2009 Wimbledon 'Battle of the Boards' pick 'em contest

Portsey · Intermediate Club Player

RE: 2009 Wimbledon 'Battle of the Boards' pick 'em contest

RedCabbage · Club Coach

Portsey wrote:

Wow, Haas wins! I picked him but i didn't expect a victory on second consideration but good man!

High five!

Drew · Jul 1, 2009

Im on ur tail Steven..23rd, Drew 24th

murrayman650 · ATP level

At 425th I still think that I have a Chance in this

steven · Tennis legend

Drew wrote:

Im on ur tail Steven..23rd, Drew 24th

Don't think I haven't noticed! However, since the only way you can beat me is if Muzza wins the title, I hope you do! smile

WIMBLEDON BOTB - QUARTER-FINALS 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Fed & Muzza were each picked by over 90% of entrants to reach the semis and were both in imperious form, winning their QFs in straight sets. Duckboy (73%) saw off a spirited fight from Cmawn (2%) to ensure that three of the favourites made it to the QFs, while Haas (19%) caused the upset of the day by beating Nole (69%), leaving the Wimbledon semis full of relative 'veterans' once again, with Muzza the only player aged under 26 who is still left in.

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

TEAMS

AM.com have managed to stay in the lead for yet another day. Some distance behind are Team CC, up 1 to 2nd, and BT.net, up 4 to 3rd after an excellent day where they added a win in the QF averages to their R3 win earlier in the tournament.

The Feddies dropped back from 2nd to 4th, some of them having indulged in a bit of wishful thinking (i.e. Muzza out before the semis), while Rusedski.co.uk, up 1 to 5th, overtook T4Y, down 1 to 6th, to ensure that 4 of the top 5 in the year-round team rankings are now in the top 5 here.

Other teams on the way up include BBC 606 (up 1 to 7th after missing out on winning the QF round by only 0.02), the 'missing' member of the overall top 5 TAT, up 2 to 9th, and MTF, up 2 to 13th and off the bottom at last.

Teams on the slide include the Hewitts, down 4 to 8th after their hero's wonder run finally came to an end, JM.org, down 2 to 11th, and Tennisopolis, down 2 to 15th.

By the way, the adjustment to the team averages (which compensates for that fact that small teams are always likely to have more extreme averages and thus enables us to have a fair competition between teams without requiring them all to be the same size) is really showing why it is necessary this time - without it, the four smallest teams would fill the top three places and last place!

TOP 10

Unusually, all of the top 5 are from the same country, England. T01 (CC) got one winner wrong today but held onto his lead for another day, albeit only on tiebreak from t12j23r90 (AM), who rose 1 to 2nd after getting 4/4 today. sid (AM), up 2 to 3rd, jack.hl.ng (CC), up 2 to 4th, and kaseldop (GR), up 3 to 5th, also got 4/4 and are a point behind.

There is then a 3-point gap back to Omegadoom (TA), down 4 to 6th after getting one wrong, while RedCabbage (BT), up 9 to 7th, x5daisy (RF), up 9 to 8th, Portsey (BT), up 16 to 9th, and Puschkin (RG), up 17 to 10th, complete the new top 10 after getting all of the semi-finalists correct.

The biggest faller out of the top 10 was Borovnia (TY), who dropped from 4th to 72nd after 'only' getting half of today's winners correct.

ON THE RISE

No less than 59 entrants got all four semi-finalists correct. Of those, 11 moved up more than 100 places - they were Marksman (MT), up 108 to 134th, James Comerford (BB), up 105 to 147th, JoeKhul (TY), up 105 to 156th, Togtdyalttai (TA), up 103 to 159th, steve7085 (GR), up 106 to 169th, nonobobo (RG), up 107 to 173rd, fastest riser of the day GS2 (IN), up 110 to 174th, CBV (BT), up 109 to 176th, luvs10s (TA), up 107 to 183rd, and oneminutetomidknight (AM) & cain bradley (BB), both up 101 to 194=.

DODGY DROPPERS

Only Mork, aka Dark's mum's friend Alien (CC), down 19 to 443rd, failed to score in the QFs, but you had to start out higher up and get 1/4 to get a drop in triple figures, an unwanted distinction shared by Sean Huggan (LH), down 115 to 148th, faller of the day MJD (BT), down 163 to 287th, and woody75 (BB), down 108 to 394th.

