New USA Career-High Rankings, April 6, 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 posts.

New ATP Career-High Rankings, April 6, 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
Tim Smyczek	68	75	+7	73	11/11/2013
Dennis Novikov	195	219*	+24
Alexander Sarkissian	456	549*	+3
Jean-Yves Aubone	459	464	+5	463	3/9/2015
Peter Kobelt	480	489*	+9		2/23/2015
Frances Tiafoe	520	816	+296	798	2/2/2015
Tommy Paul	718	759*	+41
Eduardo Nava	969	1158	+189	1143	7/7/2014
Clay Thompson	1155	1367	+212
Cameron Silverman	1293	1382	+89	1324	11/10/2014
Walker Duncan	1439	n/a	n/a
Raleigh Smith	1454	1848	+394	1720	2/16/2015

Not included: Collin Johns (1056), Dennis Uspensky (1274), Joseph Centenari (1964)

Another two-week gap between rankings, and we've increased our haul! Unfortunately, only one of the highs came up top, and our massive congratulations to Tim Smyczek for setting his first career high in 16 months. Tim's came thanks to his come-from-behind win over qualifier Adrian Menendez-Maceiras in the Miami 1st Round. Now's when it gets interesting: he's got a mere 32 points to defend between now and the US hard court season. Now is the time to make the push to the Top 50, which would give him a better shot at seeds at ATP events. However, clay hasn't been his best surface traditionally. Houston, the Savannah Challenger, and then Europe ... time for Timmy to make his mark.

Everything else comes via the Futures (or others falling):

USA F10 & USA F11: In Bakersfield, Frances Tiafoe won the title, while Tommy Paul and Walker Duncan (welcome to the rankings, Walker!) reached the quarters.

The next week in Calabasas, Dennis Novikov won the title, beating Tiafoe; Clay Thompson made the quarters.

ISR F1: Peter Kobelt won his 1st Round match.

ISR F2: Raleigh Smith reached the quarters, while Cameron Silverman got to the 2nd Round.

TUN F11: Eduardo Nava qualified and reached his first career semifinal, losing to eventual champion Thomas Fabbiano (who won all 15 singles and all 4 doubles matches he played in Tunisia last month).

N.B.: Last week we made the uncool error of leaving out Daniel Nguyen from our rankings. He in fact rose 12 spots to #265. We apologize for the oversight. It has been rectified.

New WTA Career-High Rankings, April 6, 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
Madison Brengle	43	44*	+1		2/23/2015
Louisa Chirico	141	143*	+2
CiCi Bellis	172	211*	+39
Caitlin Whoriskey	278	279*	+1		3/9/2015
Katerina Stewart	294	338*	+44
Lauren Embree	295	296*	+2
Alexa Guarachi	472	482*	+10
Nadja Gilchrist	546	567	+23	565	2/23/2015
Ellie Halbauer	548	586*	+38
Alexandra Morozova	549	598*	+49		3/2/2015
Ingrid Neel	556	765*	+209
Nicole Frenkel	646	655	+9	649	3/2/2015
Usue Arconada	657	663*	+6		3/9/2015
Kelly Chen	698	716	+18	714	3/9/2015
Rianna Valdes	716	743*	+37
Claire Liu	823	1215*	+392
Jessica Failla	825	848	+23	839	3/2/2015
Sofia Kenin	826	849*	+23
Jessica Ho	828	851*	+23
Brynn Boren	865	n/a	n/a	1035	8/2/2010
Alexa Graham	910	917*	+7
Terri Fleming	959	967	+8	965	2/23/2015
Dasha Ivanova	972	979	+7	978	2/23/2015
Caroline Dolehide	977	984*	+7
Yuki Christina Chiang	996	n/a	n/a
Kaitlyn McCarthy	1001	1037*	+36
Tina Tehrani	1016	1056	+40	1038	2/2/2015
Alexandra Valenstein	1107	1158	+51	1146	1/12/2015
Malika Rose	1171	1215	+44	1183	3/2/2015
Sophie Chang	1171	n/a	n/a
Carolyn Xie	1209	n/a	n/a

Sooooooooo yeah. Lots. Because there are so many this week, I'm just going to give you the highlights.

You're welcome.

Miami: Madison Brengle and CiCi Bellis (WC) each won a round, while Ingrid Neel (QWC) won a round of qualies.

Osprey $50K: Brengle reached the final; Louisa Chirico got to the quarters.

Palm Harbor $25K: Katerina Stewart qualified and won the dang thing, while Halbauer qualified and reached the 2nd round.

