2009 Roland Garros 'Battle of the Boards' pick 'em contest

Drew · May 27, 2009

RE: 2009 Roland Garros 'Battle of the Boards' pick 'em contest

steven · Tennis legend

... despite (according to List All Users on here) playing from the land of v-d-b ... or have Norway annexed Scotland overnight? (don't tell Muzza!)

RG BOTB DAY 3 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

A fairly calm first half of day 3 saw a couple more retirements (Korolev and Lapentti) but otherwise entrants tended to only lose out significantly when they had gone by ranking without much thought, e.g. by picking Schüttler to win because he was a seed, when if you exclude the points from his fluke run at Wimbledon 11 months ago, he'd have been lucky to get in the main draw at all.

Once again though, it all started to go haywire as we reached late afternoon,, with Flake suffering a truly dreadful straight sets defeat to Argentinian qualifier Leonardo Mayer (which means that the two most popular picks to make it to R4 from that section full of clay court haters and assorted muppets are now out!) and Fish getting fried, battered and generally put in his plaice (and my cod, that's just a small selection of the dreadful puns that readers haddock to put up with on AM.com), by Maximo Gonzalez, who just wouldn't let the slippery American off the hook.

Two R1 matches were suspended at the end of the day - C Rochus is just a game away from beating the aging Magician and Clément is making remarkably heavy weather of his match against Tursunov, a well-known clay court numpty.

Detailed results can be found at http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html

TEAMS

BT.net, up 2 to 1st, took the lead on day 3, opening up a gap of nearly half a point at the top. They will win R1 whatever happens in the last two matches.

TAT started to behave like the world no. 1s that they are at last, rising 8 places to 2nd (though they may finish 4th in R1 if the last two results do not go their way), with T4Y, up 3 to 3rd, also rising a lot. BBC 606, up 3 to 8th, and AM.com & JM.org, both up 2 to 5th and 7th respectively, also made good progress.

Rusedski.co.uk, down 2 to 4, dropped out of the top three, but the biggest losers were the Ducklings, down 8 to 9th, the Feddies, down 6 to 10th, and Tennisopolis.com, down 6 to last.

TOP 10

BillBaker (TN) got 12/20 correct on day 3 but that was enough to leave him in outright 1st place - he had been equal 1st with 4 others after day 1 and with one other after day 2 and is doing extremely well to keep everyone else at bay for so long. He will win R1 whatever happens, but he will share that win with a handful of other players unless Santoro stages a miraculous recovery and Tursunov wins as well.

8 players are just one point behind him, including four members of the leading team - Christian (BT), up 37 to 2=, scored 15/20 on day 3, Dusty Dick (BT) & IconAlex (CC) both rose 21 to 2= after scoring 14/20, abc (BT), Johnnylad (BT) & tennisfan78 (TY) all rose 7 to 2= after scoring 13/20, tennisfan78 (TY) moved up 1 to 2= with 12/20 and mataeo1983 (TA) fell 1 to 2= after getting just 11/20 on Tuesday.

15 entrants are just 2 points behind in 10= and the world no. 1 heads a group of 30 players a point further back.

ON THE RISE

BeauJarkko (TA), up 190 to 10=, was the outright highest scorer on day 3 with a very impressive 17/20 and can probably take quite a bit of the credit for his team's big rise.

Only Nevets (CC), up 122 to 10=, managed to get within a point of him on Tuesday with 16/20, though 15/20 was enough for rises of over 150 places for ForeverDelayed (BT), up 169 to 97=, and Wolfey (IN), Smidster (BT), GiulioAxe (MT) & n3gative (MT), all up 174 to 138= - 11 more entrants scored 15/20 on day 3 too.

DODGY DROPPERS

On a tough day, over 30 entrants scored less than 50%, with the day's low scorer gaitan36 (TN)'s 7/20 leaving him even further adrift in last place, 7 points behind the second to last entrant and 4 points behind the gorillas. 10 entrants scored 8/20 on Tuesday, with barrybigones (GR), down 207 to 246, and Alia Hamieh (RF), down 215 to 296, falling over 200 places.