TEAM KO

The scores in the team KO Finals with three matches to go are as follows, with the main Final extremely close:

FINAL: (6) Centre Court Forum lead (4) AndyMurray.com 14.35-14.31
3-4: (10) Rusedski.co.uk lead (1) RogerFederer.com 15-12.78
5-6: (3) BBC 606 boards lead (8) LleytonHewitt.biz 15.56-11.67
7-8: (2) AndyRoddick.com lead (5) JamieMurray.org 14.47-13.08
9-10: (13) BritishTennis.net lead (7) Tennis4you.com 15.58-15
11-12: (9) TalkAboutTennis lead (14) RichardGasquet.net 15.33-14
13-14: (16) MensTennisForums lead (15) GBTennisGirls.com 15-11.88
15-16: (12) Other Boards lead (11) Tennisopolis.com 13.33-12.08

OUTLOOK

Amazingly, 85% of the entrants have both of their finalists still standing after the QFs, with well over 300 of them going for a Fed v Muzza Final.

The rest have one finalist left apart from four who cannot score any more points - Sean Huggan (LH) in 148th, who picked Lleyton to win, Odes (TN) in 427th, who picked Nole to win, Alien (CC) in 443rd, who picked Sod to win, and last placed Donna Hammond (TN), who picked Safin to win and is now certain to be the 'lanterne rouge' this time.

QUOTES OF THE DAY

I'll be back with some quotes and a notes about who can still finish in the top three sometime on Thursday, but I'll leave you with the best one from AM.com for now:

AllyB (AM) calls for a stewards' enquiry: "Jaydu up to 33rd? Could any mods please check that someone hasn't hijacked his password and submitted a fraudulent entry under his name?"

N.B. In first three BOTB appearances, jaydu (AM) was the 'lanterne rouge' at the AO, bottom half in Miami and 2nd to last in Rome, but he was in the top half at RG (just) so was already improving and the one entrant who finished below him in Rome was the person I've just quoted!

steven · Tennis legend

The rest of the report from Wednesday, as promised:

OUTLOOK - TEAMS

In the teams league, AM.com will win if Muzza wins the title or Fed fails to reach the Final, Team CC will win if Fed beats Muzza in the Final, the Feddies will win if Fed beats Duckboy in the Final and the Ducklings will win if Duckboy wins the title.

BT.net will come 2nd if Muzza reaches the Final, T4Y will come 2nd if Duckboy beats Haas in the Final and Team CC will come 2nd otherwise. Five different teams can still finish in 3rd place.

In the team KO, Team CC will win if Fed wins the title or Muzza fails to reach the Final, with AM.com winning otherwise. Rusedski.co.uk will edge out the Feddies for 3rd place unless Fed beats Duckboy in the Final.

OUTLOOK - INDIVIDUALS (E&OE!)

If Duckboy reaches the Final, T01 (CC) will finish 1st and jack.hl.ng (CC) 2nd, with SONIque (AR) 3rd if Duckboy also wins the title or Portsey (BT) 3rd if he loses in the Final.

If Muzza wins the title, sid (AM), GoGo (AM) & t12j23r90 (AM) will fill the top three places, giving their team the quintuple, i.e. teams league, team KO and top three individuals.

If Muzza loses in the Final, t12j23r90 (AM) will finish 1st, with sid (AM) 2nd & kaseldop (GR) 3rd if Haas wins the title or kaseldop (GR) 2nd & Omegadoom (TA) 3rd if Fed wins the title.

In other words, the top half semi seems to be the more crucial one for BOTB purposes, but with so many entrants still having both finalists left, places in the top 10, 50, 100, etc, and the associated ranking points are still very much up for grabs, so there is plenty still to play for even if you were not mentioned above.

QUOTES OF THE QFs

DJ (MP) was reduced to hoping for drastic measures before the QFs: "i think my only hope of making it into the top 200 is if everyone except djokovic comes down with swine flu"

murrayman650 (BT) is looking on the bright side: "At 425th I still think that I have a chance in this ..."

