The last BOTB of the year is now open for entries at http://www.britishtennis.net/competitions.html - the main draw starts before qualifying finishes, so we will all have to pick matches involving qualifiers without knowing who the Qs are -
entries close at 13.30 GMT / 14.30 CET / 8.30 am US EST on Sunday. Good luck!
POST-2009 SHANGHAI MASTERS PICK 'EM RANKINGSThe updated hall of fame and the new overall ranking list (with 765 ranked players, up 1) can now be found at
http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.htmlTEAMSRusedski.co.uk's fourth 2nd place finish in 8 team leagues this year has taken them back to the top of the overall team rankings for the sixth time ahead of
TAT, whose weak performance in Shanghai sees them drop to 2nd.
Despite finishing last in Shanghai,
the Feddies have held onto 3rd place - they have now won the last three slams and finished last in the last three Masters (I wonder why LOL), while
Team CC have held onto 4th.
BT.net, who finished 3rd in Shanghai,
BBC 606 and
Tennisopolis have all risen a place to 5th, 6th & 7th respectively despite the latter two not even managing to field a full team for Shanghai. This is because
AM.com failed to defend their Madrid winner points from last year and have plummeted 3 places to a 'career low' 8th, only just ahead of Shanghai winners
JM.org, who gained a net 50 points (they were 2nd in Madrid last year) but just missed out on moving up from 9th.
T4Y complete the top 10, with none of the places outside the top 8 changing.
NEW INDIVIDUAL TOP 10Neither of the top two had a great Shanghai but nobody else near the top did quite enough to catch them. In fact
kaseldop (GR) had a dreadful Shanghai and has not managed a counting score since Wimbledon, but his scores from earlier in the year have kept him in 1st place with no points to defend in Paris with team-mate
steven (GR) (who, conversely, has big point to defend in Paris) still in 2nd.
Finishing 21= in Shanghai has lifted
Dentist Appointment (IN) back into the top 10, up 8 to a career high WR 3, though he has big points to defend in Paris too.
Lizzim (AM) has dropped back 1 to 4th, though it has to be said that she did extremely well to finish 10= in Shanghai under the pressure of massive points to defend.
Jtdrum (TA) managed to stay in 5th with
mathiasR (RF) dropping 2 to 6th, ending up only just ahead of team-mate
Jose Javier/Buyaka86 (RF), whose 7th place finish in Shanghai moved him up 45 to 7th and made him the fastest riser in the top 40.
Miffy (AM) dropped 2 to 8th and
BORRO2 (RF) dropped 2 to 10th (though is managing to stay in the top 10 despite only having played slams this year!) - they are separated by
Scotsguy (CC), who has shot up 28 to 9th after his 3rd place finish in Shanghai, though he is the third member of the top 10 with points to defend in Paris.
OLD TOP 10Only three players dropped out of the top 10, with
jasonblueboy (IN), down 25 to 32nd dropping the most - he finished 6th in Shanghai last year.
T01 (CC) and
timmadigan (CC) only dropped 3 to 12th & 13th respectively, though this allowed
Dark_Necrofear (CC), up 18 to 11th to take over the CC no. 2 spot.
ON THE RISEThe fastest riser in the top 50 is
Portsey (BT), up 66 to 45th, though
T.x (CC), up 41 to 33rd, and
Oploskoffie (TA), up 44 to 43rd, also deserve honourable mentions, while the biggest climber into the top 100 is
Scratchy (BT), up 74 to 85th, which makes him the fastest riser in the whole of the top 200 too.
TimS (GR), up 78 to 206th, is the biggest riser in the top 250.
Only two players in the top 300 have risen more than 100 places -
Cloudy (AM), up 109 to 280th after finishing 4th in Shanghai, and Shanghai runner-up
Hen (MT), up 144 to 288th.
However, the biggest riser of all was of course Shanghai winner
banskogirl (AM), up 253 to 462nd, while two more of the Shanghai top 10 also rose more than 160 places -
Honking (IN), up 164 to 340th, and
Alien (CC), aka 'Dark's mum's friend,' up 180 to 344th.
The highest new entrant is
Jelena Jankovic fan (IN), in at WR 559.
LAST YEAR'S MADRID WINNERSThe big fallers are usually those who didn't play in the latest pick 'em and are running out of counting scores, so when looking at fallers it's probably more interesting to see how the top three in the event coming off from last year have fared, though in this case last year's top two match that first description too!
Last year's Shanghai winner
Sandy (AM) hasn't played this year and drops 239 to 651st with just 242 point from Paris 2008 left, while
John (BT) did not play Shanghai either and drops 172 to 469th.
Allan (AM), 3rd in Madrid last year, did play Shanghai but failed to get a counting score and drops 86 to 162nd.
GoGo (AM), 4th in Madrid last year, also suffered from the move to the Far East, finishing close to the bottom in Shanghai, but she has at least held onto a place in the top 100, down 64 to 87th, while the final member of the Madrid 2008 top 5,
Suliso (TA), falls 93 to 187th.
RANKING TWINSThe 'who is your ATP ranking twin' list will has been update too, with these BOTB rankings and the ATP rankings that were used to seed Paris.
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Boggo'll just have to win Jersey to cheer you up.
