2008 US Open 'Battle of the Boards' Pick 'em Contest

Portsey · Intermediate Club Player

RE: 2008 US Open 'Battle of the Boards' Pick 'em Contest

steven · Tennis legend

Here's today's 'syndicated' report:

There was still some severe muppetry going on during day 3 (Jesse Levine's immediate handing back of countless mini-breaks against erstwhile slam muppet Guccione will live long in the memory unfortunately) but there didn't seem to be many more shocks and all 456 entrants ended R1 with more than 55% and well out of the clutches of the gorillas.

Detailed results: http://www.britishtennis.net/competitions.html

TEAMS LEAGUE

BT.net extended their lead at the top of the teams league to more than half a point in adjusted average terms, with TAT, up 1 to 2nd, and the Dammitaires, up 3 to 3rd, completing the top three - the latter got the highest raw score of any team in the round. MTF, up 1 to 4th, and T4Y, down 3 to 5th, are both challenging hard for top three places too.

Further down the table, world no. 1 team CC are up 2 to 7th, i.e. still only halfway, with JM.org, down 4 to 8th, having dropped behind them and the first team with over 100 entrants, Tennisopolis, still rooted to the bottom. 14 of the bottom 21 players are part of the Tennisopolis team, which goes a long way towards explaining wy they are trailing so badly.

TEAM KO - R1 DRAW

Seedings are based on adjusted USO R1 scores, but since each individual match only involves two teams, Team KO R1 scores will be based on unadjusted average USO R2 scores:

(1) BritishTennis.net
(16) Tennisopolis.com

(9) RafaelNadalFans
(8) JamieMurray.org

(5) Tennis4you.com
(12) Rusedski.co.uk

(13) Assorted Individuals
(4) MensTennisForums

(3) RichardGasquet.net
(14) RogerFederer.com

(11) BBC 606 boards
(6) AndyMurray.com

(7) Centre Court Forum
(10) Other Boards

(15) AndyRoddick.com
(2) TalkAboutTennis

INDIVIDUALS

Pick 'em debutant Fiercehart (TA), one of Tuesday's three joint leaders, managed to stay on top, scoring 53/64 points in R1. This compares with 52-54 points for the R1 winners in slam pick 'ems in the last 12 months. Tuesday's other joint leaders have slipped back, Mark (TN) is down 15 to 16= and Portsey (TB) is down 32 to 33=.

Four entrants are within a point of the lead - randall six (IN), LINK3 (AM) and nicki (AM) all scored 14/16 on Wednesday to move up from 4= to 2=, while Big Al (CC), up 10 to 2=, equal top scored on Wednesday with 15/16.

RISERS

No less than ten other players also managed 15/16 on Wednesday - goldfish (BT), petalp (CC) & Jean-Marc (BT) all moved up 35 to 6=; Nadia (MT) & Malteaser (BT) both rose 59 to 16=; Coldvodka (TN) moved up 106 to 33rd; defending US Open pick 'em Champion amalyn (MT) shot up 140 to 64=, as did Mariela (AR); Bruce (GR) soared 165 to 175=, while Boy Wonder (AR) rose 89 to 346=.

FALLERS

The lowest scorer on Wednesday was mandeeloub (TN), down 59 to 444= after scoring 8/16, but the biggest fallers were two of the players who scored 9/16 - rayko (TN), down 218 to 293=, and Shabba (IN), down 207 to 346=.

OUTLOOK

The average number of R2 winner picks surviving R1 per entrant is 26, but ptmcmahon (TA), up 11 to 64= on Wednesday, can potentially score in 30 of the 32 R2 matches! At the other end of the scale, marta (TN), down 9 to 444= on Wednesday, only has 20 of her 32 R2 winner picks playing in R2 in the first place.

Intriguingly (and giving hope even to those of us currently languishing near the bottom of the top 300!), last year's USO pick 'em winner amalyn (MT) was 10 points off the pace at the end of R1 last year, but recovered to win the title! Lest you think that's only because wins in the later rounds used to be weighted higher in the total than they are now (which is partly true), amalyn would still have finished 2nd after being 10 points off the pace even with the new scoring system in place! One of the R1 winners last year only just hung onto a place in the top half at the end too!

The Hoose · Satellite level

Top seeds! I must say I fancy our chances against the one hundred hairy gorillas.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

oh baby, look who's 33rd

and who is 116.

dancy man time

steven · Tennis legend

The Hoose wrote:

Top seeds! I must say I fancy our chances against the one hundred hairy gorillas.

That's a bit harsh on Tennisopolis, they're not quite as bad as the gorillas! biggrin

I fancy your chances too though!

Silver · County player

Is it wrong that I'm gutted I've dropped from 75th to 116th? Gutted people. I was quite happy yesters, now it's... just... not quite as good. DAMN YOU TENNIS PLAYERS!

steven · Tennis legend

Fish against Chokieu, I thought to myself when I saw the top half of R2 shaping up - well that's easy, go for Fish, he's bound to beat the vice-captain of the GEMs.

And then, as so often helped to produce my good results in the past but has so often helped to produce my bad results recently, I thought I'd just check it out with a bit of a research, since it was obviously going to be one of the crunch matches in pick 'em terms.

So what do you do when you find out that:

- Chokieu has reached R3 at the USO before (admittedly only one) while Fish has never got past R2 at the USO in numerous attempts
- Chokieu leads Fish 2-0 in the H2H, both on hard (one of them on US outdoor hard) and as recently as last year
- Chokieu is higher-ranked as well

Unfortunately I went for research over (Fish) gut feel and changed my tick to the garlic-eating malingerer thereby undoing virtually all of the good work my other picks have done today.

To add insult to injury, another garlic-eating malingerer, Monfils, is going to undo the rest of my limited gains today when he does something very un-GEMlike and actually wins. Sod it! (that's who I had to win that match)

It's enough to make you want to smell the onions and weep furious

Detailed results are getting continually updated at the competitions link in my sig.

john · Top national player

Wow, I'm up to 80th!

wolf · Tennis legend

When you drop 107 places to 223 it makes you feel better when you see a top 600 touring pro suffered the exact same fate!

If Sam the man wins it should make up for it though, I am sure a lot of mugs picked the Berd-brain to win.

steven · Tennis legend

Come on Devilder - surely one GEM result has to go the right way for me to day? (hmmm surely not ...)

eblunt · Club Coach

steven wrote:

Come on Devilder - surely one GEM result has to go the right way for me to day? (hmmm surely not ...)

Pick GEMs at your peril.

I'd like to propose an improvement to future pickem entry forms:

Have a 'No GEMs' option that prefills defeats for all the GEMs. You might lose a point or two, but that's a small price to pay to save all that heartache of relying on them to win when required.

steven · Tennis legend

That'll turn out to be the slam where the semi-finals are Dammit v Chokieu and Monfils v Tsonga ...

The real problem with the GEMs is not only that you can't trust them to win when you want them to, you can't trust them to lose when you want them to either.

christian · Intermediate Club Player

Loving this it's far too addictive, first pickem and currently in 2nd!! As someone mentioned previously though it can only go one way from here, well almost.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

well i dropped a bit there, but i notice every since one of my rd 4 picks is not in pink (yet) so i guess that means i could come good later right?

RobC · All-time great

You pop out for a few minutes and suddenly there's a new word infecting the board.

Would someone please explain what GEM stands for?