SLess (CC) is a bit sad that she can't even claim her best prediction was 100% hers: "Was super chuffed with the Haas pick - although MrL has taken the glory for that one (and to be fair, he did say Haas! Haas! Haas! after we had a long discussion about the merits of Tommy vs Nole this Wimbledon)"

tlimvvo2max (CC) thinks he may have worked out how AM.com have managed to stay just ahead of his team for so any days: "Better ask DN - Alien really IS his mum's friend. ... unless... DN's been playing a deep game all this time and he's an AM.com sleeper agent?" Oops, cover blown!

Sher (CC) is reduced to confiding her troubles to Richard Gasquet: "Dammit, i was only 1 place away from the top 100.. but of course, i go down again."

LT (JM) had heard a story that suggests that one of the serial muppets may behave like one off-court too: "... an unnamed male player sent his tennis-player girlfriend a watch that he'd been given by a sponsor, which she had also been given a copy of by the sponsor ..."

Oneminutetomidknight (AM) thinks he knows who the culprit was: "If that's not Berdych then im a banana!" I think that probably makes 23.59 a pineapple ...

UPDATES ON FRIDAY

I'm lucky enough to have a seat on Centre Court on Friday, so there won't be a report until late, but Bethan should get the chance to send an update to the site at some point early on Friday evening.

Smidster · Challenger level

I am sure we are all pretty envious Steven - Have a great day!

steven · Tennis legend

WIMBLEDON BOTB - SEMI-FINALS 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Better late than never, here's the post-SFs report. In spite of the disappointment at Muzza going out yesterday (which was tempered by the fact that all four semi-finalists seemed to give it everything out on court), it was a brilliant day to be at Wimbledon and like many of the AM.com mob I bumped into while they were propping up the bar later, I didn't really want to leave and got home completely exhausted and with quite a sore throat!

So, Fed got through as expected (picked by no less than 91% of us to reach the Final and 64% to win the title) and Duckboy (16%), playing the match of his life, edged out the home favourite to reach his third Wimbledon Final, which 5% of entrants (mainly from his own forum) have picked him to win.

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

TEAMS

New leaders Team CC, up 1 to 1st, won the Wimbledon teams league last year and finished 3rd in the team KO, so started the tournament with 917 team ranking points to defend. They can't stay in 1st place in the league unless the Final is cancelled, but they are now sure to finish 2nd in the league and 1st in the KO, so they will exceed last year's points total which is no mean feat!

The favourites to win the Wimbledon teams league now are the Feddies, up 2 to 2nd, who will finish 1st if their hero wins the title on Sunday. Completing the top three, BT.net held onto 3rd place through the semis but will drop a place or two depending on who wins the Final. Not surprisingly, AM.com dropped 3 to 4th and will finish 10th if Fed wins the Final or 6th if Duckboy does, while T4Y, up 1 to 5th, could climb another place if the American triumphs.

TAT, up 3 to 6th, were rewarded for going for Duckboy in quite a big way and could yet sneak into the top three if he goes on to beat Fed, but of course the winners of the SF round were the Ducklings, up 3 to 7th, and they can still win the teams league if their hero upsets the odds tomorrow.

Rusedski.co.uk, down 3 to 8th, BBC 606, down 2 to 9th, and the Hewitts, down 2 to 10th, all dropped back a bit, but the bottom five remained unchanged, though the Dammitaires are holding off MTF for 12th place by around 1/10000th of a point!

TOP 10

T01 (CC) got both semi-finalists correct to stay in 1st place, as did team-mate jack.hl.ng (CC), who moved up 2 to 2nd, just one point behind. Nobody who picked Roddick to win the title is within 7 points of them, so these two are now certain to take the top two places overall - many congratulations to them!

There is then a 5-point gap back to Portsey (BT), who also got full marks on Friday and will complete the top three if Fed wins the title but will drop back to 5th behind SONIque (AR), up 8 to 8th after the semis, and hawkgirl98 (TA), up 20 to 12th, if Duckboy beats him.

t12j23r90 (AM), down 2 to 4th, dropped back due to Muzza's loss, but Puschkin (RG) got both finalists correct and moves up 5 to 5th. Others dropping back a bit because they only got Fed correct yesterday but holding onto a top 10 place were sid (AM), down 3 to 6th, kaseldop (GR), down 2 to 7th, Omegadoom (TA), down 3 to 9th, and RedCabbage (BT), down 3 to 10th.

