AUSTRALIAN OPEN BOTB - DAY 4 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Even less shocks today - of those who survived R1 (and of course a lot of the high pick % players in the top half didn't), the only players who lost to someone picked by less entrants were 7% pick Berrer, who lost to Istomin (2%), and 1% pick Granollers, who lost to Falla, the first player to get further than anyone expected.

However, yet more players chucked away 2-set leads - Robert (v Montanes), Pics Ferrer (v Baggy) and Llodra (v Monaco) were the culprits today, and yes, predictably two out of three of them are GEMs!

Btw apologies for a mistake yesterday - I implied that neither Berdbrain nor Gonzo had made it to R3, but the Chilean is in fact safely there!

TEAMS

World no. 1 team Rusedski.co.uk are still in the lead by over half a point. They were the joint highest scorers in R2 together with the revelation of the AO so far, GB Tennis Girls, up 6 to 2nd. Yes, that's right, 15 mainly ATP specialist teams are getting beaten by a team that specialises in the mid to lower reaches of the women's game. That shows what kind of an AO it has been, maybe!

Indeed, GBTG got the highest unadjusted average in R1 too, but are being kept off the top by the adjustment that allows for the fact that the average scores of smaller teams are statistically likely to be more extreme (high or low) than those of bigger teams.

Just 0.02 points behind GBTG are AM.com, still in 3rd, with JM.org, down 2 to 4th, now just behind them in the mini-battle of the fraternal boards, while world no. 2 team TAT are holding onto 5th place.

Apart from GBTG, the only other team moving more than 2 places on day 4 were Team CC, up 3 to 10th, while at the bottom of the table, T4Y have somehow managed to slip below Tennisopolis into last place.

INDIVIDUAL TOP 10

By being one of 9 entrants who equal top scored in R2 with 24/32 correct, Scruffybearmac (AM) has held onto 1st place for another day, still by a single point, but this time from 2009 AO 'bronze medallist' Hev (IN), up 7 to 2nd after equal top scoring on day 4 with 12/16 correct.

They are followed by two entrants making their BOTB debut - JGS (IN), down 1 to 3=, and lory_udaman (RN), up 21 to 3= and another who scored 12/16 on day 4, while world no. 1 kaseldop (GR), down 2 to 5=, heads a group of three entrants who are one R3 win off the lead that also includes Darius (IN) & Ivanatis (MT), both up 4 to 5=.

Another joint winner of day 4 was mikeindo (TN), up 41 to 8th, and SONIque (AR), Manaus (AM) & Sparkey (GB), all up 8 to 9=, complete the top 10.

ON THE RISE

In fact, there were 18 equal top scorers with 12/16 on day 4 and three more of them moved into the top 20 - ptmcmahon (TA) & Charlie02123 (TA), both up 49 to 12=, and former world no. 1, Pebs (MP), up 59 to 16= and clearly determined to start reversing her slide of 159 places to WR 160 since she hit the top after RG last year.

However, the five fastest risers of the day all soared 200 places or more - Duchess (CC), up 200 to 83rd, Randy (IN), up 200 to 90=, polo el pato (RF), up 202 to 120=, TimMadigan (CC), up 212 to 170=, and Mr from Zero to Average aka d man (AM), up 214 to 191st.

DODGY DROPPERS

Once again, the lowest scorer on day 4 (and no doubt for every day from now on) was the lanterne rouge, bluestarmom187 (TN), who got 2/16 correct for the second day in a row - cfn33 (BT), down 4 to 2nd last has over twice as many points, and actually scored as many points in R2 as the R1 winner Osmeone (IN), who has slipped down 191 places to 192nd in just two days.

The biggest fallers of the day though were Cloudy (AM) & rondun (JM), both down 232 to 326=, while Jeff Tagen (IN), down 203 to 392=, BeauJarkko (TA), down 215 to 390=, RedCabbage (BT) & Wolfey (IN), both down 225 to 357=, mattk77 (SG), down 221 to 331=, and WallaceEMann (GR), down 212 to 299=, also dropped over 200 places.

OUTLOOK

The current top 10 have between 12 and 15 R3 winner picks who have survived R2, but astonishingly (given the carnage of the first two days), luvs10s (TA), up 15 to 149= on day 4, has all 16 R3 winners still standing as we go into that round! Conversely, the lanterne rouge has just 3 players left - Kolya, Tsonga & Serra.