Irapuato (Mexico) $25K: Alexandra Morozova and Brynn Boren (USC) both qualified and won a round, while Carolyn Xie's wild card gave her enough tournament appearances (3) so that she could officially be ranked - despite losing 6-2 6-0 to Arantxa Rus (LL).

Orlando $10K: Claire Liu (WC) won! Stewart and Rianna Valdes reached the quarters. Kelly Chen (Q) and Sofia Kenin (SE) each won a round, as did rankings debutante Sophie Chang.

Metepec (Mexico) $10K: Nadja Gilchrist was a quarterfinalist, while Jessica Failla, Malika Rose, and another rankings new arrival, Yuki Christina Chiang (Pepperdine) reached the 2nd Round.

Other $10Ks: Alexandra Valenstein (Q) won a round at Heraklion, Greece; Tina Tehrani (Q) won a round at Antalya, Turkey.

Edited to add! Nicole Frenkel moved up a few spots into a new career high (although didn't add points), but we neglected to include her originally and we're real sorry.

This week in American tennis: 9 Takeaways

1. Serena. She had a couple of tough matches in Miami but dominated, as she so often does, in the final.  Not only has Serena won 21 straight matches (including going 18-0 so far in 2015), she's won 12 straight finals - and she's won 20 consecutive sets in finals.

But there is a hint that indeed there will be a Serena rival in 2015, based on her match with Simona Halep in the semis.


Perhaps, as we move to clay, the rivalry will heat up more.

2. John Isner is back in the Top 20. Well that didn't last too long. When John Isner lost to Novak Djokovic in the 4th round of Indian Wells, it meant that the subsequent rankings would reflect the unfortunate reality of no Americans in the ATP Top 20. Last time that happened, back in August 2013, it caught the attention of countless media outlets and helped solidify the mainstream consensus that US men's tennis was a lost cause (and the corollary: not worth paying much attention to). This time, it was barely noted as far as I could tell. I think I preferred it the other way, to be honest.

In any case, his back-to-back-to-back upset wins this week against Grigor Dimitrov, Milos Raonic, and Kei Nishikori helped provide a corrective and, even though he yet again couldn't get past Djokovic (but few can this year) to reach the final, he left people chattering in a positive way.

Isner, who is turning 30 this month, suggested that something clicked after his Davis Cup loss to James Ward. Since then, he's lost three matches - to Murray, Djokovic, and Djokovic. If he keeps it up on clay, where he has relatively little to defend until his 4th Round Roland Garros points, America's Top 20 place should be secure for the foreseeable future.

3. Sloane and Venus had similar weeks. Just a shout-out to those two women who, at very different stages in their careers, won very solid matches this week to reach the Miami quarters. Sloane Stephens beat 18-year-old Belinda Bencic in a match some called the best of the tournament, while Venus Williams dispatched of #4 seed Caroline Wozniacki for the 7th time in their careers. (Caro has won just one set against Venus, ever.)

Interestingly, they won by very similar scorelines: Sloane won 6-4 7-6(5) while Venus won 6-3 7-6(1).

Unfortunately, both ladies lost their next round matches, Stephens to world #3 Halep and Williams to incoming Top 10 debutante, eventual finalist Carla Suarez Navarro.

4. The best doubles team in history added to their legacy. Bob and Mike Bryan, whom I'm guessing you've heard of, won their 105th title together in Miami, defeating Indian Wells champs Jack Sock and Vasek Pospisil in the final. After splitting sets, the Bryans jumped out to a 5-0 lead but the youngsters chipped away at that and finally got it to 8-8, but a couple of loose points gave the twins the wins.

Interestingly, I got into a bit of a discussion on Twitter about whether they indeed were the best doubles team in history:

@jokelley_tennis They are the "winningest" team, the best? I'm not sure. If they'd played in an era when singles players gave a crap..
— Igor Puschkin (@Kalarou) April 4, 2015

But looking at history (and granted, I'm no expert in men's doubles history) it strikes me that most of the last 40 years the top guys have focused on singles. John McEnroe was an exception but the teams he and Peter Fleming were beating in the finals for their 7 major titles included the likes of Tim & Tom Gullickson and Fritz Buehning and Van Winitsky.

In any case, I'm sticking to my "greatest team ever." But they've definitely got a rivalry going with PospiSock, who are now each in the Top 10 in doubles (Vasek ending Daniel Nestor's 14-year reign as the top-ranked doubles player in Canada). I'm very interested to see how they do on clay.

