THIS WEEK: Thomas Enqvist goes into Hannover with some form after winning the Stockholm Open. He rises from 11 to 7 (ATP #7 -> #4), but is outstripped by ATP #35 Jerome Golmard. I'm a little unhappy at Golmard being as high as 5th, given that he has won one match since April! But between February and April, he had a streak of 18 wins in 22 matches, counting Kucera (twice), Henman (twice), Moya (twice), Kiefer, Mantilla, Kuerten, Lapentti, and Spadea among his victims. I don't know any more about his injury than that it is his knee. Let's hope it hasn't curtailed a promising career.

For the rest of the commentary, check out an early draft of an article to appear in the weekend paper here in Australia. The calculated odds (before Monday's draw) are also below.

All the statistics indicate that Andre Agassi will win his second ATP Tour Championship tournament next week. He is already guaranteed to be the ATP's last #1 player under the current ranking system. But the rest of the world's top players will be focused on keeping this prestigious title out of his grasp.

This week, the world's top 16 women have been fighting it out in New York for the WTA Tour Championship. With Serena Williams out injured, this weekend sees an enthralling battle between the other three women who have dominated the WTA Tour in 1999: Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport, and Venus Williams. Hingis has a slight edge in class, but is no certainty.

Starting Tuesday, Hannover tempts the top eight men indoors with a prize pool of A$5.5 million and a chance to gain close to 1000 ATP points. Unlike all other ATP tournaments, players at Hannover can lose a round-robin match and continue to play.

The table below rates the players in order of their record against the other top-ten players. The alternates, Krajicek and Haas, will play if any of the others are injured.

Agassi in 1999 has been indisputably the best player on tour, winning five titles. Both the ATP points and the alternative rankings by Australia's Ranking Software (www.rankingsoftware.com) give him a significant lead over the chasing pack. The only soft spot in his record is against four-time Tour Championship winner Pete Sampras - this year Agassi has played him in two finals and one semi-final, without winning a set! Sampras has not lost to any of the top eight players in the past twelve months (once to each alternate), but he has only won one match since August, and retired injured twice.

We can eliminate Todd Martin and Nicolas Lapentti from consideration. Martin is a great player, but has not beaten any of the Hannover field this year. Lapentti recently won a tournament indoors, but scraped into this field on the back of his freakish Australian Open semi-final run.

The rest of the players are well matched. Any of them can win on the day. Nicolas Kiefer, in front of his home crowd, is a potential giant-killer.

The final match of the ATP Tour for 1999 takes place next Sunday at midnight AEST. Agassi will be hoping that Sampras wins through to the final, so he can beat him this year in a match that matters.

ODDS	Player(s)
9/4	Agassi
9/2	Kiefer
6/1	Kuerten
7/1	Sampras, Enqvist, Kafelnikov
14/1	Lapentti
25/1	Martin
33/1	Krajicek
150	Haas

SRI Rankings Hannover Special. Top Ten Players Only. 16th Nov 1999
Rank	Name	Rating Points	Win-Loss Record	ATP Rank	SRI Rank
1	Pete Sampras	637	5-2	5	2
2	Nicolas Kiefer	575	6-4	6	10
3	Tommy Haas (alt.)	555	6-5	11	17
4	Andre Agassi	547	8-6	1	1
5	Gustavo Kuerten	523	4-4	3	8
6	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	500	8-6	2	12
7	Richard Krajicek	498	3-7	10	3
8	Thomas Enqvist	459	6-7	4	7
9	Nicolas Lapentti	439	4-3	8	19
10	Todd Martin	266	0-6	7	10

SRI Rankings Top 50 Issue #M112. 16th Nov 1999
Rank	Name	Rating Points	Rank Change	ATP Rank
1	Andre Agassi	1251	0	1
2	Pete Sampras	1096	0	5
3	Richard Krajicek	1084	0	10
4	Patrick Rafter	1069	0	16
5	Jerome Golmard	1067	+4	35
6	Lleyton Hewitt	1066	-1	22
7	Thomas Enqvist	1066	+4	4
8	Gustavo Kuerten	1063	0	3
9	Greg Rusedski	1041	-3	14
10	Nicolas Kiefer	1033	0	6
11	Todd Martin	1031	-4	7
12	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	1027	0	2
13	Karol Kucera	1023	0	17
14	Magnus Norman	1012	0	15
15	Tim Henman	992	+1	12
16	Mark Philippoussis	981	-1	19
17	Tommy Haas	973	+1	11
18	Marcelo Rios	964	+1	9
19	Nicolas Lapentti	960	-2	8
20	Alex Corretja	953	0	26
21	Albert Costa	929	0	18
22	Felix Mantilla	922	0	23
23	Vince Spadea	909	+1	20
24	Cedric Pioline	892	+1	13
25	Carlos Moya	886	+1	24
26	Dominik Hrbaty	886	+1	21
27	Younes El Aynaoui	884	-4	32
28	Sebastien Grosjean	875	0	27
29	Fernando Meligeni	867	+2	29
30	Jiri Novak	858	0	42
31	Chris Woodruff	851	+1	52
32	Francisco Clavet	842	-3	39
33	Karim Alami	838	+3	30
34	Jason Stoltenberg	832	-1	80
35	Jan-Michael Gambill	830	+11	56
36	Fabrice Santoro	819	+2	34
37	Michael Chang	816	0	50
38	Jim Courier	816	-3	33
39	Marat Safin	811	0	25
40	Juan Carlos Ferrero	810	-6	45
41	Nicolas Escude	808	0	38
42	Andrei Pavel	802	-2	43
43	Sjeng Schalken	798	+1	44
44	Sargis Sargsian	796	-1	57
45	Andreas Vinciguerra	790	+12	96
46	Slava Dosedel	787	-1	64
47	Magnus Larsson	785	-5	95
48	Magnus Gustafsson	781	+6	60
49	Richey Reneberg	773	+2	196
50	Arnaud Di Pasquale	771	-3	48
51	Jeff Tarango	768	+13	58
52	Byron Black	767	+22	66
53	Arnaud Clement	767	-5	55
56	Wayne Ferreira	760	-6	53
57	Daniel Nestor	758	-8	86
66	Mariano Zabaleta	730	+1	28
73	Andrei Medvedev	712	+8	31
77	Goran Ivanisevic	703	-24	62

Rating Winners:
Byron Black	+60	(RU Moscow 99, 2R 98)
Jan-Michael Gambill	+41	(SF Stockholm 99)
Thomas Enqvist	+40	(W Stockholm 99, 1R 98)
Andreas Vinciguerra	+34	(QF Stockholm 99, 1R 98)
Jerome Golmard	+26	(2R ret Moscow 98)
Jeff Tarango	+25	(SF Moscow 99, 1R 98)

Rating Losers:
Goran Ivanisevic	-62	(RU Moscow 98, 2R ret 99)
Francisco Clavet	-35	(W Santiago 98, 1R Stockholm 99)
Younes El Aynaoui	-27	(RU Santiago 98, 1R Moscow 99)
Todd Martin	-20	(W Stockholm 98)

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

blurb version 3.0