THIS WEEK: The U.S. Open will decide whether Pete Sampras or Andre Agassi is the number one player. They are currently locked together on a rating of 1160, so the better performer will take over. Agassi has a headstart, with only a fourth-round loss to defend from last year. This week the tournament winners were Magnus Norman (up from 27 to 21, ATP #34 last week) and Marat Safin (up from 50 to 46, ATP #33 last week).

On to the U.S. Open preview. Last year the SRI Rankings computer was one of the very few pundits to select Pat Rafter as the repeat winner. This year he is given a lot less chance, after a far less impressive hardcourt season. Even including the U.S. Open win last year, he is ranked only 3rd amongst the Australians, and 9th overall on hardcourts.

The title is tricky to pick, but Andre Agassi should start favourite with the injury doubts over Sampras, Rafter, and Hewitt among others. Agassi's draw is particularly good compared to Sampras's. Sampras will play Safin, Novak, Gambill/Grosjean, and Lapentti before the quarter-finals, and any of those (except maybe Novak) could give him a fright. Agassi has Kulti (one win on hardcourt in two years!), a qualifier (the underrated Pretzsch or the fast-rising Saulnier, both still a class below the field), Gimelstob/Costa, and Kiefer/Chang - only to meet a claycourter in the quarters, with any luck! Make your own adjustments to the calculated odds below if you know something about the injuries that we don't.

ODDS	Player(s)
7/2	Agassi
5/1	Sampras
8/1	Krajicek
10/1	Kafelnikov
12/1	Rafter, Enqvist
16/1	T.Martin
20/1	Kuerten, Hewitt
25/1	Rusedski, Lapentti, Spadea
33/1	Moya
40/1	Kiefer, Henman, Rios, Corretja
50/1	Norman, Hrbaty
66/1	Haas, Chang
100	Grosjean, El Aynaoui, Mantilla, Clavet
125	Siemerink, Gambill, Woodruff, Stoltenberg, Nestor, Ferreira
150	Schuttler, Goldstein, Rosset, Bjorkman
200	Novak, Safin, Schalken, Costa, Ivanisevic

SRI Rankings U.S. Open Special. Outdoor Hardcourt Only. 30th Aug 1999
Rank	Name	Rating Points	SRI Rank (all surfaces)	Comments
1	Andre Agassi	1197	2	Not greatly surprising
2	Pete Sampras	1189	1	Can he win his 13th?
3	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	1124	6	Won last hardcourt slam
4	Thomas Enqvist	1105	19	Finalist in last " "
5	Mark Philippoussis	1099	12	Would've been a threat
6	Richard Krajicek	1092	3
7	Karol Kucera	1046	11
8	Lleyton Hewitt	1042	8
9	Patrick Rafter	1042	4	Two-time champ down here?!
10	Jerome Golmard	1033	17	Also injured
11	Nicolas Lapentti	1026	25
12	Vince Spadea	1020	20
13	Todd Martin	1002	5
14	Gustavo Kuerten	959	10
15	Greg Rusedski	949	7
16	Nicolas Kiefer	938	16
17	Alex Corretja	930	18
18	Carlos Moya	925	22
19	Magnus Norman	902	21
20	Tim Henman	892	9
21	Sebastien Grosjean	883	32
22	Dominik Hrbaty	880	28
23	Tommy Haas	863	23
24	Michael Chang	855	36
25	Marcelo Rios	848	13
26	Marat Safin	847	46
27	Jan-Michael Gambill	835	42
28	Jean-Baptiste Perlant	833	111	Specialist, but not playing
29	Marc Rosset	831	35
30	Jan Siemerink	831	53

SRI Rankings Top 50 Issue #M103. 30th Aug 1999
Rank	Name	Rating Points	Rank Change	ATP Rank
1	Pete Sampras	1160	+1	1
2	Andre Agassi	1160	-1	2
3	Richard Krajicek	1062	0	12
4	Patrick Rafter	1048	0	4
5	Todd Martin	1024	0	7
6	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	1018	0	3
7	Greg Rusedski	998	0	9
8	Lleyton Hewitt	990	0	31
9	Tim Henman	983	+1	6
10	Gustavo Kuerten	978	-1	5
11	Karol Kucera	974	+1	19
12	Mark Philippoussis	973	-1	11
13	Marcelo Rios	954	0	10
14	Younes El Aynaoui	941	+2	25
15	Felix Mantilla	936	-1	17
16	Nicolas Kiefer	935	-1	15
17	Jerome Golmard	931	0	30
18	Alex Corretja	923	0	13
19	Thomas Enqvist	921	+1	20
20	Vince Spadea	910	-1	23
21	Magnus Norman	910	+6	34
22	Carlos Moya	902	0	8
23	Tommy Haas	896	0	14
24	Albert Costa	891	-3	21
25	Nicolas Lapentti	883	+1	16
26	Fernando Meligeni	882	-2	29
27	Francisco Clavet	864	-2	28
28	Dominik Hrbaty	849	0	22
29	Jason Stoltenberg	834	+10	66
30	Cedric Pioline	826	-1	24
31	Thomas Johansson	826	+2	18
32	Sebastien Grosjean	825	-2	27
33	Jiri Novak	815	-1	39
34	Magnus Larsson	805	0	82
35	Marc Rosset	800	+1	32
36	Michael Chang	796	-5	50
37	Jim Courier	790	-2	36
38	Juan Carlos Ferrero	787	-1	63
39	Daniel Nestor	779	+1	58
40	Stefan Koubek	771	-2	44
41	Wayne Ferreira	768	+1	37
42	Jan-Michael Gambill	766	-1	54
43	Chris Woodruff	765	0	72
44	Fabrice Santoro	758	+2	38
45	Andrei Pavel	757	0	46
46	Marat Safin	756	+4	33
47	Jonas Bjorkman	755	-3	41
48	Boris Becker	745	0	111
49	Rainer Schuttler	740	+2	47
50	Gaston Gaudio	736	-3	64
NQ	Nicklas Kulti	828	NQ	104
57	Sjeng Schalken	719	+12	51
65	Arnaud Clement	705	+14	61
66	Mariano Zabaleta	704	-2	26
69	Thomas Muster	699	-20	95

Rating Winners:
Jason Stoltenberg	+53	(SF Hamlet 99)
Magnus Norman	+48	(W Hamlet 99, 1R 98)
Arnaud Clement	+38	(SF Boston 99, 1R 98)
Marat Safin	+19	(W Boston 99, SF 98)

Rating Losers:
Thomas Muster	-39	(QF Boston 98)
Michael Chang	-33	(W Boston 98)
Patrick Rafter	-15	(W Hamlet 98)

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

blurb version 3.0