5. The atmosphere in Miami was ... a bit much. Okay, I have said over and over again I think there's room for more enthusiasm in the crowd when Americans are playing in America. Well, there certainly was enthusiasm in a number of matches this week, but more often than not it was for the Americans' opponents.

The Stephens/Halep match was the one that got me. From the first point, the Romanian fans were at their full-throated best, and it took until well into the second set for the rest of the crowd to step up and try to drown them out. Many others commented on it in Halep's next match, against Serena.

Only in America (and Romania) would Romanian crowd be pummeling Americans. Serena noticing.
— Diane Pucin (@mepucin) April 3, 2015

Meanwhile, earlier in the week (in a non-streamed match), both Ryan Harrison and Rajeev Ram were gobsmacked by the overwhelming Brazilian fan support for eventual winners Bruno Soares and Marcelo Melo.

Tough match tonight in the dubs. Back to Texas tomorrow to get ready for Houston where hopefully the crowd support will be a little more USA
— Ryan Harrison (@ryanharrison92) April 1, 2015

Davis cup atmosphere tonight for dubs w @ryanharrison92. Away match for the American team on home soil. Wait..that doesn't make sense...
— Rajeev Ram (@RajeevRam) April 1, 2015

If you don't think it's discouraging for players to see others get massive support in their home countries - and on the road from their compatriots - and then not get the same in the US ... well, frankly, you're wrong.  I saw people on Twitter accuse Ram of sour grapes, and others suggest that American players have to "earn" fan support (I guess by winning? Because America only supports winners?). But to me it's only natural to want support at home.  I'm guessing you'd want it too, if you were out there.

6. Houston wildcard fail. As I pointed out, only two ATP tournaments this year failed to give out one of their wildcards to a player from that nation: Dubai and Houston. Now, Dubai has only one player in the rankings - Omar Alawadhi - and he has a single point. The US, by contrast, has dozens of players in the Top 300, several of whom would have loved a wild card but instead had to try to go through a very tough qualifying draw. Insterad the tournament gave them to top seed Feliciano Lopez (whose team forgot to sign up for the tournament before the deadline), Lleyton Hewitt (a legend and fan favorite), and Janko Tipsarevic, a popular guy who is making his return from injury (but who I guess decided last-minute to play Houston, and so failed to enter and use his protected ranking).

Not included: Mike Russell, the only Houston resident I know of in the ATP, who has been quite successful at that tournament over the years. He wasn't thrilled with this turn of events:

Last year on tour & no WC at hometown event @mensclaycourt.Tournament director didn't even respond to emails. #pathetic #noloyalty #NoU.S.WC
— Michael Russell (@MRusselltennis) April 3, 2015

... and it's hard to blame him.

Miami, too, is  notorious for the paucity of wildcards it gives to Americans. I doubt wild cards are going away any time soon, but maybe, if enough fans and players start talking about it, US-based tournaments will be more responsive to us and do what literally every other tournament in the world does: support local players.

7. Alexa Glatch is not messing around. Still only 25 years old, Alexa Glatch has had a really rough time with injuries in her career. Since coming back in September, she has had a number of good wins, while her losses have been tight (8 of her 12 losses have been in three sets or two tiebreak sets).

Two weeks ago she won the $25K in Irapuato and then this week she used her WILD CARD (see above) to outclass the field at the $50K in Osprey, beating three Top 110 players including top seed Madison Brengle in the final. Between those two tournaments and a quarterfinal last week in Palm Harbor, Glatch jumped 140 spots to #203. This means she'll almost certainly have direct entry into qualies for the French Open and Wimbledon (she has nothing to defend until September).

The one downside is that by winning her quarterfinal in Osprey, Glatch had to withdraw from the Charleston WTA tournament, as the qualies conflicted with the Osprey semis and final. Fortunately she made it worth her while with those 80 points (she would've had to qualify and win two rounds in Charleston to match that).

Update: The Sarasota Herald-Tribune had a nice article about her run to the title.

8. Taylor Fritz is an impressive lad. Yes, he lost in the final of the inaugural ITF Junior Masters tournament in Chengdu, China, but boy did Taylor Fritz play lights out in the matches I watched against Orlando Luz and Andrey Rublev.

You won't be disappointed if you watch the full final. Fritz has just about all the tools, it's just a matter of putting them all together. I know his dad is taking things slow, so we may not see him make the same impact other 17 and 18 year olds have been making. But watch this and tell me what you think:





9. Martin Blackman is named head of USTA Player Development. Best bet is to follow @zootennis for much, much more on that in the days ahead. Here's her initial report.


