THIS WEEK: Pat Rafter defended his title at 's-Hertogenbosch (and while we're at it, can someone from the Netherlands explain to me why it's spelt this way?), while Cedric Pioline won Nottingham - the tournament from which he was disqualified last year! The runner- up to Pioline was ATP #574 Kevin Ullyett of South Africa. Don't laugh, the week before he was #675! The SRI computer agreed with the ATP, giving him a provisional rating of just 130 before this week. His sole singles win over the previous 12 months was against fellow household name Hugo Armando.

Turning now to the Wimbledon draw, we see that Pete Sampras has a cakewalk to the title. He could hardly have done better picking opponents himself (OK, I'm exaggerating). The computer tips him to be playing Daniel Nestor (ranked 66th by SRI) next Monday for a place in the quarters. On the other hand, Rafter has a horror draw including the most dangerous floater Enqvist, while Philippoussis faces either Johansson or Clavet (the two next most dangerous) in the third round.

As I said with the women's preview, make your own adjustments for form and/or injury to these calculated odds.

ODDS	Player(s)
5/2	Sampras
6/1	Krajicek
7/1	Agassi
10/1	Henman
12/1	Kafelnikov
14/1	Rafter, Philippoussis
16/1	Rusedski, Martin, Kucera, Enqvist
25/1	Ivanisevic
33/1	Kiefer
40/1	Hewitt, Haas
50/1	Moya, Johansson
66/1	Kuerten, Clavet
100	Rosset, Stoltenberg, Pioline
150	Gambill, Ferreira, Spadea
200	Prinosil, Grosjean, Bjorkman

SRI Rankings Wimbledon Special. Double Grass, No Clay. 21st June 1999
Rank	Name	Rating Points	SRI Rank (all surfaces)	Comments
1	Pete Sampras	1244	1	Peerless at Wimbledon
2	Richard Krajicek	1135	4
3	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	1127	8	Can he recapture this form?
4	Andre Agassi	1117	2
5	Mark Philippoussis	1083	11
6	Patrick Rafter	1082	3
7	Greg Rusedski	1064	5
8	Tim Henman	1040	10	Big chance at home
9	Thomas Enqvist	1036	14
10	Todd Martin	1035	7
11	Karol Kucera	1014	9
12	Alex Corretja	997	12	Didn't enter, but not bad
13	Nicolas Kiefer	975	16
14	Goran Ivanisevic	954	29
15	Thomas Johansson	952	23
16	Francisco Clavet	943	15
17	Lleyton Hewitt	941	19
18	Marcelo Rios	936	13
19	Nicklas Kulti 928 NQ
20	Tommy Haas	920	25
21	Carlos Moya	912	20
22	Jason Stoltenberg	898	27
23	Gustavo Kuerten	878	6	This surprises me
24	Michael Chang	864	32
25	Marc Rosset	863	46
26	Cedric Pioline	841	44
27	Vince Spadea	834	28
28	Wayne Ferreira	825	37
29	Magnus Larsson	824	26
30	Jerome Golmard	821	21
33	Denis van Uffelen	818	NQ	What's his story?
44	Dominik Hrbaty	762	24
61	Felix Mantilla	715	17	Like him seeded on clay ...
62	Scott Draper	713	60	Fodder for Pete, I fear
NQ	Younes El Aynaoui	656	18
105	Fernando Meligeni	610	22

 

SRI Rankings Top 50 Issue #M95. 21st June 1999
Rank	Name	Rating Points	Rank Change	ATP Rank
1	Pete Sampras	1145	0	1
2	Andre Agassi	1106	0	4
3	Patrick Rafter	1076	0	2
4	Richard Krajicek	1073	0	5
5	Greg Rusedski	1013	0	13
6	Gustavo Kuerten	1007	0	7
7	Todd Martin	1007	0	12
8	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	1000	0	3
9	Karol Kucera	985	+2	14
10	Tim Henman	978	-1	6
11	Mark Philippoussis	975	-1	11
12	Alex Corretja	966	0	8
13	Marcelo Rios	965	+1	9
14	Thomas Enqvist	956	-1	20
15	Francisco Clavet	920	0	22
16	Nicolas Kiefer	916	+3	18
17	Felix Mantilla	916	+1	16
18	Younes El Aynaoui	911	+3	35
19	Lleyton Hewitt	909	-2	36
20	Carlos Moya	904	0	10
21	Jerome Golmard	896	-5	23
22	Fernando Meligeni	880	+1	27
23	Thomas Johansson	877	+2	21
24	Dominik Hrbaty	874	-2	19
25	Tommy Haas	873	-1	17
26	Magnus Larsson	873	+1	53
27	Jason Stoltenberg	863	-1	43
28	Vince Spadea	851	0	29
29	Goran Ivanisevic	833	0	15
30	Albert Costa	828	+1	25
31	Magnus Gustafsson	821	+1	47
32	Michael Chang	815	+1	58
33	Sebastien Grosjean	802	+1	33
34	Jonas Bjorkman	798	-4	32
35	Boris Becker	783	+6	79
36	Marat Safin	782	+3	38
37	Wayne Ferreira	777	+3	26
38	Jiri Novak	773	-3	48
39	Andrei Medvedev	768	-2	31
40	Jim Courier	765	+2	60
41	Nicolas Lapentti	756	+8	28
42	Jan-Michael Gambill	756	+2	50
43	Juan Carlos Ferrero	755	-5	95
44	Cedric Pioline	755	+23	52
45	David Prinosil	755	+11	61
46	Marc Rosset	751	+6	34
47	Byron Black	747	-11	41
48	Stefan Koubek	745	-2	51
49	Jan Siemerink	744	-6	30
50	Fabrice Santoro	744	-5	45
51	Justin Gimelstob	742	-4	65
52	Thomas Muster	740	-4	87
54	Xavier Malisse	726	-4	108
64	Andrei Pavel	703	+23	66
68	Mariano Zabaleta	690	+1	24
93	Jens Knippschild	640	+46	135

Rating Winners:
Cedric Pioline	+51	(W Nottingham 99, 2R DQ! 98)
Andrei Pavel	+48	(RU 's-Hertogenbosch 99, 1R 98)
David Prinosil	+23	(SF Nottingham 99, QF 98)

Rating Losers:
Jerome Golmard	-42	(SF Nottingham 98, 2R wo 99)
Jonas Bjorkman	-40	(W Nottingham 98, QF 's-Hert. 99)
Byron Black	-40	(RU Nottingham 98, 1R 99)
Juan Carlos Ferrero	-28	(1R Braunschweig Chal. 99)
Jiri Novak	-27	(W Zagreb Chal. 98)

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

blurb version 3.0