ON THE RISE

62 entrants managed to get both finalists correct (which seems quite a lot when parts of the media were naively implying that a Fed-Muzza Final was almost a foregone conclusion), with ALI (RF), up 100 to 157th, managing the sole three-figure rise of the day.

DODGY DROPPERS

Just under 30 entrants got neither finalist correct, with eddie (AM), down 101 to 207th, memphis lady (AM), down 114 to 255th, faller of the day Sean Huggan (LH), down 115 to 263rd, and sharpie (GR), down 111 to 273rd, all suffering three-figure drops as a result.

TEAM KO

The scores in the team KO Finals with one match to go are as follows:

FINAL: (6) Centre Court Forum lead (4) AndyMurray.com 20.94-19.66
3-4: (10) Rusedski.co.uk lead (1) RogerFederer.com 21-20.11
5-6: (3) BBC 606 boards lead (8) LleytonHewitt.biz 21.56-17.67
7-8: (2) AndyRoddick.com lead (5) JamieMurray.org 23.63-18.15
9-10: (7) Tennis4you.com lead (13) BritishTennis.net 22.2-22
11-12: (9) TalkAboutTennis lead (14) RichardGasquet.net 23.07-20
13-14: (16) MensTennisForums lead (15) GBTennisGirls.com 22.14-17.13
15-16: (12) Other Boards lead (11) Tennisopolis.com 18.93-18.33

None of the leaders in these matches can be overtaken except that RF will beat GR in the 3rd place match if Fed wins the title.

OUTLOOK

The top three possibilities were all covered above, but apart from the top two individuals and the bottom five, everyone's positions could change depending on the result of the Final, so almost everyone still has lots of overall ranking points hanging on Sunday's match.

QUOTES OF THE DAY

Coming in a few minutes ...

steven · Tennis legend

QUOTES OF THE DAY

DJ (MP) made a plea for me to use my presence at Wimbledon to help arrest her slide down the BOTB table: "am i too late to request that you do something to make sure that Haas beats Fed? Try shouting 'Fed, Mirka's gone in to labour' or 'Nadal's behind you' or 'Look out! Sampras has an axe'" You were just too late, I'm afraid, DJ - I was just yards from the Fed each time he served from the right-hand side at the royal box end too (see the fuzzy screencap from the later match to get an idea - I'm the one in the 2nd row at the left-hand edge of the pic), but now we'll never know what effect it might have had.

Her team-mate and world no. 1 for at least one more day (that's Pebs (MP), not Rafa!) had taken more direct action herself in letter form before the QFs: "Dearest Roddick, if you allow rat faced Hewitt to beat you today, I shall be forced to come find you and insert this chainsaw in places it doesnt really fit. The ball is in your court. love n hugs"

Linda (AM) summed up the feelings of quite a few people on the Murray boards: "I got one right today - but it was the one I had hoped to get wrong"

Superbrat (CC) gets a nice surprise on checking the results after, I can only assume, a good night on the town: "I haven't checked this all week and trying to work out how I got to 29th I was about 189 before."

WimbledonAce (AM/CC) quickly deflated her balloon: "just looked and it said you are 262 unless you have changed your name?!"

Editor's note: To solve the mystery, 29 is the figure in SB's overall ranking column (a fine achievement, obviously, but not a column you're likely to mistake for your position in the current pick 'em before a night out on the town!), not her position in the Wimby pick 'em.

Lex (CC) betrays a geek's way of looking at the situation: "soooooooo... if this were a program... IF Muzza +Rog = final AND Rog = 1 THEN Lex <100 ELSE I'm screwed"

Dark Necrofear (CC) views BOTB as a pandemic: "The BOTB bug is very very infectious and none can resist its will to control you insanely.Its like swine flu but with scores rather than coughs! LOL!" Nice one, DN!

I'll leave the last word to individual winner T01 (CC), who has the rare luxury of knowing that he's going to win the competition even if his winner pick (Fed) loses on Sunday: "Thanks guys. I am really happy to see the results. Well done to jack and others too! Now I would like Roddick to win the cup to change the mood in slams a bit! He has done fantastically well to overcome Andy Murray in London!!" ... however, he might want to modify that when he realises that the bonus points for how far you are above the average mean that he will get 2x758 ranking points if Duckboy wins but 2x782 if Fed does!

murrayman650 · ATP level

So who do I need to win them

steven · Tennis legend

WIMBLEDON BOTB - FINAL 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Well, who would have thought Andy Roddick could manage to win 37 service games in a row against the Fed and still lose? What a performance from both players and while the 64% of us who picked Fed to win the title came out on top in the end, the 16% who picked Duckboy must have been feeling like they were onto a good thing for a while, especially at 6-2 in the 2nd set tiebreak!