TEAM KO

Last 16 results:

(16) RogerFederer.com 41.60 beat (1) BritishTennis.net 39.51
(9) AndyMurray.com 41.38 beat (8) BBC 606 boards 39.25

(5) GBTennisGirls.com 42.00 beat (12) The Daily Forehand 39.14
(4) TalkAboutTennis 40.67 beat (13) Tennis-Warehouse 40.40

(3) Rusedski.co.uk 42.00 beat (14) Centre Court Forum 40.93
(6) JamieMurray.org 41.18 beat (11) AndyRoddick.com 39.05

(7) RichardGasquet.net 40.55 beat (10) LleytonHewitt.biz 38.00
(2) MensTennisForums 39.67 beat (15) Tennis4you.com 37.00

So, except for the unfortunate Team CC and the very fortunate MTF, scores of more than 40.5 were enough to reach the QFs and anything less than that meant a trip to the 9th-16th place playoffs.

Note that this means a 'needle match' between Murray fans and Fed fans in the QFs, a repeat of the Wimbledon 2009 BOTB team KO semi-final, which the Muzzanators won.

AUSTRALIAN OPEN BOTB - DAY 5 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

The most significant result today was 29% pick Isner's win against le Monf (70%), with wins for Cilic (76%) and Gonzo (80%) also giving rise to a fair bit of movement in the table. 7% pick Ivo's win was very important for those who picked him, but since Ljubo was picked by 12%, Ivo was the best damage limitation result for those who had picked Stepanek (67%), Fish (11%) or Benneteau (2%) to win that match.

Full results, which are getting updated regularly except at the (unpredictable) times when I'm asleep can be found at http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html

TEAMS

World no. 1 team Rusedski.co.uk have ended Friday in 1st place for the third day in a row, but world no. 2 team TAT, up 3 to 2nd, fleetingly hit the top after Isner's win and are the 'virtual world no. 1' team at the moment because they have a lot fewer points to defend than the Rusers.

The two Murray teams held onto their 3rd & 4th places, while MTF moved up 4 places to complete the top 5. However, the biggest risers of the day were the Daily Forehand team, up 5 to 8th, and they have the highest R3 average at the moment by nearly 2 points!

The biggest fallers of the day were GBTG, down 4 to 6th, and early leaders BT.net, down 3 to 9th, while Tennisopolis are now propping up the table again.

INDIVIDUAL TOP 10

lory-udaman (RN), up 2 to 1=, was the outright leader for much of the day but was joined right at the end by JGS (IN), also up 2 places. Ivanatis (MT), who like the joint leaders got 7/8 correct today, has moved up 2 to 3rd on tiebreak from the overnight leader Scruffybearmac (AM), down 3 to 4th.

Last year's AO 'bronze medallist' Hev (IN) dropped 3 to 5= today but is still right in the mix. Like her, Manaus (AM) & Sparkey (GB), both up 3 to 6=, are 2 points off the lead, as is LadyTigress (IN), up 4 to 8th.

Aymen Hag (LH), up 9 to 9th, and smitty8 (JM), up 14 to 10th, complete the new top 10. World no. 1 kaseldop (GR), down 6 to 11th, dropped out of the AO top 10 today but is still doing far better than any of the rest of the top 20 in the year-round rankings.

ON THE RISE

Three entrants had a perfect day, getting 8/8 correct - Jason (TN), up 126 to 23rd, mataeo1983 (TA), up 136 to 34th, and the fastest riser of the day, Randall Six (IN), up 184 to 265th, proving that doing rubbish in the first two rounds is not necessarily the end of the world. Around 30 more entrants among those who got 7/8 managed 3-figure rises too.

DODGY DROPPERS

Lanterne rouge bluestarmom187 (TN) failed to score today, but otherwise the only entrant who did not get at least 50% correct on day 5 was James (BT), down 140 to 466th.

However, four of those who scored 4/8 fell more than 200 places - Thwacker (TN), down 210 to 300th, interested (GB), down 205 to 309th, Ana's Guy (RF), down 207 to 329th, and an entrant whom I believe has played Lugano Challenger qualifying a few times in the past (hats off to him for having a go!), Gianandrea Heyer (IN), down 206 to 331st.

TEAM KO

Latest scores, halfway through the QFs (for 9-16th, please see the results pages on BT.net) and it looks like there is still all to play for!

(9) AndyMurray.com 17.77 lead (16) RogerFederer.com 17.16 by 0.61
(4) TalkAboutTennis 18.25 lead (5) GBTennisGirls.com 16.71 by 1.54
(3) Rusedski.co.uk 17.81 lead (6) JamieMurray.org 17.65 by just 0.16
(2) MensTennisForums 18.33 lead (7) RichardGasquet.net 18.27 by just 0.06

AUSTRALIAN OPEN BOTB - DAY 6 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Predictably (given the way the day matches either had very one-sided picks or neither player having been picked by more than a few %), the main shake-up on day 6 didn't happen until we reached the night matches, where 58% pick Hewitt beat 26% pick Baggy by retirement and 76% pick Tsonga managed to avoid having to play a 5-set match for the first time in his life as Haas imploded when he looked very likely to win the 4th set.

