UPDATE - entries now closing at 12.30 GMT on Sunday, i.e. 1.30 pm UK. You can enter via http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html

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MADRID AMS 'BATTLE OF THE BOARDS' PICK 'EM

The Madrid AMS Battle of the Boards pick 'em will be getting under way this weekend and the entry window may be VERY tight, as explained below.

IMPORTANT DATES

The main draw will not take place until late afternoon on Saturday, so realistically by the time they publish it online and I get it onto the entry form, the entry form without qualifiers placed will be available sometime on Saturday evening UK time, mid-afternoon US time.

The main draw starts on Sunday so entries may have to close when play is due to start, i.e. at 09.00 GMT = 10 am UK = 11 am CET = 5 am US EDT on SUNDAY, which seems to be when the ATP is closing entries for its Bracket Challenge.

However, the exact closing time will be confirmed when entries open, by which time I hope the Sunday OoP will be up and it will be clear whether the main draw matches are scheduled to start at 11 am Madrid time or, as I suspect, a bit later in the day.

I'm not at all surprised that nobody involved in organising the tournament has considered that the combination of an unusually late Saturday main draw and an early Sunday start of play in the main draw messes up prediction competitions like this ... except that given that the ATP are running a Bracket Challenge for this event too, you'd think someone would have raised an objection to the main draw being done so late!

Anyway, you may have just a few hours on Saturday night and early Sunday morning to enter, so if it is important to you not to miss this pick 'em, please be prepared!

Emails will be sent out at the relevant time to those who have asked for them.

IF YOU WILL NOT HAVE INTERNET ACCESS ON SATURDAY EVENING / SUNDAY MORNING

Since only one or two people have taken advantage of the totally 'blind' entry form at RG and Wimby, I am not going to offer this option for the AMS events, especially since missing an AMS pick 'em tends to be not nearly as critical to your overall ranking as not getting any score for a slam would be.

However, if you aren't going to have Internet access between mid-evening on Saturday and early morning on Sunday UK time and you really don't want to miss this pick 'em, you could always send your picks to a friend (in the form R1: player 1 to beat player 2, player 4 to beat player 3, etc; R2: player 1 to beat player 4, etc) and ask them to enter for you.

If you are going to do this though, please let me know at btpickem@hotmail.com to avoid any chance of it getting treated as a multiple entry by the same person and disallowed.