THIS WEEK: The first fortnight of the 2000 season have passed, and we're all still trying to work out what the hell the ATP has done with its ratings. See menstennis.rivals.com for some serious sleuth work - you'll be amazed how arbitrary the ATP's judgement is.

Lleyton Hewitt leads the race after a perfect 10-0 start, and it will take a great player to stop that becoming 17-0. Other tournament winners have been SRI Rankings pet Jerome Golmard (Chennai), Fabrice Santoro (Doha, Qatar), and Magnus Norman (Auckland). Golmard was embarrassingly high on the SRI Rankings Top 50 Men last year, considering his injuries. But he now has very few poor matches on his twelve-month record, and a fresh title under his belt. Look for him to stop Sampras in the quarter-finals, if both of their bodies hold up for the first week.

Andre Agassi is the obvious choice to win the Australian Open, although the bookies have strangely installed Sampras as slight favourite. Apart from the Tour Championships win over Agassi, Sampras's form is nothing special, and the hardcourts have brought some disturbing results over the past year: losses to Felix Mantilla, Richard Krajicek, and Jan-Michael Gambill, plus two injury defaults. The SRI Rankings computer regards him as a substantial risk.

Kafelnikov's draw is marshmallow-soft. He has an armchair ride into the semi-finals (only Haas a threat). Nicolas Kiefer also faces little opposition early - the computer rates Gustavo Kuerten a marginally better player, but Kiefer's draw gives him twice Kuerten's winning chances overall. Kuerten meets Spadea in the second round, the winner playing Hewitt, who must rate as the toughest floater in years.

ODDS	Player(s)
3/1	Agassi
6/1	Hewitt
8/1	Kafelnikov
12/1	Golmard
14/1	Kiefer, Krajicek, Enqvist, Haas
15/1	Philippoussis
16/1	Sampras
25/1	Kucera, Kuerten
33/1	Norman, Martin
40/1	Grosjean
50/1	Lapentti
66/1	Spadea
80/1	Santoro
100	El Aynaoui, Safin, Clavet, Chang, Hrbaty
150	Novak, Moya, Costa, Clement, Ferreira, Pioline, Dosedel
200	Vinciguerra, Escude, Mirnyi, Corretja, Stoltenberg
250	Henman

SRI Rankings Aus. Open Special. Hardcourt Only. 16th Jan 2000
Rank	Name	Rating Points	SRI Rank (all surfaces)	Comments
1	Andre Agassi	1154	1	Deservedly the favourite
2	Lleyton Hewitt	1148	5	Huge chance this year
3	Jerome Golmard	1085	3	Winner at Chennai, darkhorse
4	Mark Philippoussis	1078	16	His surface and his town
5	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	1054	12	Defending champion
6	Richard Krajicek	1043	6
7	Tommy Haas	1002	17	Potential semi-finalist
8	Thomas Enqvist	998	9	Unlucky last year
9	Gustavo Kuerten	958	7
10	Nicolas Kiefer	957	8
11	Patrick Rafter	933	4	Didn't get to the line
12	Sebastien Grosjean	926	23
13	Pete Sampras	924	2	Surprisingly low on hardcourts
14	Karol Kucera	923	10
15	Fabrice Santoro	923	25
16	Greg Rusedski	922	13
17	Vince Spadea	902	21
18	Magnus Norman	901	11
19	Todd Martin	899	15
20	Nicolas Lapentti	860	20
21	Francisco Clavet	833	32
22	Marcelo Rios	806	14
23	Carlos Moya	799	27
24	Jiri Novak	799	34
25	Dominik Hrbaty	799	29
26	Arnaud Clement	796	58
27	Younes El Aynaoui	796	31
28	Michael Chang	791	35
29	Nicolas Escude	782	36
30	Wayne Ferreira	776	50
41	Tim Henman	736	18

SRI Rankings Top 50 Issue #M114. 16th Jan 2000
Rank	Name	Rating Points	Rank Change	ATP Rank
1	Andre Agassi	1303	0	1
2	Pete Sampras	1129	0	3
3	Jerome Golmard	1125	+3	38
4	Patrick Rafter	1118	+1	16
5	Lleyton Hewitt	1113	-1	24
6	Richard Krajicek	1098	-3	10
7	Gustavo Kuerten	1062	+1	4
8	Nicolas Kiefer	1061	+2	6
9	Thomas Enqvist	1058	-2	5
10	Karol Kucera	1052	-1	17
11	Magnus Norman	1042	+3	15
12	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	1036	-1	2
13	Greg Rusedski	1031	0	13
14	Marcelo Rios	1008	+3	9
15	Todd Martin	998	-3	8
16	Mark Philippoussis	991	0	19
17	Tommy Haas	974	+1	12
18	Tim Henman	962	-3	11
19	Albert Costa	960	0	18
20	Nicolas Lapentti	949	0	7
21	Vince Spadea	918	+1	21
22	Felix Mantilla	903	-1	25
23	Sebastien Grosjean	902	+3	26
24	Alex Corretja	893	-1	27
25	Fabrice Santoro	891	+15	32
26	Karim Alami	886	+1	30
27	Carlos Moya	885	+1	22
28	Cedric Pioline	882	-4	14
29	Dominik Hrbaty	879	-4	20
30	Fernando Meligeni	875	-1	28
31	Younes El Aynaoui	872	-1	33
32	Francisco Clavet	855	0	37
33	Jim Courier	851	+4	34
34	Jiri Novak	849	-3	36
35	Michael Chang	838	+1	48
36	Nicolas Escude	837	+6	40
37	Jan-Michael Gambill	837	-3	58
38	Juan Carlos Ferrero	830	0	22
39	Chris Woodruff	828	-6	57
40	Marat Safin	814	+1	23
41	Sargis Sargsian	814	+3	53
42	Jason Stoltenberg	809	-7	84
43	Andrei Pavel	795	0	41
44	Daniel Nestor	794	+2	91
45	Sjeng Schalken	789	-6	44
46	Andreas Vinciguerra	788	+3	99
47	Magnus Larsson	787	-2	96
48	Magnus Gustafsson	785	-1	61
49	Arnaud Di Pasquale	785	+3	52
50	Wayne Ferreira	783	+5	54
51	Slava Dosedel	779	-3	63
53	Richey Reneberg	776	-3	202
71	Mariano Zabaleta	734	-4	29
74	Andrei Medvedev	723	0	31

Rating Winners:
Fabrice Santoro	+66	(W Qatar 00, 1R Auckland 99)
Jerome Golmard	+40	(W Chennai 00, 1R Sydney 99, 1R Adelaide 99)
Patrick Rafter	+30	(2R Adelaide 99, 1R Sydney 99)
Jim Courier	+24	(1R Adelaide 99, 1R Auckland 99)
Magnus Norman	+20	(W Auckland 00, 2R 99, SF Adelaide 00)
Marcelo Rios	+19	(1R ret Auckland 00)
Lleyton Hewitt	+17	(W Adelaide 00, RU 99, W Sydney 00, QF 99)

Rating Losers:
Tim Henman	-42	(RU Qatar 99, QF Adelaide 00)
Todd Martin	-39	(W Sydney 99, 2R 00)
Sjeng Schalken	-36	(W Auckland 99, QF 00, QF Qatar 00)
Felix Mantilla	-34	(SF Auckland 99, 1R Qatar 00, 1R Sydney 00)
Jason Stoltenberg	-33	(SF Adelaide 99, QF 00, QF Sydney 99, RU 00)

[ wo - walkover, wd - withdrew, ret - retired, def - defeated ]

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