Time to climb (up?) the ladder!

After a fair delay, the Euro tennis ladder is underway this year. It's a semi-formal tennis tournament that's conducted by the European club every summer here at MIT, and includes players from outside of MIT as well - some of whom are students/postdocs in universities in Boston and others are employed in companies around the area.

I have totally enjoyed playing in this ladder in the past - I just LOVE playing tennis!

This year, thanks to my good showing last summer, I got a start-up ranking in the top ten. Ok, I am not being entirely truthful there. There are fewer players (around 30) signed up as of now, and that has artificially inflated my ranking a little. But more people are going to join in for sure.

The ladder works through a challenge system. You can challenge players that are upto 8 spots above you. You have nothing to lose in such a challenge. If you challenge and win, you swap spots with the higher-ranked player. If you win upon being challenged by someone below you, then you go up one ranking (at the expense of a player above you, who gets penalized for not playing a match in the meanwhile).

The rankings are updated every week, and this goes on for nearly 4 months. There is a way to "freeze" your ranking if you are not going to be in town for a particular period of time.

I have realized that the best strategy is to use this rule to good effect. So, you keep going up the ladder until you challenge the best player that you can possibly match and defeat ..
and then..

simply go out of town and freeze your ranking.

Just kidding of course.

I played my first match on the ladder last weekend, and lost a very close match. :-(
The good part is, I am still on the top ten, and I can challenge even the #1 guy.

And guess what -
that's exactly what I'm doing next.

I'm hoping not to get thrashed.