And of course, thanks to the organisers for the fun filled week we all had (although I wasted at least 20 hours gazing at the scoreboard for outcomes of matches that I normally don't care about).

Congrats on your last-gasp leap into the top 5, Greenleaf.

Here's the new rankings report from the AM.com overall rankings thread, since quite a few of you feature in it:

The new overall rankings for both teams (2008 comps only) and individuals (12-month rolling rankings) can be found at http://www.britishtennis.net/pickem/ranking.htm?n=1.

TEAMS

In the new team rankings, which set the seedings for the team KO competition at RG, Rusedski.co.uk retain the lead, after finishing 5th in Rome, but Centre Court have closed the gap at the top after finishing a place ahead of them there, while Rome runners-up BritishTennis.net have dislodged MTF from 3rd place, with AndyMurray.com completing the top five.

Rome winners RichardGasquet.net have gained 2 places to 6th and Rome 'bronze medallists' AndyRoddick.com are up 2 to 7th, while Tennis4you have dropped 1 to 8th after a relatively weak Rome pick 'em and RogerFederer.com are down 3 to 9th after finishing last at the Foro Italico.

INDIVIDUALS - TOP 10

She may have just missed out on a top three finish in Rome thanks to her son, but congratulations to Wendy (AM), who is the new world no. 1 - the first person ever to manage it based on sheer consistency (particularly in the slams) without a top three finish in any single event. Her 4th place in Rome is her highest finish so far, but she has also finished 5th in two slams and in the top 15 in a third, and together they are the reason why she is at the top.

ASE (AM) did enough to avoid dropping more than one place in the end, his top 30 finish in Rome slotting in as his 7th best score, while goldfish (BT) also drops 1, to 3rd, after only just scraping into the top 50 in Rome.

4th-8th stay the same, none of them managing to get scores from Rome that count in their top 7,. They were lucky that apart from Wendy, only one of the Rome top 10 had been in the top 100 before the latest pick 'em, and she was 98th!

Only steven (GR) (er, that would be me ), down 3 to 12, drops out of the top 10, though given that I was defending winner points from Rome last year and only just managed a top half finish this year, I'm lucky I didn't fall any further! cazza99 (AM), up 1 to 10, has regained her place in the top 10 thanks to this.

ON THE WAY UP

The fastest riser in the top 20 is cdagger (AM), up 5 to 14th after a top 20 finish in Rome.

Two of the three fastest risers in the top 100 come from the Centre Court team - WimbledonAce (CC) is up 40 to 85th and Flintstone (CC) up 36 to 62nd after they finished 7th & 8th in Rome respectively. francky (RG) is also up 36 (to 74th) after finishing 9th in Rome and leading RG.net to the team title there.

The four fastest risers of all, though, all finished in the top six in Rome - runner-up Lainey (TN), up 208 to 233rd, winner BalaK (AM), up 189 to 153rd, 3rd placed DR4Life (AM), up 139 to 141st, and 6th placed Ashley Harkleroad's ***** (CC) (that's AM.com censorship for you! ), up 139 to 151st.

The highest new entrant (out of the 10 entrants making their pick 'em début in Rome), was Greenleaf (BT), in at 261st after finishing 5th in Rome.

ON THE WAY DOWN

Only three players managed to drop 50 or more places, as their performances in Rome this year dropped drastically short of what they managed in 2007 - they are RedCabbage (BT), down 83 to 203rd, imoen (BT), down 50 to 220th, and murraymagic (AM), down 65 to 442nd.

OUTLOOK

With it being possible to count scores from RG twice, the next set of rankings could see some big changes. Those in the top 15 who are most at risk are defending RG champion sheddie (BT), currently 5th in the world, with 2 x 670 points to defend, 2007 RG runner-up goldfish (BT), currently 3rd, with 2 x 620, and 2007 RG 'bronze medallist' Kayce (AM), currently 13th, with 2 x 599. World no. 1 Wendy (AM) is defending 5th place points too.

RG 2007 was also the last pick 'em that was purely a AM.com v BT.net competition, so players from many of the teams that started with the Wimby pick 'em will have a full year's worth of results for the first time once RG has finished, so some of them are likely to start breaking the AM/BT(/GR) monopoly of the top 10 at last. Reigning US Open Champion amalyn (MT) may have missed out on doing this in Rome, but she is still the best placed to lead the charge into the top 10.

Players from even newer teams like Centre Court still have some way to go before they challenge for a top 10 place, but they keep providing the fastest risers into and through the top 100, so I doubt it'll be long before some of them are challenging for the very top too.

Look it up yourself, you lazy wotsit. LOL

The top 20 ranking point scores from pick 'ems so far in 2008 only makes quite interesting reading if you compare it with the actual rankings:

2956 Richard Morris (ASE) AM
2922 Wendy AM
2642 Kayce AM
2642 andys_ipod AM
2581 amalyn MT
2527 Flintstone CC
2396 Dusty Dick BT
2335 Miffy AM
2332 Steven GR
2316 francky RG
2262 linda (AM) AM
2175 DJ CC
2165 cazza99 AM
2163 kaseldop GR
2150 goldfish BT
2114 David Cox (sheddie) BT
2107 fah51 CC
2102 WimbledonAce CC
2099 Strokel RF
2089 david IN

Congrats Greenleaf on an excellent competition and thanks again to Steven and helpers for making the tournaments so much more interesting. Poor from me this time but my inconsistency is at least proving consistent! Panic is now setting in for RG as you've pointed out my vulnerability. Good Luck to one and all for that one - we need to keep those new teams at bay.

Done