FRIDAY REPORT

TEAMS

R3 winners Centre Court are still on top - how do they do it? Their lead has been closed slightly - not by TAT, who have dropped a place to 3rd, but by QF winners AM.com, up 1 to 2nd. The Murray 'B' team, JM.org, also did well on the back of Andy's win, moving up 3 to 5th, while MTF, down 3 to 8th, swapped places with them.

BT.net have finally climbed a place off the bottom, leaving the Feddies rooted to the bottom of the table and almost certain to stay there.

INDIVIDUALS

There is no doubt who the star of the day was - Gillyflower (GR), up 1 to 1st and taking a 3-point lead after being the only entrant to get all four semi-finalists correct! Like the RG winner, she has gained 1st place on the back of picking the surprise semi-finalist, but unlike him, she isn't sure of the title yet - she needs Rafa to win the tournament or a Rafa v Ivo Final to cement her win. Gilly is also 5th= out of 11471 in the ATP Bracket Challenge!

Thursday's leader Kirkus (TA), down 1 to 2nd, leads the chasing pack in what could be one of the most exciting final weekends in a pick 'em for a while. Unusually, there are still four people in 3= (all down 1 on Thursday) who can't be separated on tiebreak - overall world no. 1 Wendy (AM), world no. 15 WimbledonAce (CC), world no. 391 nicro6 (AM) and pick 'em newbie edward seator (BT), who admittedly has bigger fish to fry at the moment, since he is playing one (or, with luck, two) matches in qualifying for the Segovia Challenger today - good luck with that!

MOVERS

Although the new leader was the only entrant to get every semi-finalist correct, lots of people got 3/4. The fastest climbers among them were reigning US Open pick 'em Champion amalyn (MT), mattk77 (SG), conchita (TY) and Jennifer3164 (AR), all up 53 to 113=.

The biggest faller was the highest-placed entrant who got no semi-finalists correct, despite picking three of the quarter-finalists - andrewjshields (RF) plummeted 142 places to 160th. Six other entrants suffered three-figure drops as well.

OUTLOOK

All of the top 6 except Kirkus (who will be hoping Ivo can beat Andy) have a Rafa v Muzza Final. If that happens and Rafa wins, Gillyflower will take the title (and since she'll be the one who picked the last big surprise in the tournament if that happens, i.e. Ivo beating Fed and reaching the SFs, she'll deserve it!), but if that happens and Muzza manages to win, edward seator will take the title in his first pick 'em.

However, if Nole manages to beat Rafa in the semis, independents Flintstone, Ashley Harkleroad's Bitch (both CC defectors) and Edged are sitting just outside the top 10 ready to pounce and with significant numbers having picked Andy, Nole and Rafa to win, unless it's a Rafa v Ivo Final, this one is going to go right to the wire!

In the teams comp, current leaders Team CC will only hold onto their lead until the end if Ivo beats Rafa in the Final. If the Final is Nole v Ivo, TAT will win, while if Muzza reaches the Final and/or Rafa wins the title, AM.com will be walking off with the spoils of victory.

FINAL REPORT

TEAMS

Congratulations to AM.com on winning the teams competition and being the only team to average over 50%. Perhaps not surprisingly given the result, they were joined in the top two by SF and Final winners JM.org, up 1 to 2nd, who pushed TAT down into 3rd place at the last moment.

In fact, the Jamies had the higher average before the team size statistical adjustment came into play, but my impression from over the whole tournament is that the adjustment did give the right result here.

Long-time leaders and overall no. 1 team Centre Court finished 4th in the end, with T4Y also finishing in the top half - a very good performance by their standards.

At the other end of the table, the poor old Feddies finished last for the third pick 'em out of the last four - they must be getting pretty Feddie up by now.

INDIVIDUALS

When you're a pro in the top 600, it must take a fair bit of courage to put your picking skills on the line by entering with your own name, but boy did that pay off for GB no. 9 edward seator (BT), who not only won the individual comp at his first attempt but also became the first entrant ever to gain a single tournament ranking point score of more than 900!

Remember that the bonus point component of the pick 'em rankings rewards players based on how far above the average their final score is, so you are always going to be better rewarded for bolder picks (like neither Fed nor Rafa reaching the Final and none of the big three winning the tournament) when those picks actually come off.

Anyway, many congratulations, Edward - I'm sure we all hope that your success will tempt one or two other pros to try their hand!

In fact, Andy to win pickers filled all of the places in the top three, with dssl973/Ma$terpiec£ (AM), up 1 to 2nd, and sid (TY), up 6 to 3rd, grabbing the other two positions on the 'podium'. However, it was nice to see that under the new, more balanced scoring system we are using this year, the other star of this pick 'em, gillyflower (GR), the only entrant who picked Big Ivo to reach the semis, managed to finish as high as 4th (down 2 today) despite not getting the Champion right.

Roastlamb (AM), up 12 to 5th, completed the top five with a late run thanks to Andy's win, while three of the top five in the overall rankings before this tournament (Flintstone (IN), down 2 to 6th, Ashley Harkleroad's ***** (IN), down 2 to 7th, and Wendy (AM), down 3 to 9=), showed their amazing consistency even in this most tricky of tournaments by finishing in the Cincy top 10.

Dale123 (AM), up 14 to 8th, completed the top 8, while WimbledonAce (CC) and nicro6 (AM) joined Wendy in 9= to give us 11 entrants who can claim to have finished in the top 10!

MOVERS

15 of the 224 entrants picked Muzza to win (mainly AMs/JMs) and the two highest climbers on the final day were Swissgirl (IN), up 68 to 90th, and <oh my goodness!> Sallydaisy (JM), up 64 to 103rd, Andy's win taking them into the top half of the table at the last moment. Sally beat every single one of the Bots, who have apparently all clanked off in a huff to get their brains oiled! Maybe I'd better join them ...

The majority of us dropped a few places, of course, but nobody dropped more than 10.

GROUP COMPS

Many of you may think that Edward's win here just goes to show that the more active a player is, the better their prediction skills. In fact, he's the exception that proves the rule - would you believe that after 7 pick 'ems this year, Fans lead Actives by 7 wins to 0! (9-3 since we started last year)

In the age groups, the U18s snapped a streak of alternate wins by the young and not so young and lead 4-3 this year, though the O18s lead 7-5 since we started.

Finally, Males lead Females 5-2 this year (8-4 overall), but the Females have won two of this year's three slams.