OUTLOOK

Assuming for now that Rochus finishes off Santoro, if Clément beats Tursunov, Claire Thompson (JM) will finish R1 in 89= but will be the only entrant with all of her R2 winners surviving R1, while if Tursunov beats Clément, savestheday91 (MT) (a bit further down the table) will be the only entrant in that enviable position.

AND FINALLY ...

I've already covered some of the many comments made by those who were gutted by Fish's abject defeat and most of the boards are worth a read after yesterday's twist and turns had many entrants in despair, but Greatunclebulgaria (AM) was having a particularly confusing day:

"Such a stupid name Gonzalez. I've picked the wrong Gonzalez to take Fish out didn't realise there are two of them Fernando Gonzalez & Maximo Gonzalez" - which would have looked pretty silly had Mardy not gone and lost to him!

The same entrant was confused again later in the day: "Am I going crazy?" (er, yes - see above!) "According to the bracket challenge I've lost Andreas Beck to Ivan Navarro but according to pick-ems I've lost Ivan Navarro to Andreas Beck - see I can't win for losing even when I split my vote." It turned out to be an error in the bracket challenge results and I think g-u-b has been released from the padded cell now!

Finally, some people take on nearly 400 others in these contests but for others, there's just one small battle that matters:

Orn (AM): "The Pickem war is back on in our house. The hubby is doing better than me by 1 pick. I don't mind if I was to finish 393rd as long as my hubby finishes behind me." Nice! They ended the day with Orn back on top in 10=, 45 places (but just 2 points) ahead. She then added, in reference to day 2: "Tomas Berdych! Hasn't anyone told him about the Pickem? Tomas - when people pick you to win up until R4 you need to play 4 matches in the tournament and not go out in R1. You silly numpty! Seriously these players need to be briefed on Pickem and how important it is to the welfare of tennis fans. It does affect our mental & physical health & wellbeing. I'm stressed!" and you have to admit, she has a point!

jamatthews · Strong Club Player

I appear to be doing quite well. I'm sure this is just a mistake and will be rectified shortly. I am slightly encouraged by Gicquel's scoreline though, given he's my WTF? QFist.

Drew · May 27, 2009

3 of 5 for todays completed matches...thought Fabrice would have to much for rochus but no...!

steven · Tennis legend

Please note: in the day 3 report, any scores out of 20 for day 3 were actually out of 18 of course, since two matches were suspended.

R1 is now finished (all of the detailed results are now on the site, up to and including the first 5 results in R2) and this defines the draw for the team KO competition as follows - the scores are after 5 R2 matches:

(1) BritishTennis.net 4.97
(16) Tennisopolis.com 4.73

(9) JamieMurray.org 5.38
(8) Centre Court Forum 5.36

(5) Rusedski.co.uk 5.47
(12) AndyRoddick.com 5.45

(13) RogerFederer.com 5.23
(4) AndyMurray.com 5.32

(3) Tennis4you.com 4.83
(14) RichardGasquet.net 4.89

(11) LleytonHewitt.biz 4.80
(6) Other Boards 5.43

(7) Assorted Individuals 5.21
(10) BBC 606 boards 4.80

(15) MensTennisForums 5.04
(2) TalkAboutTennis 5.24

Drew · May 27, 2009

Okay so I didnt last long in the top 100...but on the bright side 5/6 of the 2nd round matches today so far is not a bad start....Youzhny let me down.

Silver · County player

Rabid Stan is on now. He better not fluff it up today or he will most probably be facing a horse's head in the morning... when I make him sleep in the stable.

What did you think I meant? I'm not condoning the killing of (mostly) innocent horses! You've watched too many movies.

