klahn exactly right AND he put Johnson the highest and Harrison the lowest of any of us.

Well done, Baseline Bagels! You win ... errr ... a free link to your blog which needs to be updated.

2. jokelley: 45
Yes, I cheated with Williams and Sandgren tied for 10th but because I'm the commissioner and make my own rules as I go along, I'll put a "17" in that spot - 10 for missing Sandgren, 7 for missing Williams. Like the others, I missed Ram and Krajicek and way overestimated Harry.  Really, a poor performance.

The most embarrassing part is that with the exception of Isner, Querrey, and Kudla, I wasn't with TWENTY spots of guessing where any of the others ended up ranked overall. Wow, that's rough.

3. Lang: 83
Lang actually did decently. 6 of her picks were on target or off by only one. But the 4 she missed were really bad misses.  In fact, since her catastrophically bad pick was Brian Baker, I had to give her full points for the Sandgren pick. And she totally missed Steve Johnson - despite his fantastic run at the USTAAOWCPO in Atlanta a year ago. Bad Lang!

In summation, Baseline Bagels proved his insight into USA tennis is the best on the planet; I continue to have a steep learning curve; and Lang sometimes lets her heart lead her in the wrong direction.

Coming soon - ATP & WTA second-half awards (for Americans)!

How'd I do? WTA version

I think I did pretty well.

As a reminder, here was my prediction for the Top 10 ranked WTA players from the USA at the end of 2014 -- and where I thought they'd finish in the rankings:

How I thought they'd do.\:
1. Serena Williams (2)
2. Sloane Stephens (20)
3. Madison Keys (25)
4. Venus Williams (30)
5. Jamie Hampton (40)
6. Christina McHale (50)
7. Alison Riske (60)
8. CoCo Vandeweghe (70)
9. Varvara Lepchenko (75)
10. Lauren Davis (80)

How they actually did: 
(11/24/2014 ranking) | how far away I was in the order | (how far away I was in their ranking)
1. Serena Williams (1) correct (+1)
2. Venus Williams (18) +2 (+12)
3. Madison Keys (30) correct (-5)
4. Varvara Lepchenko (35) +5 (+40)
5. Sloane Stephens (36) -3 (-16)
6. CoCo Vandeweghe (39) +2 (+31)
7. Alison Riske (43) correct (+17)
8. Christina McHale (52) -2 (-2)
9. Lauren Davis (55) +1 (+25)
10. Shelby Rogers (73) n/a (n/a)
32. Jamie Hampton -27 (-289)

All in all, I did not too shabbily. 9 out of 10, including 3 in the correct position. Of course, the wild card was Hampton's catastrophic injury, which skewed everything. It's not hard to imagine a world in which a healthy Hampton finished ahead of Rogers...

If we were to use the Tennis Grandstand scoring method, I had 21 "points" off. (By that system, the Hampton pick would be replaced with points from the next-worst pick: Lepchenko.)

Generally, I knew I was being a bit conservative in my rankings, and that proved to be the case, with 6 of the players outperforming my guess.  Interestingly, the only player (not counting the injured Hampton) who did significantly worse than I predicted was Stephens - and I thought I was being cautious by picking her at #20! Given that halfway through the season she was still at #24 in the Road to Singapore, with Wimbledon and North American hard courts ahead of her, it still felt like a safe bet. But then her season fell apart, and she only notched 7 more wins (3 on grass, 4 on hard courts) and shut her season down after one match in Guangzhou.

The most pleasant surprises to me were Lepchenko, Vandeweghe, and Rogers.  All three reached finals this year, with CoCo taking her first title. Lepchenko showed her mettle with three-set wins over Radwanska, Jankovic, and Kuznetsova (but also had some tough three-set losses, to Kvitova, Kerber, and in the Seoul final to Pliskova). Rogers, with 513 of her 731 points (70%) coming in just 4 second-half tournaments, would benefit greatly from a solid start to 2015.

And yes, I underestimated Serena and Venus. Foolishly. And not for the first time.

Tomorrow, see how three of us did in our ATP predictions. And then next month I'll feature predictions for 2015.

