Montréal Masters 'Battle of the Boards' pick 'em 2009

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

RE: Montréal Masters 'Battle of the Boards' pick 'em 2009

Count Zero · Tennis legend

wawrinka won 100% on 1st serve yesterday vs Keifer (who i assume will be retiring soon - his ranking is already around 110 and he is about to drop runners up points from this event last year ouch!) which will put him above Boggo's effort in Eastbourne. Thnaks Nic (at least i had you down to lose)

johnnylad · Tennis legend

He was pretty much the only person I got right

Count Zero · Tennis legend

hmm looks like i may have got the points wrong. but he has 100 from the Olympics too come off soon.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

You're just opening the door wide open to being corrected by Steven here Count. And in his thread as well.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

i know know. hopefully he'll be too busy posting an update to read it properly.

in my defence i was just going off what the commentators said last night. hmm not much of a defence i admit.

steven · Tennis legend

You know know? Know you don't! wink

MONTREAL MASTERS BOTB - DAY 1 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

272 people (plus 4 robot players) and 13 teams with 5 or more entrants are taking part in the BOTB for Montréal. The number of entrants is 21% up on the closest equivalent last year (Cincy) and makes it the second biggest Masters BOTB yet with just 9 entrants less than Rome.

That seems pretty good given that a lot of people in the northern hemisphere are away on holiday and some of the forums have been virtually deserted during the mini off season (for the big four) between Wimby and Montréal, so thank you for entering!

Day 1 saw half of the 24 R1 matches get played and plenty of shocks - Querrey (picked by 93%) losing to Petzschner was the biggest, followed by ili (91%) collapsing from a winning position against the Youzh, and Kunitsyn (85%) losing to the WC Niemeyer.

Detailed results can be found at http://www.britishtennis.net/competitions.html and from now on they will be updated regularly each day (for as long as I'm awake anyway!), with 'headlines' appearing on http://twitter.com/botb1 as well.

TEAMS

In what must be a first for them, Tennisopolis lead after day 1. They are followed by world no. 2 team Rusedski.co.uk and the Feddies, with MTF (showing some their old R1 form again at last) in 4th, Team CC in 5th and the Ducklings & GBTG sharing 6th.

Three of the top four teams in the overall rankings are lagging behind, with AM.com & BT.net in 9th & 10th respectively and new world no. 1 team TAT bringing up the rear! All this may say more about how strange the day 1 matches were than anything else.

INDIVIDUALS

Luke Croll (GR) was the only entrant still on 100% after 8 matches and he maintained the outright lead until late in the Montréal evening, when Hev (IN), who finished 3rd in the AO earlier this year, and BillBaker (TN) joined him in 1= on 10/12.

10 entrants are a point behind in 4= - nelslus (TA), 40-15 (AM), mattk77 (SG), RobH (BT), Lex (CC), richard meaghan (TN), Sue (TN), Shizzard (IN), Osmeone (KC) and CageEcho (TN) - with four of their players on 9/12 or better, it's not hard to see why Tennisopolis top the teams table.

58 entrants are 14= on 8/12, including goldfish (BT), the best placed of the top 10 in the overall rankings, while new world no. 1 kaseldop (GR) heads a group of no less than 93 entrants (over one-third of the total) 3 points off the lead in 72=.

Caro (AM) is currently the 'lanterne rouge' in 272nd, but she recovered well from an 0 for 7 start, getting 3 of the last 5 matches of the day correct. She is one of 38 entrants currently in the gorillas' cage.

WINNER PICKS

On the ATP BC, Fed is by far the favourite to win with Muzza a distant 2nd, but in our comp, the winner pick %s tell a different story, perhaps because AM.com is the biggest team!

43% Muzza (including about 80% of the AMs & JMs)
35% Fed (including all of the Feddies)
13% Duckboy (including 5 of the 6 Ducklings)
5% Rafa
2% Nole (including both of the ND.com entrants)
2% Potty (3 of the 6 who picked him play for BT.net)

50% have picked Duckboy to be the bottom half finalist. The only winner pick from outside the ATP top 6 is Lleyton Hewitt, picked by one of his team. Other finalist picks include Kolya, Gonzo, Verdasco & (oops) Querrey.

Has Rafa been trying to lull the competition (and 95% of us!) into a false sense of security with his abject displays in training here? Ominously, he teamed up with a little known Spaniard yesterday to beat Nole and Vemic in straight sets ...

(for a nicknames guide, see http://www.andymurray.com/forum/showthread.php?t=253)

QUOTES OF THE DAY (a bumper edition covering the entry period too)

1minutetomidknight (AM) "Have Kohlschreiber winning this tournie"
sound (AM) "Tell me you're lying."

He was, and sound may now be wishing he had been lying too when he said: "I have Querrey beating Nadal in the third round." He also said "My mum has Dancevic going to the third round beating Simon and Sela," so Montréal may not be that household's finest hour!

greatunclebulgaria (AM) re Serra's horrendous tank from 2-0 40-0 up to 4-6 0-6 down and out against Schuettler: "That will teach me to go with France when in a battle with Germany." Psst, don't mention the w*r!

