I thought I would be alone in picking Delpo over Rafa but obviously not. This makes me feel a great deal better. At least until tonight when Rafa wins and I scratch out my tear ducts to avoid looking like a noob. I can at least take solace in my rise of 57 places and simply hope that the same happens over the next few days so I end up... er... QUICKMATHS: 43rd.

Never gonna happen.

Bloody Swiss twit....broken back twice now in the final set....Im doomed !!!

MB to Tsonga and leads *5-3....looks like Fed will be doing the nappies this weekend !!

Ah poop. That's one of my semi-finalists out. Never mind.

Silver wrote:

---

Ah poop. That's one of my semi-finalists out. Never mind.

---

Who are you and what have you done with the real Silver? The Silver I know would never take that result with only the grammatically correct use of caps lock.

 

MONTREAL MASTERS BOTB - DAY 5 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Fed's loss to Tsonga was the big shock yesterday - the losses for Rafa and Nole were rankings upsets too, but Potty and Duckboy had been the favourites to win those matches among BOTB entrants. The handful of entrants who picked Tsonga started the day too far down to threaten the leaders, though they can feel very pleased with themselves about that pick!

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)

CINCY OR NOT CINCY

In case anyone hasn't realised yet, we only do BOTB for one of the two Masters events on the summer hard court swing each year and this year it is Montréal, so there will be no BOTB for Cincy.

TEAMS

R1 winners Rusedski.co.uk won the QF round as well and ended the day up in 1st place as overnight leaders GBTG fell away, down 5 to 6th.

The two biggest risers of the day were BT.net, up 4 to 2nd, and TAT, up 6 to 4th, and with Team CC (still in 3rd) sandwiched between them, the Montréal top four now comprises four of the top five teams in the overall rankings. You could say that after the chaos of the early rounds, normal service has resumed!

The biggest fallers of the day were the Dammitaires, who plummeted 8 places to 12th (with only MTF behind them), with all of that fall occurring after the first QF, since only one of them had predicted a Muzza win. Early leaders Tennisopolis, down 4 more places to 11th, still have a chance of completing a relatively rapid journey from 1st to last.

INDIVIDUALS

Renan (IN) got 3/4 semi-finalists correct and has risen 1 place to 2nd. Just behind him on tiebreak are T01 (CC) & Smidster (BT), both up 3 to 2=, while Swissgirl (IN)'s run at the top ended when she only got 2/4 semi-finalists correct. She has dropped 3 places to 4th but is the only entrant who did not get 3/4 correct to have kept a place in the top 10.

WimbledonAce (AM), up 5 to 5th, and Claire Bear (AM), up 6 to 6th (and level with top bot Average Joe, who is having the best tournament I can remember - so a collective well done to everyone for that!), are bearing down (or is that up?) ominously on the leaders, being the first two in the table with both finalists still standing.

nelslus (TA), Jack Buxton (BT) & Gillyflower (GR) all rose 12 places to share 7th, while Jude (GR), TATkrutin (TA), ASE (AM), bblola08 (RF), savestheday91 (MT) & Rusedski149 (GR) all rose 16 to share 10th, just ahead of Inokas (ND) & Vladan (ND), who both dropped 14 from 2= to 16= and are the highest placed entrants unable to score any more points.

ON THE RISE

Just two entrants managed to get all four semi-finalists correct - fastest climber of the day Ghandi (GR), up 126 to 54th, and British_is_Best (BT), up 96 to 148th. Well done to them on a very impressive round, though a special mention should also be given to overnight 'lanterne rouge' sallydaisy (JM), who climbed 7 off the bottom after dropping off her bananas and getting 3/4.

DODGY DROPPERS

He was once in the top 10 of this pick 'em, but Peter (GB) got none of the semi-finalists correct and fell 129 to 241st, making him the biggest faller of the day. 'Dark's mum's friend' Alien (CC), down 127 to 242nd, suffered a similar fate. Many of the entrants who got 1/4 fell over 100 places too, while the other entrant who drew a blank in the QFs, Kamui010 (MT), fell 62 to 267th.

OUTLOOK

About 40 entrants cannot score any more points and nearly 130 have just one finalist left (including all of the current top four) but over 100 entrants have both finalists still standing as we go into the semis, which should make for a very exciting weekend.

