2010 WIMBLEDON BOTB - DAYS 5 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

There were two held over R2 matches and they produced the biggest shocks of the day, with 4% pick de Bakker ousting Isner 83% (though that wasn't such a great shock under the circumstances) and 4% pick PH GEM beating Youzhny 84%.

Indeed, the Russian proved to be more French than the Frenchman, surrendering a 2 sets to 1 lead and then losing from a break up in the 5th. As gauloises (NB) put it: "So today Paul-Henri Mathieu decided to be relevant again. Did not see that coming." That's what GEMs do though - muppet away matches they should win so often that you finally give up on them then, BANG, just when you least expect it ...

In the top half of R3, the big favourites all won and in the 'barely alive' match, Lu (the guy who upset Muzza in R1 at the Beijing Olympics) beat Mayer. It looked like 12% of entrants would steal a march on the rest of us when Hanescu went 2 sets up, but 1% pick Brands prevailed when the Romanian lost the plot and then seemingly his mind, eventually retiring after intentionally foot-faulting all the way through the third game of the final set.

That meant that, as expected, F-Loppy 47% v Melzer 47% was the crunch match of the day. 199 entrants had gone for the Spaniard, 198 for the Austrian, with 23 heading for a fall whoever won. Even the guy commentating on the match for Radio Wimbledon got into the BOTB excitement after I twittered him about 400 of us collectively finding it too close to call and I couldn't believe it when he took a few seconds break from the commentary to tweet "You're back in with a shout in prediction comp. Melzer playing better now" LOL

In the end, the Austrian did recover from a set down to win the match in four, prompting a celebration here (when the table had been resorted) of which Lleyton Hewitt would have been proud and of which I am more than a little embarrassed. LOL

Detailed results, lists of everyone's picks and so on can be found at http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/Competitions.html and these are now being updated regularly each day.

TEAMS

After lost of shocks in the L16 of the team KO, where most of the teams with high averages in R1 of Wimbledon got very low averages in R2, it's beginning to look like movements in the overall team rankings are going to be heavily dependent on the outcome of the teams league, where the top two teams are still doing very well.

World no. 1s TAT still lead by more than a point from BT.net WR 2, with MTF WR 6, still in 4th, and Rusedski.co.uk WR 5, up 1 to 5th, also in the Wimbledon top five at the end of day 5. Much closer to the bottom end of the table at the moment are world nos 3 and 4 the Feddies, down 1 to 14th, and AM.com, down 3 to 12th, but they are the only two of the top 6 who made it to the QFs of the team KO!

The best performance of the day, though, came from MyTennisLounge, up 2 to 3rd after getting the highest average R2 and the highest average in the top half of R3 as well. A smaller team is statistically more likely to get an extreme (high or low) average, which is why the total scores for all rounds are adjusted in the way they are, but this is still a very impressive feat from one of our two newest teams.

The other new team, NewBallsPlease, is still propping up the table, over a point adrift from the Ducklings in 2nd last.

INDIVIDUALS

With all of their 5 previous matches having gone the distance, it may have been a bit of animosity towards F-Loppy after his graceless retirement against James Ward at Eastbourne when the Brit was about to serve for the match that tipped the balance towards Melzer for me, but whatever did tip the balance, I'm glad it did! The Austrian's win lifted me, Steven (GR), up 3 to joint 1st together with the lone Austrian among the entrants, Puschkin (RG), with Smidster (BT), who also rose 3 places, only just behind the top two on tiebreak.

The overnight top 3, British_is_Best (BT), GOATFed (RF), sparkey (GB) all fell 3 places after getting 5/8 R3 matches correct, unlike the rest of the new top 13 who all got 6/8. Like them, t_torres (VB) & SMC1809 (BT), both up 3 to 7=, and Gillyflower (GR), up 4 to 9th, are just 1 point off the lead, while Raven (AM), up 4 to 10th, and Imoen (BT) & mysterX (TA), both up 6 to 11=, are a further point behind.

