PARIS AMS 'BATTLE OF THE BOARDS' PICK 'EM

The main draw for Paris AMS took place earlier this evening and the entry form for the Paris AMS pick 'em is now available via http://www.britishtennis.net/competitions.html

DEADLINE

The main draw starts on Sunday afternoon. Taking into account this and the fact that the clocks go back on Sunday morning in Europe but NOT in North America, entries will close at 13.30 GMT = 1.30 pm UK = 14.30 CET = 9.30 am US EDT on SUNDAY.

MATCHES INVOLVING QUALIFIERS

As for Madrid, qualifying does not finish until after the main draw starts, so everyone will have to pick matches involving qualifiers without knowing who each qualifier is - which means most of the top quarter in R1, since 5 of the 6 qualifiers will end up there!

All you can do for these matches is decide whether you would expect the other player in the match to beat a random qualifier, though there is also a Q v Q match in R1 this time, so I hope you're feeling lucky.

PARIS AMS - ALWAYS A BIT OF A LOTTERY TO PREDICT
and this year probably won't be an exception!

You may be interested to know that after pulling out of St Petersburg with a wrist injury, Kolya Davydenko said: "I'm flying to Germany tomorrow to have a few days' rest. I'll try to play in Paris if I can," he said. "I'd like to start my first match there on Wednesday at the earliest but if they say I have to play on Tuesday, then I would have to withdraw."

As if he could tell back then whether Tuesday or Wednesday would make difference, eh? Add to that the fact that he has already qualified for TMC and you'll have to decide for yourselves how much credence to put in that. What's the betting he either pulls out in R1 or wins the tournament (it'll be whichever option we haven't chosen, naturally!)

Of course, the top four have already qualified for TMC as well and one or two of them might be wanting to conserve energy for it, so expect your picks to mess you around at every opportunity and you won't get too disappointed.

RACE FOR YEAR-END NO. 1

There could be quite a battle for year-end pick 'em no. 1 here if those in contention do a bit (ok, a lot!) better than they did in Madrid!

ATP BC

If you enter the ATP Bracket Challenge as well, please note that entries for that close an hour earlier - they seem to think the clocks in North America change this Sunday too, but I'm sure they don't change there until the weekend after!

GOOD LUCK! (you'll probably need it ...)