THIS WEEK: A very quiet week, with many top players in the World Team Tennis, which doesn't count towards rankings. Marcelo Rios repeated his win in St. Poelten, but there were no other tournaments.

I love the French Open, because it is an extra mathematical challenge to work out how to deal with the clay-only ratings below. They are always so different to the all-surface ratings, as you can clearly see! No-one in the SRI Rankings top 6 rates well on clay, and most of them haven't played enough matches to get a good fix on. The exception, surprisingly, is ATP #1 Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who has played 17 matches on clay for a 7-10 record. I.e., we know he can't play on clay. Don't waste your money.

Unfortunately, there is no value to be found at all, from what I've seen of the bookies' odds. Sure, you can get 7/1 the field at most places, but SRI Rankings doesn't expect any better. In fact, the order of the chances is very similar. We have Moya and Kuerten as joint favourites, with Rios close behind. Felix Mantilla is probably under the odds at 9/1, so I've put some speculative money on the Mantilla- Seles double (see the women's preview) at a whopping 155/1 here in Melbourne. Mantilla's draw is not easy, but look for Younes El Aynaoui or Xavier Malisse to give Rafter a fright in round 3 - Mantilla plays the winner.

Anyone who says they can tell you the winner at this stage is having you on. SRI Rankings' predicted quarter-finalists are: Hewitt (has the game for this tournament; not Kafelnikov) Rios (Costa a threat in round 3) Moya (Agassi would need to fire) Kiefer (weak seeds, wide open here) Corretja (Kucera not far behind, no other threats) Mantilla (although Rafter is a danger in a tough part of the draw) Kuerten (Clavet in round 3 a possible upset) Sampras (clearly the weakest section!)

Given that we've listed about two-thirds of the field below, and not yet mentioned Ivanisevic or Rusedski, the less said about them the better. Note Kafelnikov outside the top 40 chances too.

ODDS	Player(s)
7/1	Moya, Kuerten
15/2	Rios
9/1	Mantilla
10/1	Rafter
11/1	Corretja
12/1	Agassi
14/1	Kucera
16/1	A.Costa, Sampras
20/1	Hewitt
25/1	Clavet, Kiefer
40/1	Gustafsson, El Aynaoui, Spadea
50/1	Hrbaty, Philippoussis, Courier
66/1	Santoro, Henman, Voltchkov, Novak, Fromberg, Malisse
100	Meligeni, Gaudio, Prinosil, Zabaleta, Voinea, Enqvist
125	Stoltenberg, Pioline, Krajicek, Muster, Safin
150	Alami, Koubek, Ulihrach, Ferreira, Squillari, Kafelnikov
200	Norman, Di Pasquale, Ruud, Sargisian, Haas, Lapentti
250	Pavel, Gumy
330	Escude, Arazi, Knippschild, A.Martin, Puerta, Canas
400	Vicente, Chang, Draper, Delgado, Raoux, Sanguinetti, Haarhuis
500	Portas, Dreekmann, Grosjean, Mirnyi, Pescariu, Larsson
660	Huet, Ilie, Clement, Pretsch, Rodriguez, Gambill, Blanco
1000	C.Costa, Hipfl, Filippini, B.Black, Moyano, Bjorkman, Medvedev

