POST-2009 AUSTRALIAN OPEN PICK 'EM RANKINGS

The overall ranking list and pick 'em 'hall of fame' after the 2009 AO can now be found at http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html - N.B. a few small errors in the up/down numbers have been corrected since I first uploaded the new list yesterday. The 2008 year-end ranking list has been preserved for posterity and a link to it and the 2007 year-end list can be found lower down the page.

TEAMS

With 7 of the top 8 (pre-AO) teams failing to do well enough in Melbourne to register one of their best 7 counting scores, Centre Court have managed to stay at no. 1. Their days in the top slot may be numbered though, since they will be defending their best 6 scores (MC win, RG KO win, Wimby league win, RG league RU, Miami RU & Wimby KO 3rd) in the next five pick 'ems and have failed to finish in the top three since their two highest-ranked players 'defected' after Wimbledon last year. Then again, maybe they just prefer clay and grass and are about to start monopolising the podium places again!

Repeating their 2nd place in the AO league from last year and going one better in the KO (up to 2nd from 3rd last year), Rusedski.co.uk have added just over 50 points and regained the no. 2 slot from AM.com, who dropped just over 50 points after a dire performance at this year's AO left them needing to replace their 2008 AO points with their previous 8th and 9th best scores.

TAT did not manage to get a counting score either, but did not play in last year's AO pick 'em so have gone up 2 to 4th thanks to the two teams above them having plenty of points to defend and not managing to defend them. In fact, they only started with RG last year, so they will not have any points to defend in the next three Masters pick 'ems, giving them a great opportunity to challenge for the no. 1 spot over the next three months.

BT.net were the top scorers overall at last year's AO and while they have only dropped one place to 5th, they are now a long way off the pace, though they have no points to defend in the next two pick 'ems so could regain ground.

Lower down the table, Tennisopolis finished 3rd in both the league and the KO at the AO, their first top half finish in any pick 'em enabling them to move up 2 to 10th, while Tennis.com enter the team rankings in 13th after their highly impressive double win at the AO.

INDIVIDUALS

We have now had two full years of team pick 'ems and even allowing for a few missed duplicates, over 1000 different people have now taken part. 875 of them have played at least once in the last 12 months and are hence on the latest ranking list.

If the number of entrants for each event continues to stabilise, we should soon reach the stage where if you neither gain nor lose points, you will stay in about the same place. However, the increase in the number of AO entrants this year means that there are 67 more players in the rankings than there were are the end of 2008, so a drop of a few places does not necessarily mean that you are doing worse than you were before.

TOP 10

None of the top five individuals as at the end of 2008 managed to gain a counting score from the AO, but having not started until after the AO last year, Ashley Harkleroad's ***** (IN) celebrated completing his first full year of pick 'ems by retaking the world no. 1 slot from Wendy (AM), who dropped back to 2nd after failing to match her top 20 performance from last year's AO. Flintstone (IN) remains 3rd, but now only by 32 points - before the AO, there was a 200 point+ cushion between 3rd & 4th.

miffy (AM), 16th at the AO and hence by far the highest placed of the overall top 10 in the first slam of the year, improved two more places to 4th overall - she has now finished in the top 21 in all of the last three slams, which is quite an achievement when you think that they have all attracted over 400 entrants!

With so many of the top players failing to get counting scores from the AO, a top 50 finish was enough to make good progress, as proved by Dentist Appointment (IN), up 6 to 5th, and hfwardhouse (AM), up 3 to 6th. WimbledonAce (CC), down 3 to 7th, Fedex (GR), down 3 to 8th, & RG winner hebegeebee (IN), down 2 to 9th, all dropped back a bit but hung onto top 10 places, while the biggest riser into the top 10 was Scotsguy (CC), up 59 to 10th.

ON THE RISE

Three players moved up from outside the top 100 into the top 50 - Pingponger (TA), up 131 to 389th after finishing 5th at the AO, Michael (JM), up 82 to 44th, and Imoen (BT), up 85 to 48th after a top 20 finish, but the biggest riser in the top 100 was Jessie181 (TA), up 133 to 53rd.

AO runner-up emf123 (IN), up 266 to 196th, made the biggest jump into the top 200, while 3rd placed Hev (IN), up 490 to 284th, also shot up the table. However, pipping him to be the fastest riser of all was Dassa (TW), up 491 to 295th, who as loosestring finished 11th from bottom in his first pick 'em (the USO), but finished in the top 6 here, in his second event!

HIGHEST NEW ENTRANT

By winning the AO pick 'em on his debut, Reb (IN) heads the new entrants in 279th place, with Sean (LH), 4th at the AO, the only other newbie to go straight into the top 300, in 290th place.

The highest re-entrant (one of four players who returned to pick 'ems for the AO having not played at all in 2008) was Vonce (AM) (111th at the AO) in 425th place.

DODGY DROPPERS

The big fallers are usually those who didn't play in the latest pick 'em and are running out of counting scores, so when looking at fallers it's probably more interesting to see how last year's AO top 5 fared this time around.

Last year's AO winner Richard Morris/ASE (AM) managed to recover from a dreadful start to record another top 100 finish, but had so many points to defend that he dropped 15 places to 23rd. 2008 AO runner-up francky (RG) fared a bit worse, dropping 95 to 135th, while 3rd placed Kuda (TN) has not played a pick 'em since and has now dropped off the rankings from just inside the top 300 at the end of 2008.

NyGeL (MT) finished 4th at the 2008 AO and drops 134 places to 173rd, while 5th placed (and former world no. 1) the Shedman (BT), down 86 to 128th, is now suffering the ignominy on his own board of being behind both Bethan and the Count!

However, RobC (BT), down 405 to 670th, has dropped the most of those who are still on the rankings - he has only played one pick 'em since finishing 11th at the AO last year.

NEXT EVENT

Thank you for taking part in the AO pick 'em. As usual, there will be a pick 'em for just one of Indian Wells or Miami in March. Since both start midweek, which one it will be will depend on what else we have on during those weeks, but I will try to confirm which one it will be on the http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html page by the end of February. Nearer the time, emails will go out to those who have asked to be on the mailing list in the usual way.