DAY 2 REPORT

Day 2 left well over half of the 199 entrants on 2/2 but day 2 would see both individual and team flying up and down the table as (Q) Monaco (picked by 9%) went through thanks to Safin self-destructing, Muppetman Kiefer (just 20% despite the H2H) made it four in a row against Ivo (a rare plus for the 'researchers' there!) and (Q) Bolelli (10%) upset Nieminen. In the closest pick of the day though, the ever reliable Igor, picked by 100 entrants, saw off the ever-unreliable deputy head GEM PH Chokieu, picked by 99 of us - those who realised he had a 2-0 H2H against Andreev off clay and those innocents who have never been done over by the French players in a pick 'em before.

Finally, another GEM bit the dust as Llodra joined Dammit in the sick bay to be replaced by Canas in what turns out to be a LL v LL match - however because it has come up after the deadline, picks will stand (i.e. a Canas win will score points for Llodra pickers) it won't be treated like the Q v Q match where nobody had any info to go on before the deadline. Everyone has the LL v LL winner losing to Rafa in R2 anyway.

For detailed results, see http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html?n=1

TEAMS

For quite a while during the day, the top three in the overall rankings filled the top three places in the Paris table too, with CC 1st, GR 2nd and AM 3rd, followed by RF in 4th, but that was all to change over the course of the last four matches.

Safin's meltdown didn't change the top three but dropped RF.com from 4th to 7th. However, Baby Goran's win would see them bounce back up into 3rd and Andreev's win allowed them to grab the top spot which they held onto, up 3 on the day, ahead of T4Y, up 5 to 2nd and JM.org, up 2 to 3rd.

Rusedski.co.uk held onto 2nd place until PHM's choke dropped them to 4th, where they remained to finish down 1 on the day ahead of the second fastest riser MTF, up 4 to 5th. Meanwhile, world no. 1s Team CC dropped a place 'thanks' to PHM, but Tipsy's loss to Floppy really hurt them - that result alone dropped them 4 places to 6th, right back where they had started the day before leading for so long. However, it was Madrid winners and new world no. 2s AM.com who really went into freefall over those last three matches though, dropping from 3rd to 5th when Ancic won, then to 7th when Andreev won and finally to 9th when Floppy won, leaving them down 8 on the day!

World no. 5 team TAT stood alone in proving that there is no need to do all this yo-yoing around all day ... they stayed firmly rooted to the bottom!

A BRIEF MOMENT OF GLORY

The number of entrants on 100% dwindled through the first five matches of the day until Akhenaten (BT) ended up being the only entrant on 7/7. Just 1 point from the remaining 4 matches put the kybosh on his dreams of finishing the day in the lead though, leaving him in 5=. As he admits, unless the French players (or their late replacements) come good en masse in this tournament (in which case he'll be able to catch a ride back up the table on the proverbial flying pig! he's soon going to be desperately fumbling for the rip cord on his parachute to try to keep his feet above the top of the gorillas' cage.

WHEN THE DUST HAD CLEARED ...

Just two entrants managed to end the day where well over 100 started, in 1=. JM1138 (BT) got every pick correct except Bolelli v Nieminen, while one of just five entrants making their pick 'em debut, alex_k (MT), foresaw every result except Seppi's loss to Cilic. In fact, only two entrants are within a point of them, world no. 1 Ashley Harkleroad's ***** (IN) and liam_valid (CC) sharing 3rd place on 9/11. 40 entrants are bunched a point behind them, but well over 100 of us are, literally, at 6s and 7s in the middle of the table.

A shocking 46 entrants, headed by world no. 8 Linda (AM), are currently in the gorillas' cage on 5 or less, and Billy the bookie bot isn't doing much better, but the big hairy average monkeys like the look of birdboy (AM) - he is in glorious outright last place on 3/11, and they're banking on him keeping them company for quite a while!

ON THE RISE

My cunning (ok, non-existent!) plan of losing a match on day 1 so as to be the biggest riser on day 2 floundered on the rocks of my PH Chokieu pick, but with 7/9 on day 2, Björki (MT), ForeverDelayed (BT), kickserve (TY) and Scotty (TA) all managed to shot up 136 places to 5=.

ON THE SLIDE

A lot of people scored 3 or 4/9 on Monday and slipped over 100 places from 1= to 103= or 154=, but none of them could match doublelix (AR), who dropped 189 to 190= with a score of just 2/9 on the first full day of play. Respect!

