[Brian Swartz]

I've been lazy with updating this, but another game year is almost over so it's time to catch up on what's been happening.

Country Rankings

1. Spain - 2528
2. Austria - 2357
3. Argentina - 2201
4. France - 2185
5. United States - 2153
6. Great Britain - 2119
7. Chile - 2105
8. Sri Lanka - 2041
9. Greece - 1956
10. Russia - 1939

A nice move up from 14th last year and a 261-point gain; we made the semifinals where we lost 3-2 to Spain. A 5-set doubles match could have swung it our way. Austria beat Spain 4-1 in the final, so they are the new standard and gradually closing in on the overall rankings. We've definitely arrived among the elite though, and I'd expect to continue moving up gradually.

We're in Group 3 next year, where we'll be dealing with Argentina (3rd), Great Britain (6th), and Poland (14th). By ranking it's a tough group, in reality not so much. We should win the group comfortably. Argentina is the best but their top player is Alexander Darbello (37th) and they won only one group match last year. Great Britain was in the relegation playoffs after going winless in our group, and Poland is in between the two in terms of their current players.

We're at the point now where we pretty much expect to cruise through the group play, and the knockout rounds are where it will get interesting. One change is that Raychaudhari will no longer be playing doubles; Chandrasekharan has a higher ranking due to some late-season results and will team with Srivastava. Makes sense for our top player to focus soley on singles at this point anyway.