2019 International Rankings - Men's Freestyle

Erdenebat #1 At 57kg

By Seth Petarra (@SethPetar)

#11 Aryan Tyutrin (RUS) won the Korkin and Miner’s Glory tournament. #12 Azamat Tuskaev (RUS) won the Stepan Sargsyan cup over Garik Barseghyan (ARM). Russian nationals bronze medalist Muslim Sadulaev (RUS) beat 2014 world bronze medalist Vladislav Andreev (BLR) to win the Medved and debut in the rankings at #18. At the same tournament, #3 Giorgi Edisherashvili (AZE) took a head-scratching loss to UR Mihail Ivanov (RUS) and for this, he drops two spots in the rankings to #5. 

Because of Edisherashvili’s loss, Asian Champion and Asian Games runner-up Kumsong Kang (PRK) was able to climb up five spots in the rankings to #4. This is due to his impressive 9-5 win over returning world champ #2 Yuki Takahashi (JPN) at the Asian Games on his way to a runner-up finish to #1 Bekhbayar Erdenebat (MGL). On the bottom half of the top 10, I decided to rearrange the Atri/Gilman/Andreu Ortega trio to where Gilman is #6, Atri at #7, and Andreu Ortega at #8, because Gilman has the most complete body of work of all of them (2017 world silver, 2018 Yasar Dogu champ along with a H2H win over Atri at world’s and then beating #17 Andrey Yatsenko (UKR) who teched Atri in repechage) plus he doesn’t have those same developmental losses of a guy like Ortega (Pin loss to Joey Dance at the Cerro Pelado in February).  

#13 Makhir Amiraslanov (AZE) has been removed from the rankings due to inactivity as he’s been out for a full year (his last tournament was a bronze medal finish in October 2017 at the Viktor Semenov tournament). Former #17 Daton Fix (USA) has been dropped from the rankings due to a 5-4 loss in the Junior world semifinals match to Naveen Naveen (IND). When you look at Fix’s resume, it’s got great wins in #16 Afghan Khasalov (AZE), #17 Andrey Yatsenko (UKR), and Tony Ramos (USA) but the win over Khasalov was before Khasalov really started to cement himself as a top senior level guy in December 2017 when he beat #5 Giorgi Edisherashvili (AZE) at Azerbaijan Nationals. 

The same can be said for the Yatsenko who, while notching a win over Makhir Amiraslanov at Euros that year, hadn’t quite rounded out into the form he showed in his bronze medal-winning performance at Paris last year, and a win over Yatsenko then is worth ranking, but 2016 Yatsenko not as much. Junior world champ Akhmed Idrisov (RUS) enters the rankings at #20 after winning a junior world title with a 12-1 in the finals over Naveen Naveen (IND) who beat former #17 Daton Fix (USA) 5-4 in the semis.