May Ratings

Biggest riser of May was of course the Alexander "The Wardinator" Ward, who rose an incredible 747 places to crash into the top 1000 at 906 with his run to the final of Spain F19.

Neil "Bambam" Bamford had a good month up 95 places (though he is down 23 since start of the year.)  He reached the final of Greece F3 and had a lovely win over Gregorc at Surbiton.

Ken "The Skupster" Skupski also had a productive May - up 73.  Ken won Greece F2 and brilliantly beat Sijsling at Surbiton.


Biggest British Improvers 2008

Points                            Rank
+150 Alexander Ward     (up 1027 to  906)
+ 85 Sean Thornley        (up  317 to 1015)
+ 80 Matthew Illingworth (up  275 to  868)
+ 59 Kyle Brassington    (up  205 to 1379)
+ 41 Jamie Baker           (up   89 to  180)
+ 34 Dan Smethurst       (up  379 to 1139)
+ 27 Jonathan Kinsella    (up  115 to 1229)
+ 24 James Ward           (up   75 to  647)
+ 24 George Coupland    (up  371 to 1495)
+ 18 Niall Angus             (up 1217 to 1452)
+ 16 Jamie Feaver           (up   67 to 1396)
+ 11 Marcus Willis          (up   92 to 1067)
+ 10 Richard Bloomfield  (up   36 to  291)
+  9 Alexander Slabinsky (up   45 to  557)
+  7 David Rice               (up   20 to  980)
+  5 Kenneth Skupski     (up   31 to  564)

	Dec 07	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul
Tom Rushby	797	914	967	1005	1016	1012	-	-
Sean Thornley	1332	1164	1223	1162	1076	1015	978	1022
Edward Seator	1061	1083	1066	1076	1108	1109	1107	1035
Myles Blake	967	1023	1050	1051	1030	994	972	1037
Dan Smethurst	1518*	1301*	1157	1246	1071	1139	1110	1045
Alexander Ward	1933*	1944*	1771*	1805*	1653*	906	955	1091
Tim Hewitt	974	1007	1084	1088	1211	1172	1148	-
Edward Corrie	-	-	-	-	-	1059*	988*	1128*
Richard Irwin	1084	1111	1154	1131	1161	-	-	-
Jonathan Kinsella	1344	1342	1345	1241	1231	1229	1154	1115
Jamie Feaver	1463	1520	1472	1494	1511	1396	1285	1243
Niall Angus	2669*	2850*	2447*	2146*	1912*	1452*	1387*	1255*
Jagdev Sagoo	1253*	1326*	1318*	1399*	1343*	1371*	1357*	-
Tim Patient	-	-	-	1846*	1760*	1613*	1465*	1358*
Kyle Brassington	1584	1523	1508	1361	1398	1379	1376	1368
George Coupland	1866*	1356*	1386*	1424*	1531*	1495*	1498*	1369
Burnham Arlidge	1916*	1822*	1833*	1671*	1702*	1667*	1435	1375
Neil Pauffley	1419*	1512*	1496*	1481*	1508*	1517*	1518*	1389*