Gold stars. In addition to those mentioned above, let us recognize the following for their performances this past week: Sofia Kenin & William Blumburg (ITF International Spring Championships winners), Jessica Pegula (qualified for Charleston), Eduardo Nava (Tunisia F12 quarters), Raleigh Smith & Cameron Silverman (Turkey F13 doubles title), and Sam Querrey (Miami doubles semi with Isner).

The Bet

So, last week, when most everyone was still hungover from two intense weeks of Indian Wells, a 16-year-old American girl, Ingrid Neel (rank: #765), upset another teen, Donna Vekic (rank: 85)  in the first round of Miami qualies. She then backed that up with a very close loss to Alison Van Uytvanck (rank: 115) and for a brief moment, people took notice.

One who took notice was venerated former pro, best-selling author, top-level coach, highly regarded commentator, and follower-of-me-on-Twitter Brad Gilbert. He tweeted:

Amazing how many girls right now that the U.S. have ATM we are loaded with young talent,hope at some point the guys start getting there too
— Brad Gilbert (@bgtennisnation) March 23, 2015

I was a bit surprised that Brad, whom I hold in high esteem, would overlook the high level that young American men have shown in the last year or so, and so I replied:

@bgtennisnation Brad! Donaldson has a challenger title, Tiafoe & Mmoh each have Futures titles, Fritz beat Sela & Kozlov is nearly Top 400
— Jonathan Kelley (@jokelley_tennis) March 23, 2015

Now, to say that Brad Gilbert's tennis acumen is superior to mine is like saying Stephen Hawking's theories of the time and space are better than my theory that the entire universe is just a figment of Sandra Bullock's imagination. (Yes, this might be the only time you see "Brad Gilbert" and "Stephen Hawking" in the same sentence.) But I just felt that he was giving the short shrift to some players of exceptional promise. So I suggested a wager:

@bgtennisnation looks like we're going to have to put a wager on this. I say we get a major quarterfinalist in 5 years out of that group
— Jonathan Kelley (@jokelley_tennis) March 23, 2015

@bgtennisnation okay, book it, 2020 US Open. If I win, free 1 hour lesson. If you win, $500 donation to tennis charity of your choice
— Jonathan Kelley (@jokelley_tennis) March 23, 2015

And after a bit of badgering, Brad agreed to it!

@jokelley_tennis deal
— Brad Gilbert (@bgtennisnation) March 23, 2015

Yessssss.

Reaction from the twitterverse was swift and varied. Some thought I had this in the bag.

@jokelley_tennis @bgtennisnation a slam dunk with tiafoe, mmoh, kozlov, donaldson, escobedo, baughman, Paul, fritz, Opelka, rybakov, ponwith
— rustam tahir (@rustamtahir) March 23, 2015

@jokelley_tennis @bgtennisnation To borrow one of your phrases BG, you are going to get taken to the woodshed on this bet. 60 60 to JK
— Patrick Rourke (@rourkeytennis) March 23, 2015

While others took a gloomier view:

@jokelley_tennis @bgtennisnation proves how low USA tennis is right now, that 1 quarterfinalist in a major 5 years from now is exciting.
— Jeff McMillan (@jjjtm_clem_uiw) March 23, 2015

(Although Jeff conveniently left out the part about that major quarterfinalist being 24 at the oldest, which is a rare phenomenon in the modern ATP.)

Anyway, to reiterate - here are the terms:

1) A US male
2) Who was 18 or younger as of March 23, 2015
3) Will make a grand slam quarterfinal
4) By the 2020 U.S. Open

Note that this leaves out some young players (your Noah Rubins, your Collin Altamiranos, your Mackenzie McDonalds) who could have great pro careers but who are just past the age cut-off.  But I feel good about my chances in no small part because, as Rustam pointed out, it's still a sizable cadre of guys with good athleticism, tennis smarts, and competitiveness. They'll push each other - and every time one succeeds, the others will take note and realize they can succeed at that level too. Which hopefully will lead to the twin key elements - work ethic and confidence - it takes to succeed at the highest level of tennis.

Most importantly, there's now a group of Americans playing for something much, much greater than mere individual glory or riches. They're playing for pride. My pride. (And my $500.)

So, friends and neighbors, what's your call? Will I get that coveted tennis lesson, or will some lucky charity be the beneficiary of my tear-soaked cash? And if I do win, who will be the one to secure me that hour? I've put together a poll (thanks, Colette, for the idea!) with the 10 players Rustam mentioned but if you want to suggest someone else, please do so in the comments.

And then let's root, root, root for these kids.

Who will win me my bet with Brad?