Oh Duckboy - why?!

Congratulations to the three winners Randall Six(IN), Fiercehart(TA) and Fishflaps(MP). The 1-2-3 divide is only for the final shadings, you still all receive the same number of ranking points in the overall rankings.

AM.com took the teams title, as they seem likely to do whenever Murray wins a tournamen...I wonder why that might be

BT.net come a very respectable second and JM.org made a final surge to take 3rd place after 11/14 of them picked Murray's victory.

In the individual table not correctly predicting Murray's win left you outside of the top 50 unless you're name was Smidster (BT) who had done enough throughout the rest of the week (not least having Del Potro in the final) to *only* drop 29 places from 8th to 37th.

Only 16 others who hadn't picked Murray managed to stay in the top 100 in what ended as one of the closest pickems ever despite (or perhaps becuase of) it's unpredictable first round and historic Quarter Final lineup.

Keith Nunn (AM) has earnt himself the laterne rouge though he did manage to stay clear of the gorilla's cage.

It only remains to say thank you all for participating and once again making this tournament full of far more interesting matches than a 1st round between two unheard of wildcards should ever be!

Steven is away for a week so the overall rankings will not be update until just before the US Open, entries for which will open on Friday 28th August so keep a beady eye on the proceedings at Cincy as you never know what insight that might give for a few weeks time!

-- Edited by imoen on Sunday 16th of August 2009 09:24:46 PM

Think 37th is my best ever - despite not picking winner

POST-2009 MONTREAL PICK 'EM RANKINGS

The overall ranking list (with 875 ranked players) and the pick 'em 'Hall of Fame' after Montréal 2009 (and with Cincy 2008 points having dropped off) can now be found at http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html

Unusually for a Masters, Montréal has produced big changes at the top of both the team and the individual rankings.

TEAMS

Had Rusedski.co.uk got an average of 0.1 points less in Montréal and thus dropped behind the BBC team there, they would have lost out on being the new no. 1 team in the overall rankings by just two ranking points, but finishing 4th in Montréal was enough lift them up 1 place to 1st. They have now ended five tournaments as world no. 1s. With no points to defend for the rest of 2009, they must be in prime position to end up as the year-end no. 1 team too, though that is by no means a foregone conclusion.

Montréal runners-up BT.net climb 2 to 2nd leaving pre-Montréal no. 1s TAT down 2 in 3rd. AM.com won Montréal but were defending winner points from Cincy 2008 too so their ranking points are unchanged but they have dropped 1 place to 4th (their lowest position for over a year) because BT have overtaken them and TAT have not dropped enough to fall behind them. Only 103 points cover the first four places though.

Team CC are still in 5th, so the top five teams are still the only teams to have ever been ranked 1 or 2 - our 'big five' equivalent of the ATP's 'big four' perhaps! T4Y are not far behind but they missed Montréal (i.e. they had less than 5 entrants) and are defending more points than any other team at the USO, so RF.com in 7th have a good chance of moving up a bit, as do JM.org in 8th and BBC 606 in 9th if they do spectacularly well.

The only other position change is the Dammitaires, up 1 to 11th, overtaking the Hewitts, down 1 to 12th.

TOP 10 INDIVIDUALS

goldfish (BT), up 5 to WR 1 more than two years after peaking at WR 2 after RG 2007, is living proof that if you get near the top then drop back as your big points come off, there's nothing to stop you hitting the top again if you keep plugging away. With so many people playing regularly, it is a huge achievement to reach the top two and then reach the very top more than a year later based on a completely different set of ranking scores with no overlap, so big congratulations are in order to our new no. 1! She finished 23= in Montréal but is defending top 10 points at the USO.

Pingponger (TA) shot up 18 places to WR 2 after a solid 41= in Montréal - with only 5 big scores in his best 7, another big score was always going to push him up near the top. Since he still has a 7th best score of just 261 (his best 6 are all 599 or above, with 3 in the 700s!), there is still plenty of room for further improvement, but defending a top 20 finish at last year's USO might put his ambitions of reaching no. 1 on hold temporarily.

kaseldop (GR), down 2 to WR 3, dropped off the top after finishing in the bottom 50 at Montréal but has no points to defend between now and the end of the year, making him another candidate for year-end no. 1. I ought to mention here that quite a few people who were near the top have gone down despite no net loss of points because lots of people scored big points in the very close Montréal 2009 pick 'em as opposed to a handful of people scoring huge points in Cincy 2008.