OUTLOOK

The remaining five R1 matches will be played on Tuesday, followed by the first four R2 matches, which should start to spread out the scores a bit.

DAY 3 (TUESDAY) REPORT

With only one of Tuesday's 10 matches (5 in R1 and 5 in R2) going against the majority pick (and even that was because the majority pick was Llodra, whose GEM-like late w/d before playing in the doubles later saw Canas coming in to replace him), the average score for the day was just over 12/15 and no less than 11 entrants scored maximum points! Cue a day full of shocks on Wednesday to even things up, I fear!

See http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html for detailed results. A quick report follows:

TEAMS

Once again, there was plenty of changing around during the day, with the overall top 5 filling 6th-10th places in Paris at one point, but when the dust had settled, T4Y were back up 1 in 1st (having won R1), with MTF rising late in the day to end up 3 in 2nd, the Feddies dropping 2 to 3rd and JM.org down 1 to 4th but still just ahead of the Murray 'A' team.

Two of the top 5 teams overall were the fastest risers of the day - AM.com rising 5 to 5th and TAT climbing off the bottom convincingly to end the day up 5 to 6th. The Dammitaires also rose, up 1 to 7th, and are the early R2 leaders, as did BT.net, up 1 to 9th, but overall no. 3 team Rusedski.co.uk's 4 place drop to 8th was exceeded only by overall no. 1s Team CC, who dropped 5 to last, just behind the Ducklings, who went down 3 to 10th.

INDIVIDUALS - TOP 10

Pick 'em debutant alex_k (MT) from Poland has put in a stunning performance so far, scoring 15/16 in R1 (2 more than anyone else!) and getting all five R2 matches so far correct as well! Five of the other ten entrants who scored maximum points on Tuesday moved up 1 to 2= (Dentist Appointment (IN), Roland Garros winner hebegeebee (IN), Peter (GR), kickserve (TY) & Alia Hamieh (RF)), while with 1 point less than them on Tuesday but 1 more before Tuesday, Wimbledon winner and World no. 1 Ashley Harkleroad's ***** (IN) moved up 1 to join them, while Monday's joint leader JM1138 (BT) only dropped 1 place to join them too, despite getting two picks wrong on Tuesday.

Wimbledon 3rd place finisher and world no. 2 Flintstone (IN), up 36 to 9= after she got 15/15 on Tuesday too, plus world no. 6 & Aus Open winner ASE (AM) & world no. 7 WimbledonAce (CC), both down 4 to 9=, head a chasing pack of 17 players on 22 points who complete the top 25 plus majority bot Average Joe and ATP Race bot Racy - two more of Tuesday's 100%-ers, Sound (AM) & Fiercehart (TA), both up 36 to 9=, are also in this group.

If it were the Tour de France, they might show the current situation as:

Tête de la Course - alex_k
à 2 p - Groupe AHB (WR 1)
à 3 p - Groupe Flintstone (WR 2) / ASE / WAce
à 4 p - Groupe Wendy (WR 3) - see below
à 5 p - Peloton

HIGH LOBBERS

The fastest risers on Tuesday were the two remaining entrants who had a perfect 15/15 day - world no. 3 Wendy (AM) & world no. 13 goldfish (BT), both up 75 to 28=.

DODGY DROPPERS

With just 2/5 R2 winners correct so far, though still 8/15 points (i.e. more than 50%) for the day as a whole, the entrant most in need of a working parachute on Tuesday was wolf (BT), down 157 to 162nd. However, the lowest scorer of the day was the only entrant who picked Nole to lose, rondun (JM) dropping 149 to 194= after scoring just 6/15 on Tuesday.

Doublelix (AR), down 9 to 199th, is now rooted to the foot of the table, a point adrift of ian carlisle (BT) and WallaceEMann (GR), both down 43 to 197=, who join her in the gorillas' cage, but Monday's lanterne rouge birdboy (AM), up 16 to 183rd, climbed out of danger after getting an impressive 5/5 in Tuesday's R2 matches.

OUTLOOK

Nearly half of the entrants still had all 16 R2 winners alive after the R1 losers were removed (though the current leader is not one of them, having picked his only R1 loser Seppi to get through R2 as well!) while everyone else had at least 13 survivors (before the early R2 results were taken into account) except for two of the Rusers.

All of the remaining 11 R2 matches are due to be played on Wednesday.