New USA Career-High Rankings, Nov. 24, 2014

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

New WTA career-high rankings, November 24, 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
Caitlin Whoriskey	327	330*	+3
Rianna Valdes	768	776*	+8
Alexandria Stiteler	788	795	+7	794	11/10/2014
Ingrid Neel	810	815	+5	813	11/10/2014
Kelly Chen	832	841	+9	840	11/3/2014
Nicole Frenkel	836	844*	+8
Emma Higuchi	903	912*	+9
Natalie Suk	910	920*	+10
Daniella Roldan	931	942*	+11
Kristina Smith	988	998*	+10
Terri Fleming	1006	1013*	+7
Caroline Dolehide	1062	1070*	+8
Jessica Ho	1093	1099*	+6
Tina Tehrani	1109	1115*	+6
Jessica Failla	1139	1145*	+6
Andie Daniell	1144	1149*	+5
Alexandra Valenstein	1182	1090*	+8
Dasha Ivanova	1182	1090*	+8
Jessica Golovin	1229	1235*	+6
Alexis Nelson	1229	1235*	+6

None of these women - predominantly teens, actually - added points this week. This is all just benefiting from others dropping down/out of the rankings.

New ATP career-high rankings, November 24, 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
Jarmere Jenkins	213	218	+5	216	11/10/2014
Evan Song	522	523*	+1
Alexander Sarkissian	583	595*	+12		11/3/2014
Michael Mmoh	646	649*	+3		11/3/2014
Wil Spencer	849	n/a
Tommy Paul	946	1130	+184	1122	11/10/2014
Collin Johns	1145	1194	+49	1148	10/6/2014
Reilly Opelka	1198	1242*	+44
Alex Rybakov	1535	1836*	+301

Far fewer new highs among the men, but several big jumps.  Jenkins got a boost from his semifinal run at his penultimate tournament in Australia. His title last week will show up on next week's rankings, which will put him in the Top 200.

Sarkissian reached a QF in Mexico F12, while Johns reached the 2nd Round there.  Opelka got to the quarters in Niceville, Fla., beating Rybakov in the 2nd Round. Paul benefited from the withdrawal of top seed Connor Smith, whom he was drawn to face in the first round.

But the story of the week was Wil Spencer.  Making one of the more spectacular rankings splashes in some time, the 25-year-old former University of Georgia player won a five-round wildcard tournament just to reach the Niceville main draw (his first professional tournament since 2012).  He then upset the #2 seed, Peter Heller, in the first round 7-5 in the third set (his first professional main draw win), and then didn't drop another set until the second set of the final vs. Peter Nagy. Spencer won the third set 6-4 for his first pro title. Amazing.

Here's a fun overview of the final and the improbability of it all.

New USA Career-High Rankings, Nov. 17, 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 ATP career-high rankings, November 17, 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
Austin Krajicek	152	154*	+2
Jared Donaldson	257	261*	+4
Daniel Nguyen	328	229*	+1		11/3/2014
Marcos Giron	412	454	+7	419	8/25/2014
Evan Song	523	526	+3	525	11/3/2014
Deiton Baughman	794	799*	+5
Raymond Sarmiento	855	858	+3	857	10/27/2014
Jared Hiltzik	1050	1652	+602	1499	7/29/2013
Reilly Opelka	1242	1405	+163	1402	10/27/2014
Aron Hiltzik	1554	1568*	+14
Alex Rybakov	1836	n/a

Big moves for Jared Hiltzik (thanks to success at the Champaign Challenger) and Reilly Opelka (Futures) but otherwise a quiet week.  Austin's going to finish the year among the Top 10 American men, which pretty much nobody predicted. And Rybakov is ranked (again, Futures). Nice job, gentlemen.

New WTA career-high rankings, November 17, 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
CiCi Bellis	255	257*	+2		10/27/2014
Caitlin Whoriskey	330	332*	+2
Rianna Valdes	776	777*	+1
Nicole Frenkel	844	849*	+5
Emma Higuchi	912	919	+7	915	11/3/2014
Natalie Suk	920	928	+8	926	11/3/2014
Daniella Roldan	942	948*	+6
Kristina Smith	998	1004*	+6
Terri Fleming	1013	1019*	+6
Caroline Dolehide	1070	1072*	+2
Jessica Ho	1099	1106*	+7
Tina Tehrani	1115	1123*	+8
Jessica Failla	1145	1152*	+7
Andie Daniell	1149	1156*	+7
Alexandra Valenstein	1182	1090*	+8
Dasha Ivanova	1182	1090*	+8