THIS WEEK: It's about time the year-end reports came out. Despite Pete Sampras winning the Tour Championship, Andre Agassi finishes as the clear number one on the ATP and SRI Rankings charts. This is Agassi's second consecutive year-end #1 by the SRI Rankings computer.

Most Improved Player awards would have to go to Lleyton Hewitt, who is bound to enter the ATP top 10 next year, Magnus Norman, who quietly rolled into the top 15 on both computers, Nicolas Lapentti, who announced himself at the Australian Open and showed it was no fluke, and Karim Alami, who has been one of the best clay-court players in 1999.

This is the last time we can compare the SRI Rankings with the official ATP rankings, as they switch to a bizarre system in 2000. This makes the job of alternative rankers a lot harder, because we have no official reference, and because our responsibility is much greater: how will you go to the bookies without knowing how players are really ranked officially?

Ranking Software (incorporating SRI Rankings) plans to do some more research and data-gathering before January, to include qualifying results, futures, and satellites, and adjust slightly to take recent form into account. The results should be even more accurate and reliable than now.

SRI Rankings Top 50 Issue #M113 (Year-End Special). 20th Dec 1999
Rank	Name	Rating Points	Rank Change	End of 1998	ATP Rank
1	Andre Agassi	1303	0	1	1
2	Pete Sampras	1130	0	2	3
3	Richard Krajicek	1101	0	6	10
4	Lleyton Hewitt	1096	+2	63	25
5	Patrick Rafter	1088	-1	4	16
6	Jerome Golmard	1085	-1	37	35
7	Thomas Enqvist	1071	0	5	4
8	Gustavo Kuerten	1071	0	28	5
9	Karol Kucera	1069	+4	8	17
10	Nicolas Kiefer	1047	0	34	6
11	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	1043	+1	13	2
12	Todd Martin	1037	-1	11	7
13	Greg Rusedski	1028	-4	7	14
14	Magnus Norman	1022	0	88	15
15	Tim Henman	1004	0	12	12
16	Mark Philippoussis	994	0	18	19
17	Marcelo Rios	989	+1	3	9
18	Tommy Haas	983	-1	25	11
19	Albert Costa	963	+2	15	18
20	Nicolas Lapentti	948	-1	109	8
21	Felix Mantilla	937	+1	20	22
22	Vince Spadea	928	+1	62	20
23	Alex Corretja	916	-3	9	26
24	Cedric Pioline	903	0	26	13
25	Dominik Hrbaty	897	+1	46	21
26	Sebastien Grosjean	894	+2	81	27
27	Karim Alami	888	+6	122	31
28	Carlos Moya	885	-3	10	23
29	Fernando Meligeni	879	0	65	29
30	Younes El Aynaoui	871	-3	23	33
31	Jiri Novak	871	-1	61	40
32	Francisco Clavet	853	0	33	38
33	Chris Woodruff	852	-2	NQ	51
34	Jan-Michael Gambill	845	+1	45	58
35	Jason Stoltenberg	842	-1	22	80
36	Michael Chang	832	+1	16	50
37	Jim Courier	827	+1	55	32
38	Juan Carlos Ferrero	825	+2	NQ	42
39	Sjeng Schalken	825	+4	77	44
40	Fabrice Santoro	825	-4	60	34
41	Marat Safin	823	-2	36	24
42	Nicolas Escude	819	-1	70	37
43	Andrei Pavel	809	-1	103	41
44	Sargis Sargsian	808	0	105	59
45	Magnus Larsson	795	+2	31	95
46	Daniel Nestor	793	+11	85	86
47	Magnus Gustafsson	790	+1	19	60
48	Slava Dosedel	789	-2	42	63
49	Andreas Vinciguerra	784	-4	NQ	98
50	Richey Reneberg	781	-1	135	202
52	Arnaud Di Pasquale	777	-2	73	47
65	Franco Squillari	741	+14	80	52
67	Mariano Zabaleta	739	-1	49	28
79	Goran Ivanisevic	712	-2	21	62
81	Thomas Johansson	698	+2	17	39
99	Bob Bryan	654	+25	(294)	175

Rating Winners:
Andre Agassi	+52	(RU Hannover 99, 1R ret 99)
Karim Alami	+50	(SF Porto Alegre GCE 99)
Karol Kucera	+46	(0-3 Hannover 98)
Pete Sampras	+34	(W Hannover 99, RU 98)
Albert Costa	+34	(0-2 Hannover 98)

Rating Losers:
Alex Corretja	-37	(W Hannover 98)
Greg Rusedski	-13	(2-0 Hannover 98)
Younes El Aynaoui	-13	(W Caracas Chal. 99)
Nicolas Lapentti	-12	(0-3 Hannover 99)

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

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