I'm 100% with you there indiana. Sadly, that probably means we're both going down!

MIAMI MASTERS BOTB - DAY 7 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

In Tuesday's big swing matches, Sod 75% pleased the majority by seeing off Gonzo 23% (though in the next round, that may come back to bite those who had Muzza going deep) but Verdasco 33% upset Cilic 44%, while Almagro 4% and Youzhny 1% repaid the faith of the few entrants who had picked them to reach the QFs as they beat even less fancied opponents.

The big shock of the day though came in a pulsating night match which I was lucky enough to catch the second half of, Berdbrain 1% suppressing the muppet within whenever it looked like he had blown leads in the 3rd set to eventually edge out Fed 98% in the tiebreak.

Detailed results can be found at http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/competitions.html, with 'headlines' and the odd quote from the boards appearing on http://twitter.com/botb1 as well.

TEAMS

MTF made it 5 nights in a row in 1st place but with the highest average score in R4, world no. 3 team Rusedski.co.uk, up 3 to 2nd, are within a point of them, with world no. 2 team TAT, down 1 to 3rd, completing the top three.

The next most successful team in R4, BBC 606, climb 2 to 5th, and the 3rd most successful Team CC, up 3 to 10th, have finally jumped off the bottom of the table.

It was a bad day for the Feddies, who dropped 3 to 6th and have all lost their winner pick, and for Tennisopolis, down 3 to last after being the only team that failed to get a R4 average in double figures.

INDIVIDUALS

The lead changed around all day, but when the dust settled, former world no. 1 kaseldop (GR), up 4 to 1st, ended up on top by a point from srberg (DF), up 6 to 2nd, who is another point ahead of Akhenaten (BT), up 7 to 3rd, LindaB (JM), down 3 to 4th, EdTennisFan (BB), up 9 to 5th, and andys_ipod (AM), up 9 to 6th.

Apart from the previous night's joint leader, all of the top 6 got 5/8 correct on Tuesday, as did Oploskoffie (TA), up 28 to 8th, and bangkok (IN), up 30 to 10th. Yesterday's other joint leader, Linda (AM), suffered a similar fate to a couple of other overnight leaders earlier in the tournament, getting just 2/8 correct and falling 35 places to 36th.

However, the big winner on day 7 was Cain Bradley (BB), up 66 to 9th and the only entrant to get six quarter-finalists correct - he made up for throwing away 3 points by failing to make a prediction for the Fed match in the previous round by being one of just three entrants who picked Berdbrain to reach the QFs and also got 4% pick Almagro, only losing out with his Muzza and Baggy picks.

ON THE RISE

The fastest riser of the day was Orn (AM), up 72 to 101st, and four more entrants who, like her, got 5/8 correct, moved up faster than the day's top scorer (see above) - they were mmmm8 (TA), up 67 to 46th, Puschkin (RG), up 67 to 48th, DR4Life (AM), up 67 to 108th, and the unsung heroine who processed all your entries, Imoen (BT), up 69 to 72nd.

In case you are wondering, the two other entrants who picked Berdbrain to beat Fed were SHARPIE (GR), up 51 to 37th, and Jtdrum10 (TA), who started and finished the day in 188=.

DODGY DROPPERS

Six entrants equal low scored on Tuesday with just 1/8 correct, but they were all outside the top 150 at the start of the day - Jon Pennington Pics (TN), down 57 to 209th, sid (AM), down 52 to 214th, alonaB (AM), down 37 to 221st, Babblelot (TY), down 18 to 225th, sallydaisy (JM), continuing her mercy dash down another 8 places to 226th, and MisterPap (RG), down 9 to 228th.

This left some of those with 2/8 correct to be the fastest fallers - Grundon (BT), down 86 to 136th, rondun (JM), down 83 to 156th and nicki (AM), down 81 to 162nd, all tumbling more than 80 places.

OUTLOOK

After Fed's loss today, just 4% of entrants have their top half finalist still standing (they will be laughing if Sod makes it to Sunday's Final) and just 23% have their winner pick still alive - Rafa 16%, Duckboy 6% & Sod 1%.

In fact, Cain Bradley (BB) in 9th place is the only entrant in the top 12 who has his winner pick still standing and the only one of them with 3/4 semi-finalists still intact, so he could run away with this BOTB if the remaining matches go his way.

About 30 more entrants also have 3/4 semi-finalists left going into the QFs - they are spread through the table all the way down to Craven91 (BT) in the bottom 20, so there is lots of scope for movement over the next few days.

WEDNESDAY

After a big day on Tuesday with the whole of R4 being played, the QFs are split over two days. Wednesday's matches are:

SC, not before 3 pm EDT (19.00 GMT, 8 pm UK, 21.00 CET):
(16) Duckboy 65% v (33) Almagro 1%

SC, not before 9 pm EDT (01.00 GMT, 2 am UK, 03.00 CET):
(4) Rafa 81% v (8) Tsonga 8%

Could anyone shoot up the table by gaining 10 points on almost everyone else if there are two upsets? It appears not - the entrants who have picked Almagro to get to the SFs are vchap (LH) in 192nd and alonaB (AM) in 221st, neither of whom have picked Tsonga to get there as well.

Personally, I need Nadal to get through to the finals, but it doesn't matter if he wins or not because I had Andy to win. Only Nadal getting to the finals can still earn me some points, so that's what I'm holding out for. I was wrong before when I said Djokovic was my other finalist - Djokovic vs Andy was what my dad went for but I went for Nadal vs Andy.

My guess is though is that my result is going to be nowhere near as good as Shanghai 2009. Or Madrid 2008 for that matter.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Thursday 1st of April 2010 09:33:28 AM

Ljubicic, Murray and Federer?

If you were stupid enough to pick Ljubicic then you have nobody to blame but yourself.

wolf wrote:

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If you were stupid enough to pick Ljubicic then you have nobody to blame but yourself.

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But he had a reasonable draw up to the semis... I BLAME EVERY PLAYER IN THE DRAW.

Indeed, I certainly didn't see that one coming, which is why MY Pick'em is now in such dire straits. I had a pretty standard QF and SF line up... until the Big Four muppeted it up. And although Rafa's still in, I'm not convinced he's at his best yet.

Equally, over the years I'm pretty sure I've been influenced by previous tourneys. For example, it took me a while to get over picking Verdasco after he came out of AO '09 so well - disappointingly he just couldn't hold onto that blistering form on a continuous basis and I kept picking him in the anticipation that he would. And with the standard Pick'em muppets, one is always aware that after a long streak of muppety losses they tend to go on a good one (see Berdych this week), so sometimes you say to yourself "okay, they're due a bit of a run, maybe this Pick'em will be the one!" Other times they put together a good run in the PREVIOUS tournament and you kick yourself and say "damn, missed it! Okay this time..." and so you pick them, and of course the good streak is gone by that time... *shakes fist at muppets*.

Other times, I do just deliberately take a bit of a punt on a match - especially first and second rounds - because picking the safe option all the time can get dull and everyone knows that tennis can be wonderful in its unpredictability. But needless to say that does not work out for me 100% of the time! Rare is the joy of getting one of those punts right, so I have to savour it when it comes.

But I have to say, IW didn't affect my choosing for Ljubicic here. MAINLY because I knew what you yourself said steven - people let themselves be influenced by IW in picking for Miami! By Muppet's Law, Looby winning in IW and causing people to pick him in Miami would inevitably end in a fairly unremarkable showing here. He wasn't gonna string together two titles. It was a one off run. I picked accordingly.

Either way though as I said, Miami's down the pan for me due to the Big Four's performances. Onto the next Pick'em says I!