Christian (BT) soared 13 places to WR 4 after finishing 12= in Montréal, but like his two team-mates in the top 10, the new no. 1 and Akhenaten (BT), down 3 to 7th, he has top 10 points to defend at the USO, while Gogo (AM), down 3 to 5th, and Miffy (AM), down 3 to 6th, both have top 50 USO points to defend too.

Steven (GR) (I'm sure I know him from somewhere ...) has climbed 4 places to WR 8, matching my career high which I first reached over two years ago. I have no points to defend at the USO but I have a higher 7th best score than anyone else. That suggests that I am more consistent than it feels like I am (!) but also means I would have to finish well inside the top 50 at the USO if I want to add to my total score significantly. That is so not going to happen ...

Completing the new top 10, mathiasR (RF), down 4 to WR 9, has points to defend at the USO, but Lizzim (AM), up 1 to WR 10 and into the top 10 for the first time, does not.

Jessie181 (TA), down 6 to WR 13, BORRO2 (RF), down 8 to WR 16, s0mil (TY), down 8 to WR 17, and timmadigan (CC), down 21 to WR 31, have all dropped out of the top 10.

ON THE RISE

The Montréal top three have all risen - Randall Six (IN) already had seven ranking scores over 500 (all only just over, else he would have started off even higher up) so added a net 282 points and rose 9 to WR 26. Fiercehart (TA) had a 7th best of just 334 to replace and rose 23 to WR 14, while Fishflaps (MP) climbed 20 to WR 11 - just one more R2 win at Montréal and he would have cracked the top 10!

The fastest climbers into the top 50 were TATkrutin (TA), up 44 to WR 45, and janeInScotland (JM), up 32 to WR 47. sirfredperry (CC), up 64 to WR 96, was the highest climber in the top 100, while two former no. 1s have rejoined the top 100 - ASE (AM), up 56 to WR 73, and Speedy Hawk (AM), up 13 to WR 95, with cazza99 (AM), up 16 to WR 102, only just missing out on doing the same.

Oneminutetomidknight (AM), up 89 to WR 185, and savestheday91 (MT), up 92 to WR 196, both shot up nearly 100 places into the top 200, while the first three-figure rise came from Scratchy (BT), up 114 to WR 248, scraping into the (possibly all-important) top 250.

djlovesyou (BT), up 154 to WR 400, managed the first 150+ rise on the list, but Austin (AM), up 192 to WR 444 was the fastest climber of all and the highest new entrant is Martin (BB), who enters the rankings at WR 597 after finishing 48th in Montréal.

LAST YEAR'S CINCY 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 Cincy winner and former ATP top 500 player edward seator (BT) is the biggest faller on the list, dropping 292 to WR 625. Like former BOTB world no. 1 The Shedman one place above him, the last pick 'em he played was the 2008 USO, so both of them will drop off the rankings if they chicken out of it this year - that comment is mainly for Sheddie's benefit, obviously!

Conversely, Cincy 2008 runner-up -David-- (LH) may have changed his name since last year but he seems to be the North American summer hard court Masters specialist, because he managed a top 10 finish at Montréal this year too, so he has only fallen 27 to WR 123, while sid (TY), 3rd at Cincy last year, managed a top 60 finish in Montréal and falls 51 to WR 157.

If those sound like big falls despite decent performances this year, remember that the top few were way ahead of the rest in Cincy 2008 and gained unusually high numbers of bonus points, so they each had over 800 points to defend.

NEXT UP

The US Open - entries are likely to open late on Thursday night UK time with qualifiers placed on Saturday morning if qualifying finishes on Friday as scheduled. I'll Twitter on http://twitter.com/botb1 when the entry form is ready at each stage and send emails (to previous entrants who have requested them) in due course.

Very happy to see "Death by" is my ATP twin, I think we'd make quite the doubles partnership...

Still, roll on USO!

Think I'd better enjoy my moment as it's likely to be very shortlived. Thanks for the comments Steven but I can assure you it's all pure fluke!

I entered the ATP Challenge for Cincy at the last moment and came 13,000 and something out of 14,000 and something - that puts it all into perspective!

Good fun though and certainly makes the early rounds so much more entertaining. Can't wait for next week.