DON'T LOSE STAN. At least not until the fourth round.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Drew - the Martin Lee of the Pick-em's

mjd · Challenger qualifying

Me too - down another 53 places today hmm

Stop Press:
Make that a drop of 153 places in one day

to make matters worse it isn't even a record - I see that Red Cabbage and Malteaser have dropped 199 places today furious

-- Edited by mjd on Wednesday 27th of May 2009 09:37:17 PM

Drew · May 27, 2009

Well i need DD to win to help me to 13/16 for today...marat let me doon!

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

Im doing awfully haha...the shame! I also put myself in as AM.com, which is interesting considering I have never visited the site lol. Tbh, I made some horrific choices, such as Gaudio to make R4 (or perhaps R3, cant remember)

Serves me right for choosing with my heart and not my head haha.

-- Edited by murray_2k9 on Wednesday 27th of May 2009 07:29:34 PM

Silver · County player

Marat? Losing? Inexplicably? Really?

[/sarcasm] Picking Marat in a GS is like... picking me in a GS. I might get by in the first round courtesy of a retirement or a walkover... but past that, PFFFT. You'd be better off picking a player who goes onto court drunk.

WHICH ISN'T ME.

steven · Tennis legend

RG BOTB DAY 4 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Both of the held over R1 matches went with the minority pick on Wednesday. I'm not sure why a majority (62%) picked Tursunov to beat Clément on clay, though he did at least manage to take a set, while Santoro (71%) only lasted a few minutes when play resumed.

It felt like a very unpredictable day, with that impression aided by the fact that it took Pics Ferrer 5 sets to see off Muppetman Kiefer and by Muzza almost going 2 sets to 1 down against Starace before mounting a stunning comeback in the 3rd, but in the end only three of the top half R2 matches went against the majority pick.

One of those losers, Youzhny (63%), was a break up in the 1st set before slumping to a straight sets defeat against Hanescu (29%), while F-Loppy (56%) was a set up against Tipsy (15%) before living up to his nickname by flopping.

Safin (84%) v Ouanna (1%) turned out to be the match of the day and both players contributed to how good it was, but three terrible forehands (two into the net and one blazed out on match point) helped the French wild card to an upset, 10-8 in the 5th, leaving the impression that once again, Marat had found a way to avoid winning back to back matches.

Detailed results can be found at http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html

TEAMS

World no. 4 team Rusedski.co.uk made a storming start to R2, which they lead by 0.64 points, and moved up 3 places to 1st for RG as a whole. World no. 1s TAT are still in 2nd with their better half of the draw still to come, while R1 winners BT.net have dropped 2 to 3rd. World no. 2 and 3 teams AM.com & Team CC both moved up 1 to 4th and 5th respectively and in fact the top 7 teams in the overall rankings are monopolising the top 7 places in the RG teams league at the moment, though in a different order.

The C'mawns also had a good day, up 3 to 8th, as did MTF, up 2 to 11th, and they are the only teams who lead higher seeded teams (Other Boards and TAT respectively) halfway through the L16 round of the team KO competition that started at the end of RG R1.

T4Y, down 3 to 6th, were the biggest fallers on Wednesday, but are still in the top half, while the lowest scorers of the day, Tennisopolis are well adrift at the bottom - they have no less than 8 of bottom 11 in the individual table!

TOP 10

TennisFan (TN), up 1 to 1st, was one of six joint winners of R1 with 50/64 correct. 13/15 in Wednesday's R2 matches was enough to take him into the lead at the end of day 4, though only on tiebreak from kaseldop (GR), up 8 to 2nd, who was one of four entrants to get 14/15 of the first R2 matches correct. mataeo1983 (TA), down 1 to 3rd, completes the top three.

Another of the R2 joint leaders, Ollie361 (IN), has shot up 51 to 4th, while three more of the R1 joint winners Nevets (CC), up 5, Johnnylad (BT), down 3, and BillBaker (TN), down 4, share 5th place (2 points off the lead) after getting 12/15 correct in R2 - they moved different number of places to get there because one of them also got both of the held over R1 matches correct, one got one of them and one got neither.

