WIMBLEDON PICK 'EM - FACTSHEET

The Wimbledon pick 'em will get under way in just over a week's time, after which there will be a bit of a break until whichever of Cincy/Canada/the Olympics we decide to do a pick 'em for and then the USO, so Wimbledon is the last chance to enter one of these competitions for a couple of months.

Those of you who have entered before may notice a slight change to the entry form - the essential details (name or nickname, team, etc) are now entered at the top instead of after making your picks. In recent pick 'ems, a few people have made all their picks and then zoomed down and hit send without filling in any details and we are hoping this change will prevent this from happening so often.

IMPORTANT DATES

The approximate timetable for the Wimbledon pick 'em is:

Fri. 13 Jun 07.00 GMT (8 a.m. UK) - entries open for those who need to enter early with 'blind' picks - see the end of this post (*)

Fri. 20 Jun 09.00 GMT (10 a.m. UK) - main draw takes place

Fri. 20 Jun afternoon (UK) - main draw available on the entry form

Fri. 20 Jun evening (UK) - qualifiers placed if qualifying finishes on time

Sat. 21 Jun late afternoon (UK) - qualifiers placed if qualifying overruns due to rain

Mon. 23 Jun 09.00 GMT (10 a.m. UK) - entries close

Emails appropriate to the notification option selected by past entrants will be sent out at the relevant time to those who have asked for them, although if it becomes clear that qualifying is likely to finish on Friday, I will probably wait and email all those who have requested it on Friday evening once the qualifiers have been placed.

(*) ENTERING EARLY WITH 'BLIND' PICKS

If you are interested in your overall pick 'em ranking, it is fairly vital to take part in the slam pick 'ems, since you can count your ranking point score from each slam pick 'em up to two times, so the entry form is already available at http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html.

If you will be unable to enter after the main draw comes out, please feel free to fill in the entry form early to ensure that you get some ranking points from Wimbledon. If you do this, you will know where Fed & Rafa will be in the draw (assuming they both play) and which other slots will contain seeds, but otherwise you will be picking 'blind'.

So, please don't enter now unless you know that you will not have Internet access between Friday 20 afternoon and Monday 23 early morning. However, in that case picking virtually blind now might be better than nothing - at least you will have a pick 'em interest in some of the matches when you get back and a chance to score some ranking points - as far as your overall ranking is concerned, the worst your entry can do is become one of your non-counting scores, so there is nothing to lose by entering.

N.B. If you want to enter like this, please choose the team you would normally play for so that can be used for overall ranking purposes, but you will appear as an Independent on the Wimbledon tables and, for this event only, your score will not count towards a team.