Full results, which are getting updated regularly except at the (unpredictable) times when I'm asleep can be found at http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html

TEAMS

Hewitt's win saw AM.com, up 2 to 1st, suddenly hit the top of the table and JWT's win increased their lead to nearly half a point. The Murray 'B team', JM.org, were also on the rise, up 1 to 3rd.

World no. 2 team TAT stayed in 2nd place but were probably the biggest winners of the day from a longer term point of view, because like the Murray teams, they reached the team KO SFs and world no. 1 team Rusedski.co.uk (down 3 to 4th and the biggest fallers of the day) just missed out. This makes it very likely that the no. 1 spot in the overall team rankings will change hands at the end of the AO.

Tsonga's win helped yesterday's two biggest fallers to regain some ground - GBTG rose 1 to 5th and BT.net rose 3 to 6th. Tennis-Warehouse.com, up 2 to 11th, were the only other risers.

The Daily Forehand had by far the highest average score in R3 and were up to 5th at one point, but eventually settled back into 8th, consolidating yesterday's big gains.

INDIVIDUAL TOP 10

One of the 2% who picked Almagro to reach R4, overnight joint leader JGS (IN) took the outright lead and ended the day 2 points ahead of Hev (IN), up 3 to 2nd, who is making a very impressive bid to finish in the top 3 in a 450 entrant+ AO pick 'em for the second year in a row.

New to the top three (and like the top two, getting 6/8 correct today) is LadyTigress (IN), up 5 to 3rd, who is also just 2 points off the lead, while two other former leaders, lory_udaman (RN), down 3 to 4th, and Scruffybearmac (AM), down 1 to 5th, complete the top 5. freerider (BT), up 30 after being one of today's five equal top scorers (with 7/8), shares 6th place with gu3 (IN), up 7.

The top 10 is completed by ManOfJelly (BB), up 6 to 8th, mikeindo (TN), up 6 to 9th, and Manaus (AM) & Sparkey (GB), both down 4 to 10th. The latter are 5 points off the lead, as are ptmcmahon (TA), up 6 to 12th, and former world no. 1 Pebs (MP) & Hawkeye (AM), both up 8 to 13=.

ON THE RISE

The other four entrants who got 7/8 on day 6 were Drew Gretsch01 (TN), up 67 to 18th, Philflipt (RN), up 96 to 29th, Kdogg327 (TN), up 82 to 379=, and the only triple figure riser of the day genbrit (AM), up 139 to 256th=.

One of these entrants, Philflipt (RN), shared the top score for R3 (14/16 correct) with mataeo1983 (TA), up 15 to 19th.

DODGY DROPPERS

Lanterne rouge bluestarmom187 (TN) got 2/8 today (2/16 for R3 as a whole) but had already lost all of her quarter-finalists so is now sure to get the lowest score ever in a slam, beating the legendary Kentanner11 (TN)'s previous all-time low score of 39 at RG 2008 by a single point!

Half a dozen entrants got just 3/8 correct today. Three were already near the bottom but faller of the day Sarah (AR), down 216 to 349th, irenerer (BB), down 137 to 441st, and cygent (TN), down 132 to 442nd, all fell more than 100 places.

Because four of today's winners were picked by well over 90% and most people had at least one of Hewitt and Tsonga getting through, even 50% was not enough to avoid a triple figure drop for quite a few other entants.

OUTLOOK

Amazingly, given the carnage on the first two days, one-third of us have all of our quarter-finalists still standing at the end of R3 and 99 of the top 100 have at least 7 R4 winners left. Indeed, only about 50 entrants do not have 7 or 8 QF-ists left. Most of those who have not got all 8 are missing the Sod and may well be hoping that Almagro beats Tsonga to limit the damage. It's going to be an exciting second week!

SUNDAY

RLA - 1: (5) Muzza 93% v (33) Isner 2% (le Monf 5%, etc)
RLA - 2: (2) Rafa 96% v Karlovic 0% (1) (nobody else had more than 2 picks)
HiS - 3: (4) Potty 74% v (14) Cilic 20% (Stani 3%, Flake 1%, etc)
RLA - 4: (7) Duckboy 84% v (11) Gonzo 14% (Berdbrain 2%, etc)

Once again, the main swing matches are the later ones, though obviously an upset in either of the day matches on RLA would have huge implications for BOTB scores later in the week.