1minutetomidknight (AM) wasn't too pleased either, using not one but three words ending with t and starting with c to describe the Frenchman: "Thanks a lot, Serra, you consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant." Quite!

tlimvvomax (CC) was more concerned with delusions of match-fixing: "If there was money riding on BOTB I'd be calling for a steward's inquiry into how 15% had Niemeyer beating Kunitsyn, followed by it actually happening."

LadyTigress (JM) was reduced to clutching at straws: "Gee, I have 0 points so far!!! ... I can't believe I'm now relying on Polansky, a man whose name I had never heard of until 8 hours ago." while Hawkeye (AM) lamented: "So, remind me, why were we so desperate for this <BOTB> to start again?" Beats me!

Less than halfway through day 1 and Silver (BT) was already reduced to a seething mass of blind rage: "Oh my FREAKING Lord, 0 for 4 already. I HATE THIS GAME AND I HATE EVERY TENNIS PLAYER I DON'T PICK. Actually more importantly, I hate the tennis players I DO pick for LOSING. See, Day one and already I'm angry. NOT GOOD, PEOPLE. NOT GOOD." (*)

(*) for safety reasons, the caps lock function has been taken away from further posts

DJ (MP) saw a reason not to despair though: "It's the first day in the first round - things are almost always different by the end of it." then added quietly: "i hope."

Finally, as Marat roars back to take the 2nd set, serial gorilla-botherer Sallydaisy (JM) gives those of us who picked Monfils some hope: "Safin takes the first set........ there's hope left yet for my Pick'em score today........ just hope i haven't jinxed him saying that!!!" Thank you Sally, thank you!

PaulM · Tennis legend

Oh dear - I was cheering on Chardy thinking I'd picked him to win. I hadn't. I'd picked Lu.

D'oh!

Silver · County player

See, during Wimby I'd have been happy to be top 250. However, being 235 out of 272 makes me feel little more than depressed. A non-tennis fan friend told me to view it from the either of getting 235 out of 272 in a test...

Which made me more depressed, where would I get 37 wrong? WHY WOULD I GET 37 WRONG! He has since booked flights to Aruba to get away from me. See what you do to me bee-oh-tee-bee? I hope you're happy...

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

Silver, I thought you'd agreed to disable the caps lock from all future posts? I hate to think what your poor keyboard is having to suffer through.

As for being 235 out of 272, don't forget that King Kong is 1 million monkeys so technically you're 235 out of 1,000,272. and that really is quite an achievement.

I'm currently tying with both my mum and Steven this is very important as beating one (or both) of them is my sole goal, I've only beaten Steven once or twice but mum is only on her 3rd pickem so there's hope that I can avenge my Wimbly loss.

-- Edited by imoen on Tuesday 11th of August 2009 07:36:20 PM

steven · Tennis legend

What's your mum playing as? (apologies if I should know this!)

Technically, each gorilla is likely to have a different selection from any other gorilla, so one may well still be on 100%, over 400000 will have scored more than Silver and 1-200000 will be level with him. Still 432,235= out of 1,000,072 doesn't sound so bad!

Robxon · Lower Club Player

Such is my optimism when I am 'involved' with BOTB that I always start looking from the bottom as experience tells me that it is usually the quicker way.

Well I checked three times and couldn't find my name and was about to pm Steven confuse

with a question and so continued paging up further than I had bothered to as there was no point in looking any higher than the 8th place I had been earlier in the evening.

And there it was just ready for the plunge down the rankings (my optimism showing through again!!)

biggrin

1st Place (at least until the next update) Wow!!!!! (=) biggrin

Ok it is shared with Drew and 5 others but my name is top

Now all I need is a mention in Steven's daily report (not the quotes the other one) and my day will have been perfect.

-- Edited by Robxon on Tuesday 11th of August 2009 11:42:00 PM

Mikeduke · County player

Robxon, Stevens already mentioned you on the BOTB twitter account so you already have a small dose of fame!

Silver · County player

imoen wrote:

Silver, I thought you'd agreed to disable the caps lock from all future posts? I hate to think what your poor keyboard is having to suffer through.

As for being 235 out of 272, don't forget that King Kong is 1 million monkeys so technically you're 235 out of 1,000,272. and that really is quite an achievement.

Well I did get a lovely twitter message from a friend which said, quote: "EVERYONE KNOWS THAT CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!?!?!?!111!" and figured he was probably right...

I like the idea of being 235th out of 1,000,272. That makes me smile

Oh. 270th.

Oh.

*sadface*

-- Edited by Silver on Wednesday 12th of August 2009 12:10:57 AM

steven · Tennis legend

MONTREAL MASTERS BOTB - DAY 2 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Somehow, the players seem to have got wind of the fact that we have dropped Cincy BOTB (usually the biggest Muppet Show of the year) to do Montréal (usually relatively predictable) this year and have taken it upon themselves to pretend it is Cincy after all.