	Nat	2007yo	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul
Rafael Nadal	ESP	2	3	3	3	2	2	1	1
Roger Federer	SUI	1	1	1	1	1	1	2	2
Novak Djokovic	SRB	5	2	2	2	3	3	3	3
Andy Murray	GBR	7	5	6	5	8	9	6	4
Andy Roddick	USA	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	5
Nikolay Davydenko	RUS	11	9	11	13	5	5	5	6
Robin Soderling	SWE	-	-	8	8	10	7	8	7
David Ferrer	ESP	3	6	7	10	7	6	7	8
Nicolas Kiefer	GER	15	17	19	25	26	27	20	9
Stanislas Wawrinka	SUI	23	23	25	23	22	12	10	10
Mario Ancic	CRO	28*	28*	14	9	9	13	11	11
Lleyton Hewitt	AUS	9	14	17	18	17	16	12	12
Radek Stepanek	CZE	17	19	18	14	16	8	9	13
David Nalbandian	ARG	6	7	5	6	6	10	15	14
Juan Martin del Potro	ARG	31	37	37	41	38	42	39	15
Marcos Baghdatis	CYP	8	15	16	17	15	20	16	16
Fernando Verdasco	ESP	24	34	35	39	47	21	13	17
Nicolas Almagro	ESP	36	44	24	21	13	11	14	18
Richard Gasquet	FRA	12	13	15	16	18	26	18	19
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga	FRA	29	12	13	12	14	17	19	-
Tommy Robredo	ESP	26	38	42	52	33	22	27	20
Fernando Gonzalez	CHI	21	27	20	30	25	14	17	21
Tomas Berdych	CZE	13	11	9	11	12	15	23	22
James Blake	USA	10	10	12	7	11	18	22	23
Ivo Karlovic	CRO	14	18	22	26	37	32	24	24
Tommy Haas	GER	19	20	33	22	30	29	29	25
Juan Carlos Ferrero	ESP	27	16	23	24	21	19	26	26
Mikhail Youzhny	RUS	18	8	10	15	20	28	25	30
Carlos Moya	ESP	20	29	34	34	36	38	36	37
Paul-Henri Mathieu	FRA	16	21	21	19	23	31	31	41
Guillermo Canas	ARG	22	25	26	20	19	40	46	49

-- Edited by Akhenaten at 13:32, 2008-08-05

As usual, these look subjectively more accurate than the real rankings in most cases.

Blake's an interesting one.

He looks really low at no.23 and then I looked at his activity this year, and :

1)  He seem to have beaten precisely 0 of the current ATP top 10 all this year, and had 4 losses.

2)  He reached 2 ATP finals ( Delray Beach and Houston ) without evidently playing a single player in the top 50, including these he lost to in the final, Nishakori and Granlliers respectively.

3) His greatest wins of the whole year have really been 2 wins against Gasquet at Indian Wells and in the Davis Cup.

4)  Even when he reaches his seeded last 8 position in compulsories he doesn't often even beat anyone in the top 20, and then loses as soon as he encounters players ranked above him.

It's almost as if he has been saved by keeping a top 8 ranking for most of the year, playing to it in major tournaments, but basically beating noone and occasoonally getting beaten by much lower ranked players.  It's quite an art form    But maybe, if he began slipping down the officilal rankings, he could keep falling.

The Akhenaten rankings certainly find him out, and maybe tell a hidden truth !

Sorry the formattings a bit odd, was struggling with the size of the table.

Continent	No.	1Q	2Q	3Q	FQR	1R	2R	QF	SF	RU	Winner		Avg Main Draw Rating
West Europe	320	-85	58	130	174	316	383	434	468	495	529		369
North America	60	-191	-38	91	209	318	382	429	450	478	508		367
East Asia	42	-132	-14		132	263	344	406	422	463	481		324
Australisia	23	-184	-35		101	264	321	400	440	471	484		319
East Europe	161	-146	-22	207	105	247	321	384	420	448	484		307
Scandinavia	16	-199	4		20	229	302	364	417	432	470		290
North Africa	47	-203	-86		26	200	302	392	436	457	505		282
Central America	43	-211	-125		62	181	298	373	405	450	479		266
South Asia	43	-213	-141		-2	175	266	328	371	405	459		245
Ex-USSR	49	-239	-109		-10	158	269	359	399	420	483		244
Hawaii	4	-297	-177		-8	178	256	327	377	434	431		244
South America	145	-241	-120		-12	163	259	347	398	423	472		242
Middle East	23	-314	-253	79	-134	96	239	372	438	451	491		211
Africa (Central/South)	29	-256	-166		-148	49	173	288	350	371	438		151

-- Edited by Akhenaten at 13:06, 2008-11-14