TEAM KO

QF results & SF draw - for 5th-8th and 9th-16th, please see the results pages on BT.net:

(9) AndyMurray.com 34.11 beat (16) RogerFederer.com 32.88 by 1.23 - a repeat of their US Open 2009 SF win, though sadly we know who had the last laugh there ...
(4) TalkAboutTennis 34.19 beat (5) GBTennisGirls.com 32.14 by 2.05 - never really in doubt, this one
(6) JamieMurray.org 34.24 beat (3) Rusedski.co.uk 33.00 by 1.24 - a bad day 6 did for the Rusers
(2) MensTennisForums 33.67 beat (7) RichardGasquet.net 33.27 by 0.40 - MTF needed Tsonga's win to seal it, so a GEM did for the GEM team!

For the second round in a row, MTF scraped through with the lowest winning score, but in this round they at least scored more than the highest-scoring losing team, which was the team they played. Semis:

(4) TalkAboutTennis v (9) AndyMurray.com
(2) MensTennisForums v (6) JamieMurray.org

AUSTRALIAN OPEN BOTB - DAY 7 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

20% pick Cilic's win against Potty (74%) was the big upset of the day, while the other swing match went to Duckboy (84%) when Gonzo (14%) self-destructed in the final set - both of those matches went the distance. The other two matches set up probably the biggest swing match of the tournament, Rafa v Muzza (picks: 50%-48%) in the QFs.

Full results, which are getting updated regularly except at the (unpredictable) times when I'm asleep can be found at http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html

TEAMS

There were no position changes in the bottom 7 or in the top 3, still AM.com followed by TAT and JM.org, but getting the best average score of the day moved MTF up 3 to 4th ahead of Rusedski.co.uk, down 1 to 5th.

The other big risers were the Dammitaires - 30% of them picked le Monf to reach the QFs, so they moved down when Muzza won, but every single one of them went for Duckboy, so they ended the day up 3 in 6th place.

The biggest fallers were GBTG, down 2 to 7th, BT.net, down 2 to 8th, and the Daily Forehand, down 2 to 10th - unusually for a predominantly American team, it was Duckboy's win that saw them lose ground, two of them having gone for Gonzo.

INDIVIDUAL TOP 10

Around 350 entrants got at least 3/4 correct today so most of those who scored less than that suffered alarming drops. Indeed, with about 70 entrants having a perfect day, many of those who got 3/4 fell too.

One of the big winners was overnight leader JGS (IN), who increased his lead to 5 points, more than one R4 win. His closest challenger now is ptmcmahon (TA), up 10 to 2nd, while LadyTigress (IN) held onto 3rd place (and was fleetingly 2nd before the Cilic win) despite getting one wrong.

Four entrants are 7 points off the lead - nicki (AM), up 20 to 4th, lory_udaman (RN), down 1 to 5th, Sue (TN), up 21 to 6th, and joint R3 winner Philflipt (RN), up 22 to 7th.

A further point back, Scruffybearmac (AM), down 3 to 8th, EdTennisFan (BB), up 21 to 9th, and Charlie02123 (TA), up 22 to 10th, complete the top 10, with ManOfJelly (BB), down 3 to 11th, mikeindo (TN), down 3 to 12th, hfwardhouse (AM), up 23 to 13th, and KV (TM), up 24 to 14th, all on the same score.

ON THE RISE

Of the 70 entrants who managed a perfect score on Sunday, just Allez-Alejo (MT), up 122 to 230th, rose more than 120 places.

DODGY DROPPERS

Any hopes that Hev (IN), down 68 to 70th, might make it onto the podium for the second AO in a row seem to have been dashed after she got just 1/4 correct today, but the biggest fallers of the day (also with 1/4) were inokas (ND) & Mark M (IN), both down 162 to 420=. Only the long since confirmed lanterne rouge failed to score at all.

MONDAY

RLA - 2: (6) Kolya 81% v (9) Verdy 19% (nobody else with >2 picks)
HSA - 3: (3) Nole 96% v Kubot 0% (0) (Dammit 2%, Robredo 2%)
HSA - 4: (10) Tsonga 42% v (26) Almagro 0% (1) (Sod 47%, Haas 9%)
RLA - 4: (1) Fed 96% v (22) Cmawwn 3% (Baggy 1%)

The last match on HiSense is the main swing match tomorrow, with 42% needing Tsonga to win and the 58% who didn't pick him hoping that he limits the damage by GEMming it up. The biggest gainer from an Almagro win would be the one entrant who picked him to reach the QFs, Kdogg327 (TN) in 273rd place.

The first men's match of the day could also shake up the standings quite a bit, and of course an upset in either of the other two matches would have huge implications for BOTB scores later in the week.

TEAM KO

SF latest scores - for 5th-8th and 9th-16th, please see the results pages on BT.net:

(9) AndyMurray.com 12.43 lead (4) TalkAboutTennis 12.17 by 0.26
(2) MensTennisForums 13.33 lead (6) JamieMurray.org 12.47 by 0.86