Tuesday's entrants to the hall of shame were headed by Count Duckula (out of 272 entrants, only Jaysee (AM), next to bottom at the time, had picked Golubev to beat him!), with Hewitt (picked by 88% to beat Ferrero), Sela (83% v Falla), Benneteau (72% v Hernych), Melzer (72% v Hanescu) and serial muppet Berdbrain (72% v Kohli) all getting the chance to take an early flight to Cincy as well.

Detailed results can be found at http://www.britishtennis.net/competitions.html, with 'headlines' appearing on http://twitter.com/botb1 as well, while for a nicknames guide, please see http://www.andymurray.com/forum/showthread.php?t=253)

TEAMS

Towards the end of the day, Rusedski.co.uk, up 1 to 1st, took the lead from Tennisopolis, down 1 to 2nd, while the Feddies were leading at one point but ended the day where they started in 3rd place, just 0.01 points off 2nd.

For much of the day, those three teams had quite a gap on the rest, but the middle 7 teams were flying up and down the table with only about 0.1 covering most of them at one point. However, at the end of the day, Team CC, up 1 to 3th, GBTG, up 1 to 5th, and BT.net, up 4 to 5th, had closed the gap on the top 3 to 0.15 and opened up a similar gap on the rest.

The other big movers were MTF, down 4 to 8th, TAT, up 4 from last to 9th (they were even challenging the top three at one point), the Ducklings, down 4 to 10th, and AM.com, down 4 to last - the 'dodgy droppers' section below may help to explain this!

INDIVIDUALS

With so many heavily backed picks losing, those who at the top found it hard to pull away and kept getting joined by entrants who had picked the shock results, so at one point no less than 19 entrants shared the lead.

By the end of the day though, three entrants had pulled a point clear at the top with 25/32 - no. 34 in the (BOTB) world Robxon (BT), up 13 after scoring 17/20 on Tuesday, BillBaker (TN), the only one of the overnight leaders to stay at the top after scoring 15/20, and richard meaghan (TN), up 3 after scoring 16/20.

The three leaders shared the R1 win on 17/20 with Lex (CC), whose Rowlf the Dog (aka PH Chokieu) to beat Kolya in R2 pick saw him slide 16 to 20th for the day as a whole.

16 players are sharing 4th place, one point behind the leaders. They include four players ranked in the top 100 - WimbledonAce (AM), up 68, Daniel/Belgarath1981 (RF), up 10, abc (BT), up 68, and LUKE CROLL (GR), down 3 - and one newbie, Vladan (ND), up 10. The others are Inokas (ND), up 68, Osmeone (KC), no change, and Charlie02123 (TA), Kels (AM), Swissgirl (IN), Drew (BT), dot (IN), Renan (IN), seagull (BT) & Babfive (GB), all up 10.

ON THE RISE

The outright top scorer of the day (with 18/20) and the fastest riser was ptmcmahon (TA), up 214 to 21=, while 17/20 generated big rises for GiulioAxe (MT), up 184 to 51=, and Imoen (BT), MEMPHIS LADY (AM) & Gillyflower (GR), all up 144 to 21=.

DODGY DROPPERS

Predictable R2 results (and the fact that they are worth twice as much as R1 wins) meant that everyone managed to get over 50% for the day as a whole and the lowest scorer of the day was Fifi Quin (AM), down 100 to 265= after scoring 11/20.

However, the biggest fallers all got 12/20 but dropped over 150 places -Björki (MT), down 155 to 169=, Keith Nunn (AM) & JamieL (AM), both down 157 to 171=, and xenon21 (AM) & gwenda (AR), both down 155 to 227=.

Caro (AM) is still at the bottom despite scoring 13/20 on day 2, but she has been joined by Gazzpash (BT), down 8 to 271=.

BUNGEE JUMPER OF THE DAY

Mention must be made of Yorkie (AM), 14= at the start of the day, who had plummeted 173 places to 187= by the time Kolya won (making him the equal biggest faller at that point) - he regained 137 of those lost places later on to finish the day 50th.

OUTLOOK

And here is the shi**ing forecast: Montréal: Gael force 9 increasing to Hurricane Tsonga force 10, moods among BOTB entrants - stormy. Pressure - high influencing GEM-like behaviour, advise battening down hatches and hoping for the best!

Oops, wrong type of outlook ...

I can't remember a Masters R1 depriving me of so many R2 winners (only 11 of mine survived R1, one less than the two players in =last have left, and 8 of them had R1 byes!), so I can only look on enviously at the 7 entrants who have 15 R2 winners still standing - Daniel/Belgarath1981 (RF), currently 4=, Jack Buxton (BT), MEMPHIS LADY (AM) & mojoworking (CC) in 21=, Liam_valid (CC) & Smidster (BT) in 51=, and Sher (CC) in 103=.

shortbreadsue (AM), currently in 267=, is the only entrant with less than 10 R2 winner picks surviving - she can only score in at most 5 of today's 12 matches.

QUOTES OF THE DAY

To follow later ... probably.