Also two points behind the leader are s0mil (TY), Speedy Hawk (AM), Chris83 (GR), --cj-- (TA) & Dallas (TY), all up 17, and Fishflaps (MP), up 47, who share 8th place, while the world no. 1 Ashley Harkleroad's ***** (MP), up 11 to 14=, heads those who are a further point back.

ON THE RISE

The remaining two R2 leaders both rose significantly - savestheday91 (MT), climbing 158 to 39=, was the biggest riser on Wednesday after equal top scoring for the day with 29 points out of a possible 32, and RobH (BT) went up 99 to 39= after getting 28/32, a day 4 score that was also enough to send Shabba (IN) up 107 to 31=.

Other entrants who rose more than 100 places were Derevko (MT), up 106 to 91=, t_torres (IN), JTContinental (TA) & barrybigones (GR), all up 121 to 125=, shotgun (MT), up 105 to 191=, and Allan (AM), up 126 to 205=.

DODGY DROPPERS

The two R1 winners not mentioned so far did not have great starts to R2, IconAlex (CC) ending the day down 22 in 24th, and abc (BT) down 63 in 65th - well done to them on scoring 50/64 in R1 though.

Moving onto the real 'dodgy droppers', scoring 18/32 on day 4 saw Grady (TN) drop 218 to 315=, just outdone by WallaceEMann (GR), who got 8/15 in R2 and 17/32 for the day as a whole and plummeted 259 to 314th.

However, four Tennisopolis entrants who had already been near the bottom of the table after day 3 failed to even get into double figures on Wednesday, Mom of Twins (IN), down 2 to 392=, and Donna Hammond (TN), down 4 to 392=, both getting just 3 of the first 15 R2 results correct - they will be hoping for a much better bottom half of the draw!

AND FINALLY ...

Just a few comments from around the boards:

DJ (MP): "I'm slightly worried that (world no. 1 AH'sB) has disappeared now you know. If there's news that some raging lunatic has rushed on to court in Paris and attacked Youzhny with a tennis racquet rambling incoherently about some battle and some board of some sort, we know who it is!!!"

Elisat (TA): "Look at what the BoTB does to me. I am rooting for Arnaud Clement!!!" That is bad!

rondun (AM): "Ouanna watched the ball bounce on the line and then left it to lose the game for 5-5. Could he really be a GEM after all?"

-David--: "Ouanna looks like Blake, Plays like Blake and hopefully flakes like Blake too." He didn't out-flake Safin though.

Lastly, Rafa's attempt to pass himself off as a certain female Spanish tennis player has been coming in for some stick:

liam_valid (CC): "Nadal up next on Lenglen. I adore his outfit, I might borrow it for my rollerdisco in August."

Fashion correspondent Superbrat (CC) summed up the look with: "He looks like a giant Dolly Mixture" (see http://www.burnssweetshop.co.uk/acatalog/info_771.html if you are not familiar with this British 'delicacy'), though I think it may have been the Chewy Fruit look that he was aiming for - see http://www.burnssweetshop.co.uk/acatalog/159.html

Silver · County player

Yes, Nadal's fashion sense is clearly nowhere near the level of his tennis. Is he trying to attract bees? Does he make pollen? IS THERE SOME SECRET TO NADAL THAT WE DON'T KNOW? IS HE REALLY A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS?! IN DISGUISE?!

Have I gone too far?

It is awful though.

The Hoose · Satellite level

Silver wrote:

Yes, Nadal's fashion sense is clearly nowhere near the level of his tennis. Is he trying to attract bees? Does he make pollen? IS THERE SOME SECRET TO NADAL THAT WE DON'T KNOW? IS HE REALLY A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS?! IN DISGUISE?!

Have I gone too far?

It is awful though.

Watch out Federer...