100% Top 100

ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ!

If you look at that string of crazy ALLEZs and assume that I am a little bit happy about something, then you would be right. My new best friend Nicolas Mahut has gone and won himself a Challenger title in Courmayeur in stunning style, and I am a little bit pleased about that. Just a little. Not a lot.

ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ!

Okay, so quite pleased.

This win will put him squarely back inside the top hundred - if my calculations are correct, he will jump nearly 30 places and land at about #90. How about that?! He said at the Hopman Cup earlier this year that his goal for this year was to get back inside the top hundred. In the past month, he's jumped about 50 spots to achieve this goal. That is 100% pure awesome.

The real battle, of course, will be staying in the top hundred. Breaking in is one thing, staying in is another. Amir Weintraub could probably write a lot more eloquently about the vagaries of ranking. However, just getting in at all is hard enough - Mahut's been out of it for about two years, what with injury and whatnot. And the fact that he's jumped back in at around #90 (as opposed to #99 or something) gives him a little cushion.

There is no rest for those hungry for ranking points, of course. Mahut's been given a wildcard (it feels oddly satisfying to say those words) to this week's Challenger in Quimper, where he will be the top seed. If he can pull a good result here, he can go even higher in the rankings. And according to a French article I read (or tried to read, given as I don't speak French) it seems likely that he'll be given a wildcard to the ATP tournament in Marseille.

Honestly, all these people jumping late onto the #wildcardformahut bandwagon... I thought of that WEEKS ago. It's raining wildcards!

Also playing in Quimper this week is Amir 'Awesome Writer' Weintraub, and I'm going to try and catch one of his matches if I can. I want to see if his game is mightier than his pen. (Also, Nicolas Mahut should seriously consider giving a column a try. I think he'd have lots of amusing things to say. He seems like that kind of guy.)

The fact that I'm already talking about Quimper shows (yet again) how the satellite tour never sleeps. You win one tournament and already you have to think about the next one. There is no sleep, no rest... just an all consuming quest for rankings points. It's brutal. It is 100% hard to the core.

But for now, let's just say ALLEZ! Nicolas Mahut has gone and won himself a Challenger. And I, for one, think that is pretty awesome indeed.