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

TEAMS

The teams league was won by the Feddies, up 1 to 1st today, who matched their hero by winning the Final round for the second consecutive slam. They edged out Team CC, who dropped 1 to 2nd despite having the second highest % picking Fed to win the title.

Having the 3rd highest % picking Fed to win enabled TAT to climb 3 to 3rd and thus rescue more than a little respectability from a tournament that for a long time looked like it was going to be a disaster for them. They dislodged BT.net, down 1 to 4th, who finished outside the top three despite winning both R3 and the QFs, while R4 winners T4Y stayed where they were to complete the top 5.

Other teams gaining more than one place as a result of the Final were R1 winners BBC 606, up 3 to 6th, and R2 winners the Hewitts, up 2 to 8th, while the biggest fallers of the day were AM.com, down 6 to 10th, with SF winners the Ducklings, down 2 to 9th, and JM.org, down 2 to 13th, also dropping more than one place.

GBTennisGirls, down 1 to 15th, almost avoided the lanterne rouge in their first attempt at this ATP-based pick 'em, but were consigned to last place in the end when Tennisopolis, up 1 to 14th, outscored them in the Final.

TOP 10

Congratulations to Wimbledon 2009 BOTB winner T01 (CC) (whose team were very lucky that he realised he had picked the wrong team from the dropdown list before the end of R1, when it was still possible to change it!) and runner-up jack.hl.ng (CC), who finished just a point apart, while 5 points further back, Portsey (BT) and t12j23r90 (AM) completed an all-English top four.

Completing an unchanged top 5, Austrian entrant Puschkin (RG) had entered the four previous BOTBs this year and had finished in the bottom 20 in all of them, so finishing 5th this time was an astonishing improvement!

sid (AM), down 9 to 15th, was the only entrant who managed to finish in the top 24 without having picked Fed to win, so the rest of the top 10 all moved up a bit - kaseldop (GR), up 1 to 6th, Omegadoom (TA), up 2 to 7th, RedCabbage (BT), up 2 to 8th, x5daisy (RF), up 2 to 9th, and highest placed BOTB debutant brodyluv (TN), up 4 to 10th.

ON THE RISE

The biggest risers of the day were Charlie02123 (TA), up 44 to 215th, and Pedro (IN), up 44 to 216th.

ON THE SLIDE

The only entrant who dropped more than jaydon (GR), down 84 to 270th, was his father Matthew (GR), down 85 to 272nd - talk about an unwanted family double!

However, the 'lanterne rouge' (which turns out to be quite topical at the moment, with the Tour de France starting this weekend!) went to Donna Hammond (TN), who managed to score an impressive 29 points less than the entrant in 2nd last, but still finished well ahead of the starving gorillas.

Special mention must go to her and the rest of the bottom five - Alien (CC), Babfive (GB), Stephen (IN) & agustin (SG), who managed the remarkable feat of scoring less than Womble, the robot player who picked Brits to win all their matches and thus had Boggo, Josh Goodall and James Ward joining Muzza in the semis!

TEAM KO

The final scores in the team KO Finals were:

FINAL: (6) Centre Court Forum beat (4) AndyMurray.com 26.81-21.49
3-4: (1) RogerFederer.com beat (10) Rusedski.co.uk 26.85-24.96
5-6: (3) BBC 606 boards beat (8) LleytonHewitt.biz 27-21.17
7-8: (2) AndyRoddick.com beat (5) JamieMurray.org 25.84-19.23
9-10: (7) Tennis4you.com beat (13) BritishTennis.net 27.1-26.4
11-12: (9) TalkAboutTennis beat (14) RichardGasquet.net 28.82-24.9
13-14: (16) MensTennisForums beat (15) GBTennisGirls.com 26.81-22.38
15-16: (12) Other Boards beat (11) Tennisopolis.com 24.53-23.88

GROUPS

Females won the battle of the sexes this time their R1, R2 and SF wins outweighing the R3, R4, QF and Final wins for the males.

