My late end of R4 report pasted from AM.com ... I got a bit carried away!

A BIT OF FRENCH OPEN HISTORY

After the GB player H Briggs won the first French Open in 1891, French players kept a stranglehold on the title for 41 years, with three of the 'quatre mousquetaires' (Borotra, Cochet & Lacoste - the fourth member of their all-conquering DC team was Brugnon, a doubles specialist) keeping the streak going even after the event went fully international not long after the First World War.

In 1935, two years after Australia's John Crawford ended that streak, Fred Perry managed to win GB's 2nd French Open title, the only men's singles title ever won by a Brit at Roland Garros itself - this was a year before he won GB's last Wimbledon title and helped towards GB's last Davis Cup win.

The next French win would come in 1946 (Marcel Bernard) and they would then wait a long (if short by GB standards!) 37 years before Yannick Noah won the title for France again in 1983 - a quarter of a century later, he is still the last Frenchman to win it.

Coincidentally, the French have also had to wait 37 years since they last had five players in the last 16 of a slam (and impressively, they have managed it this time with their top two players not taking part!) - it last happened at RG in 1971 (thanks to the Independent for the snippet, which gradually led me to all the rest!) and two of them made it to the QFs, with Georges Goven winning the match between them to make it to the semis. Funnily enough, as this year, the last surviving Brit made it to R3 - in 1971, it was Gerald Battrick, another non-English Brit, who was one of the best tennis players ever to come from Wales.

What has this got to do with pick 'em? Well, everyone who, like me, didn't pick Pics to reach the semis (which generally means people who picked the Undertaker to get there) will be desperately hoping that the Frenchman who is left, Monfils, will make it to the semis this time too, else there are going to be some big fallers in the QF round!

TEAMS LEAGUE

The Ducklings, up 1 to 6th, were the highest-scoring team in R4 despite the last American (Ginepri) going out, but it is another predominantly American team, TAT, up 1 to 1st, whose consistency has taken them to the top of the league despite them not having won an individual round yet. They are closely followed by long-time leaders Centre Court, down 1 to 2nd, and the Dammitaires, up 1 to 3rd, with T4Y, down 1 to 4th, having dropped just slightly off the pace.

TEAM KO

No. 1 seeds Centre Court had the big consolation of edging out no. 4 seeds the Dammitaires (c.f. les 4 mousquetaires above, in case you;ve been wondering!) for a place in the team KO Final by just 0.10 points, the scores getting perilously close at the end, not because of Monfils' win (which neither team scored for) but because the French team went for Pics whereas some of the CC team just can't resist the (frankly unfathomable!) charms of Count (Radek) Duckula.

Conversely, new league leaders TAT, the no. 6 seeds, lost out to no. 10 seeds the Other Boards in the second semi, with the stevegtennis.com, rafaelnadal.com and tennis-warehouse.com components of the composite team all outpointing all of the bigger teams in this round - that's the luck of the KO draw for you!

Further down, it is fun to note that in the 13th-16th semis, the GB doubles team from the DC tie v NED last year, JM.org and Rusedski.co.uk managed to beat the Feddies and the Djokers respectively to leave them battling it out for last place in the KO!

INDIVIDUALS

Gonzo's win helped Linda (AM) to take the lead early in the day, but after Pics beat the Stepanator, hebegeebee (IN) restored the order of the top two to how it was at the start of the day. Borovnia (TN), down 6 to 9th, fell out of the top three, allowing those who had been below to shift up a bit, while jasonblueboy (IN), up 6 to 8th, and mikeindo (TN), up 6 to 10th, joined the top 10 on Monday.

MOVERS

Nobody got 4/4 correct on Monday, but a number of entrants got 3/4, including all but one of the new top 10. The biggest climber among them was claire xx (AR), up 62 to 152nd. For R4 as a whole, 10 entrants who are now in the top 30 got 6/8 correct, as did Gillyflowers (GR), up 55 to 102nd.

Apart from the player in last place, only one entrant did not score any points on Monday - T4Y may well be muttering about disowning the unfortunate PHILLYCHEESESTEAKS (TY) again, after he dropped 115 places to 200th. However, it was the entrants in the last two places and French bot Amélie who low-scored for R4 as a whole with just 1/8.

OUTLOOK

A quick look at the WP SLR column shows that all but three of the top 100 have either 3 or 4 semi-finalists still in, with this generally meaning the top three seeds with or without David 'Pics' Ferrer.

As mentioned above, this means that whether or not there is lots of movement in the table during the QFs will depend on whether or not Pics beats Monfils, with the majority who picked the Undertaker to make it the top four seeds in the semis hoping that the French end up with yet more to celebrate!

Of course, those who picked against the top three will suffer big falls unless they lose, while the matches where just one or two entrants have picked one of the players to win are overwhelmingly important to those people!

PICKS %s for the QFs

(1) Fed 95% v (24) Gonzo 1%
(5) Ferrer 38% v Monfils 1%
(3) Djokovic 90% v Gulbis (nobody)
(2) Nadal 95% v (19) Almagro (nobody)

One of the entrants who picked Gonzo to reach the semis is in 3rd to last place at the moment but the other, Klau222 (AR), currently in 130th, could halve the number of places they are behind the leader if the Chilean gains revenge for his 2007 AO Final drubbing.

Meanwhile, current individual leader hebegeebee (IN) could possibly sew up victory in the individual event if Monfils reaches the semis, even if his Champion pick Rafa goes out to Almagro! (N.B. not fully checked yet)

POST OF THE DAY

I can't see beyond this one today ...

The Hoose (BT): "I've got so bad at this I'm picking other teams to support... in fact, if anyone ever sets up a pickem pickem, where you can pick which pickem teams are going to win, I'd be interested in taking part"