SRI Rankings French Open Special. Clay Only. 24th May 1999
Rank	Name	Rating Points	SRI Rank (all surfaces)	Comments
1	Carlos Moya	1075	15	Not a bad draw, either
2	Gustavo Kuerten	1067	7
3	Felix Mantilla	1067	16	Maybe a value bet
4	Jerome Golmard	1053	17	Where is he? He'd be favourite!
5	Marcelo Rios	1051	13
6	Albert Costa	1015	29
7	Alex Corretja	1013	10
8	Karol Kucera	1005	11
9	Patrick Rafter	987	3	9 matches only
10	Todd Martin	937	9
11	Lleyton Hewitt	927	21
12	Younes El Aynaoui	924	22
13	Francisco Clavet	896	18
14	Xavier Malisse	892	35
15	Magnus Gustafsson	888	23
16	Filip Dewulf	870	55
17	Boris Becker	867	39
18	Nicolas Kiefer	823	19	8 matches only
19	Gaston Gaudio	820	61
20	Dominik Hrbaty	818	30
21	Vladimir Voltchkov	818	72	8 matches only
22	Fernando Meligeni	815	33
23	Fabrice Santoro	813	47
24	Vince Spadea	808	32
25	Jim Courier	800	44
26	Richard Fromberg	796	62
27	Franco Squillari	796	59
28	Jiri Novak	782	41
29	Karim Alami	778	60
30	Stefan Koubek	774	52
NQ	Andre Agassi	945	2	4 matches only
31	Mark Philippoussis	774	8	7 matches only
NQ	Pete Sampras	771	1	4 matches only
35	Mariano Zabaleta	748	53	66 matches on clay!
41	Tim Henman	725	14
91	Thomas Enqvist	596	12	7 matches only
95	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	593	6	17 matches, quite poor
NQ	Richard Krajicek	573	4	6 matches only
261	Goran Ivanisevic	277	28	7 matches only
NQ	Greg Rusedski	269	5	5 matches only

SRI Rankings Top 50 Issue #M92. 24th May 1999
Rank	Name	Rating Points	Rank Change	ATP Rank
1	Pete Sampras	1172	0	2
2	Andre Agassi	1111	0	14
3	Patrick Rafter	1095	0	3
4	Richard Krajicek	1066	0	5
5	Greg Rusedski	1015	+1	13
6	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	1014	-1	1
7	Gustavo Kuerten	1001	0	8
8	Mark Philippoussis	998	0	10
9	Todd Martin	996	0	11
10	Alex Corretja	984	0	6
11	Karol Kucera	980	0	12
12	Thomas Enqvist	977	+1	17
13	Marcelo Rios	977	-1	9
14	Tim Henman	969	0	7
15	Carlos Moya	957	0	4
16	Felix Mantilla	949	0	15
17	Jerome Golmard	933	0	22
18	Francisco Clavet	909	0	20
19	Nicolas Kiefer	894	0	21
20	Jason Stoltenberg	891	0	37
21	Lleyton Hewitt	889	0	41
22	Younes El Aynaoui	879	0	36
23	Magnus Gustafsson	876	0	45
24	Magnus Larsson	876	0	43
25	Thomas Johansson	874	0	18
26	Tommy Haas	870	0	19
27	Michael Chang	862	0	50
28	Goran Ivanisevic	856	0	16
29	Albert Costa	853	0	24
30	Dominik Hrbaty	843	+1	31
31	Jonas Bjorkman	838	+1	28
32	Vince Spadea	837	-2	25
33	Fernando Meligeni	835	0	55
34	Sebastien Grosjean	804	0	34
35	Xavier Malisse	800	0	111
36	Marat Safin	799	+1	32
37	Thomas Muster	796	+2	47
38	Scott Draper	793	+3	42
39	Boris Becker	791	-3	78
40	Byron Black	786	0	38
41	Jiri Novak	785	-3	48
42	Jan-Michael Gambill	780	+2	49
43	Wayne Ferreira	771	-1	23
44	Jim Courier	769	-1	59
45	Jan Siemerink	764	+1	33
46	Justin Gimelstob	760	-1	70
47	Fabrice Santoro	754	0	46
48	Marc Rosset	753	0	30
49	Nicolas Lapentti	742	+3	27
50	Bohdan Ulihrach	739	0	40
52	Stefan Koubek	737	-3	69
53	Mariano Zabaleta	731	+6	26
55	Filip Dewulf	728	+21	90
59	Franco Squillari	714	-1	39

Rating Winners:
Filip Dewulf	+39	(2R Budapest Chal. 98)
Mariano Zabaleta	+20	(RU ret St. Poelten 99)
Scott Draper	+16	(1R thrashed St. Poelten 98)
Pat Rafter	+13	(1R St. Poelten 98)

Rating Losers:
Jiri Novak	-12	(1R St. Poelten 99)
Vince Spadea	-9	(RU St. Poelten 98)

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

blurb version 3.0