In a very close contest between the age groups, R3, R4, QF & SF wins helped the 18-49s to edge out R1, R2 & Final winners the over 50s, with the under 18s (who failed to win a single round) well adrift.

The Actives v Fans contest went right to the wire, with R1, R2, SF and Final wins given the Actives a rare victory.

Thanks for taking part in another BOTB pick 'em - it has felt like it has been another good one!

steven · Tennis legend

POST-2009 WIMBLEDON PICK 'EM RANKINGS

The overall ranking list (with 872 ranked players) and the pick 'em 'Hall of Fame' after RG 2009 can now be found at http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html

NEW COLUMN ON THE RANKING LIST

Getting into the top 10 of the overall rankings is a big achievement, but it can be all too quickly forgotten, especially by other people, once the points that got you there start to drop off. I have therefore added a column near the left of the overall rankings table that shows your career high (if you have ever been in the top 10) and when you first reached it. If you have ever been no. 1, it also shows in (...) the number of events you were world no. 1 for.

Ashley Harkleroad's ***** (CC then MP) has been no. 1 the most times (6), while the player who broke his run into two, Wendy (AM), is the only player who has regained the no. 1 spot twice after losing it, having been no. 1 after Rome 2008, regained the top spot after Wimbledon 2008 and regained it again after Paris 2008.

TEAMS

Had Duckboy won Wimbledon, the top two teams would have remained unchanged, but Fed's win produced a late surge from TAT which took them into 3rd place in the Wimbledon teams league and also allowed them to leapfrog the two teams above them in the overall rankings to regain the no. 1 slot by just 5 points from Rusedski.co.uk, down 1 to 2nd, with AM.com (who would have been the new no. 1 team had Muzza won the title) down 1 to 3rd.

BT.net managed to take 4th place back by just 7 points thanks to a slightly bigger net gain than Team CC, down 1 to 5th. This was despite CC doing marginally better than even last year's excellent performance by finishing 2nd in the Wimbledon teams league and winning the team KO, but consolation for them is that at RG and even more so at Wimbledon, they have shown a return to their old form after a few mediocre events and the top 5, separated by just 118 points, are the closest they have ever been.

Wimbledon teams league winners the Feddies climbed another 2 to 7, with BBC 606, up 3 to 9th, and the Hewitts, up 2 to 11th, also up multiple places. The biggest fallers were MTF, down 3 to 13th.

TOP 10 INDIVIDUALS

kaseldop (GR), whom I tipped for the top earlier this year because he was one of the rare top players with relatively few points to defend in the middle part of the year, climbed from 7th place to be the new world no. 1 after finishing 6th at Wimbledon, his second top 10 finish in the last three tournaments.

He only made it by 24 ranking points though (about the equivalent of one R3 win in any one pick 'em!) and needed Fed's win in the Final to do it, otherwise another tip for the top GoGo (AM), up 1 to 2nd, would have been the new no. 1 by some distance. She and Miffy (AM) (down 1 to 3rd but only a further 8 points back), both finished in the Wimbledon top 50.

They are followed by Akhenaten (BT), up 15 to 4th after finishing 32nd at Wimby, first Feddie in the top 10 (I think) mathiasR (RF), up 9 to 5th (Wimby 29th), former world no. 2 goldfish (BT), up 22 to 6th (Wimby 12th), and Jessie181 (TA), up 57 to 7th and the fastest riser into the top 10 after winning Wimbledon R1 and eventually finishing 28th.

The top 7 plus BORRO2 (RF), up 30 to 8th, and s0mil (TY), still in 9th, have no points to defend in the next event. timmadigan (CC) is still in 10th, edging out Lizzim (AM), up 23 to 11th, who would have moved all the way up to WR 3 had Fed failed to win the Wimbledon Final! She in turn is just 6 points ahead of me.

Pre-Wimbledon no. 1 Pebs (MP) got nowhere near defending her 3rd place finish at Wimbledon last year and has dropped 14 to 15th as a result. Fedex (GR), down 6 to 13th, Pingponger (TA), down 16 to 20th, Dusty Dick (BT), down 18 to 23rd, and defending Wimbledon Champion Ashley Harkleroad's ***** (MP), down 32 to 38th after missing Wimbledon completely in sympathy with the real defending champion, have all fallen out of the top 10.