In fact, depending on the results, four different teams can still win (AM if Muzza wins, AR if Duckboy wins, BT if Potty wins or loses to Tsonga in the Final and GR if Tsonga beats Duckboy in the Final) and no less than seven different entrants can still win the individual (a record for just before the semis):

- 1st placed Renan (IN) if JWT beats AR in the Final
- 2nd= placed T01 (CC) if AR beats JWT in the Final
- 2nd= placed Smidster (BT) if JWT beats JMDP in the Final
- 5th placed WimbledonAce (AM) if AR beats AM in the Final
- 6th placed Claire Bear (AM) if AM Beats AR in the Final
- 7th= placed Jack Buxton (BT) if Potty wins the title
- 18th= placed Randall Six (IN) if AM beats JMDP in the Final (*)

(*) He would finish level with Fiercehart (TA) and Fishflaps (MP) in this case, but as it says just above the column headings on the main table (and for only the second time ever), a second tiebreak, earliest final entry, comes into play right at the end of the competition if the main tiebreak method cannot split a tie for one of the top three places.

Nearly 20 entrants can still finish in the top three, including MrInvisible (CC) way down in 113= (163= before the QFs!), who will rise to visibility by finishing 2nd if Potty beats Muzza in the Final, while WimbledonAce (AM) can still finish in any (or none) of the top three place depending on the remaining results!

OoP AND PICK %s

19.00 GMT: (3) Muzza 53% v (7) Tsonga 0% (0)
23.00 GMT: (5) Duckboy 50% v (6) Potty 22%

QUOTES OF THE DAY

I'm out of time, I'm afraid, but you've had enough QotD to last for a month or two already this week!

-- Edited by steven on Saturday 15th of August 2009 07:26:42 PM

MONTREAL MASTERS BOTB - DAY 7 PREVIEW

I will be going away for a week from Sunday, probably having to leave before the Final has finished. Bethan will upload the final results to the site at the end of the tournament but this is probably the last of the 'syndicated' reports for Montréal.

It also means that it will not be possible to update the overall year-round BOTB rankings for over a week but they will be updated before US Open entries open and I will post here and on botb1 twitter once they are available.

Anyway, here's a report on the effects of the Final before it happens - oddly enough, the top of the teams table gets shaken up more if Muzza wins but the top of the individual table gets shaken up more if Potty wins!

TEAMS OUTLOOK

If Potty wins the Final, the top 4 will remain the same as they are now (BT.net 1st followed by Rusedski.co.uk, AM.com & TAT, i.e. the top four in the pre-Montréal overall rankings sharing the top 4 places in Montréal between them!) and Tennisopolis will finish last.

However, if Muzza wins, AM.com will win the Montréal teams league with BT.net 2nd, JM.org 3rd & Rusedski.co.uk 4th, and the Feddies (who all picked Rogi to win) will finish last.

INDIVIDUALS OUTLOOK

If Muzza wins, then as described just above the column headings on the main table, the tiebreak (only used to split the top three at the very end of a pick 'em if the main tiebreak can't) will come into operation and Randall Six (IN) will finish in 1st place with Fiercehart (TA) 2nd and Fishflaps (MP) 3rd.

Indeed, all of the current top 10 will remain the same in this case except that Smidster (BT) will drop 35 to 37th and those below him will move up a place, allowing -David-- (AM) to finish in the top 10.

If Potty wins, Jack Buxton (BT), who went down from 7th to 20th after the SFs where he only got 1/2 correct, will roar back up to finish 1st by a point from MrInvisible (CC), who was not even in the top half two day ago and even now is down in 33rd, with Randall Six (IN) taking 3rd on the second tiebreak rule, Fiercehart (TA) & Fishflaps (MP) finishing 4= (since the second tiebreak rule does not apply outside the top three), francky (RG) moving up to 6th and the rest of the current top 7 filling the last four places in the final top 10.

The Final is going to have a big effect on almost everyone's final position, even those who did not pick either player, so good luck ... especially if you picked Muzza like I did! LOL

See you for the US Open BOTB pick 'em - entries will open on Friday 28 August! and post-Montréal overall rankings will be available by then - see the start of this post.