ON THE RISE

2009 Wimbledon winner T01 (CC) has moved up 47 places to 19th, but the fastest riser into the top 50 is Jtdrum10 (TA), up 140 to 27th after finishing 14th at Wimbledon. The fastest riser into the top 100 is x5daisy (RF), up 145 to 94th after finishing 9th at Wimby, while Wimby 3rd placed Portsey (BT), up 144 to 101st, only just missed out on a two-digit ranking.

Wimbledon runner-up jack.hl.ng (CC), up 214 to 141st, is the fastest riser into the top 200 and Wimbledon 7th placed Omegadoom (TA), up 385 to 295th, is the fastest riser into the top 300.

Wimbledon 4th placed Puschkin (RG), up 493 to 316th, is the fastest riser of all, though hawkgirl98 (TA), up 437 to 361st, and J. Alfred Prufrock, Mrs (BB), up 424 to 409th, are also up more than 400 places.

The highest new entrant is brodyluv (TN), who enters the rankings at 358 after finishing 10th at Wimbledon.

LAST YEAR'S WIMBLEDON WINNERS

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 the top three in the event coming off from last year have fared.

Last year's Wimbledon 1st and 3rd have already been mentioned among those dropping out of the top 10. Last year's runner-up DavidC (BT) had another good Wimbledon, finishing 38=, but has still dropped 31 places to 144th in the overall rankings, while fah51 (CC), 4th last year, defended some points but has fallen 81 to 113rd - having a seat on Centre Court for the Final (so it says on CC) was probably more than enough consolation for that though!

Carrie (AM), 5th last year, has not played since Cincy 2008 and has dived 445 places to 758th, while sharpie (GR), 6th last year, has fallen 167 to 352nd and James Comerford (BB), 7th last year, is down 115 to 192nd. Varun (TN), 8th last year, has dropped out of the rankings from 349th after not playing since.

Former world no. 1 Wendy (AM), 9th last year, managed a top 100 finish this year and has dropped just 32 places to 62nd but lejla_roger (RF), 10th last year, is down 468 to 794= and thus the biggest faller on the list after not playing Wimbledon in 2009.

NEXT UP

As usual, we will run a BOTB pick 'em for one of the Masters events on the North American summer hard court swing, but whether it will be Montréal or Cincy depends on how holidays (not yet arranged) work out - I will announce which one it will be on the BT.net competitions page by the end of July - Montréal, which gives slightly better spacing of the BOTB comps, is the marginal favourite at the moment if holiday dates turn out not to be an issue.

Cincy 2008 points will come off at the end of the next event, even if we do Montréal this year.

Thank goodness the next one's more than a month away

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Excellent competition - thanks again Steven and Bethan for so much hard work.

After Roland Garros I was wondering why I didn't just pick the higher ranked player every time as I was soundly beaten by my husband who entered for the 1st time and who did, more or less, that. Revenge this time is sweet - beat him by over 300 places!

mjd · Challenger qualifying

Thanks Steven and helpers.

What a disaster I had this time!
After flying high in 2nd place for round 3 by losing my semi-finalists except Andy I plummeted down to finish at 396, so my theory of picking the unlikely results failed. If only I had continued with Roddick, the thought had crossed my mind but then I discounted it - Fool !

Never-the-less despite my low finish of 396 I went up 7 places to 60 in the overall rankings!! This is very strange as when I finished in the 20s I dropped 20 places I expect it must be due to the points that drop off, I haven't worked that out yet but it's all good fun and adds interest (and annoyance) of the events.

Portsey · Intermediate Club Player

Steven et al, thanks for putting in the hours for what is an extremely enjoyable 2 weeks - it somehow makes Wimbledon more exciting!

I know the secret that bagged me 3rd place - changing my allegiance to BT.net! I don't think i quite understood the choice i had before, i think i was choosing my favourite player as i saw lots of pro names!

Btw, i completely changed my mind while watching the final and would have loved to see Roddick win, it would have been sensational, but tennis is a fair game, you can't deny the winner.

I got the impression he was p*ssed off with Feds comment to him about "don't get too down, i've been through some bad losses", probably wasn't the best thing to say as they have a 6-0 wimbledon champion count.......

-- Edited by Portsey on Monday 6th of July 2009 11:50:56 AM