ON THE RISE

The top scorer of the day with 7/8 correct and hence the biggest riser was the only entrant who picked Lu to reach R4, legorik27 (IN), up 150 to 107th. Not sure how I managed to say that someone else was the lone Lu-picker in yesterday's report, sorry about that.

Six other entrants got one of the two held over R2 matches and 6/8 R3 matches correct - Nibbler (ML), up 97 to 100=, Porlock (BB), up 119 to 105=, Jojo56 (RG), up 114 to 232=, Pugsley (BT), up 108 to 248th, tennisbubble (NB), up 72 to 324th, and Osmeone (IN), up 23 to 389th.

DODGY DROPPERS

I'm not sure if the gorillas are having a laugh by dressing one of themselves up as a human, but Redshank.girl (IN) has already ensured that Petzschner's Left Thumb (IN) (currently up at the dizzy heights of 141=) won't be able to make it a hat-trick of lanternes rouges.

Already 34 points adrift of the rest of the field, she picked the Mosquito (JCF) to beat qualifier Jesse Huta Galung in the Final, and by a strange coincidence, the only player she can still score points for is ... Petzschner, whom she has reaching R4.

With someone so deep in the cage, I'm not sure why serial gorilla saviour sallydaisy (JM) felt the need to do her customary Round 3 banana run, but apparently she did - after getting just 3/8 R3 matches correct, she was the biggest faller of the day, down 175 to 336th, with WindassWonderland (IN), down 157 to 348th, and LINK3 (IN), down 153 to 350th, also falling more than 150 places.

OUTLOOK

Most of the top 100 had 11 or 12 of their R2 winners still standing at the end of R1 but 9 had 13. they range from JTContinental (TA), up 15 to 20th on Friday, all the way down to Bagou (RG), down 25 to 398th.

TEAM KO

The QFs and the latest scores halfway through them are:

(8) MyTennisLounge.com 16.50 lead (16) RogerFederer.com 15.00
(13) BBC 606 boards 15.43 lead (12) The Daily Forehand 15.43 on tiebreak
(14) AndyMurray.com 15.20 lead (6) GBTennisGirls.com 13.80
(7) Centre Court Forum 14.76 lead (15) AndyRoddick.com 14.63

For the full L16 results and 9th-16th playoff scores, please see the detailed results pages at http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/Competitions.html

SATURDAY'S OoP DETAILS & PICK %s

CC - 2 R3 Rafael Nadal (ESP) [2] 98% Philipp Petzschner (GER) [33] 2%
CC - 3 R3 Andy Murray (GBR) [4] 99% Gilles Simon (FRA) [26] 1%
C1 - 1 R3 Robin Soderling (SWE) [6] 97% Thomaz Bellucci (BRA) [25] 2%
C1 - 3 R3 Sam Querrey (USA) [18] 78% Xavier Malisse (BEL) 3%
C2 - 3 R3 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA) [10] 82% Tobias Kamke (GER) 0% (0)
C5 - 2 R3 Paul-Henri Mathieu (FRA) 1% Thiemo De Bakker (NED) 1% (Isner 54% & Youzhny 38% were the top picks)
C12 - 1 R3 David Ferrer (ESP) [9] 45% Jeremy Chardy (FRA) 1% (Baghdatis 49% was the top pick)
C18 - 3 R3 Julien Benneteau (FRA) [32] 10% Fabio Fognini (ITA) 0% (1 - sallydaisy (JM)) (Verdasco 88% was the top pick)

There are no big swing matches in the usual sense (both players picked by close to 50% of us), but by far the biggest match of the day from a short-term point of view is Pics Ferrer v Chardy, with nearly half of us needing to rely on a GEM for a serious bit of damage limitation. Allez Chardy!

2010 WIMBLEDON BOTB - DAYS 6 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

The bottom half of R3 was played on Saturday. There were straight sets wins for three of the big favourites - Muzza 99%, Söd 97% & JW TsonGEM 82%, and big scares for two more - Rafa 98% got taken to 5 sets by Petzsche (2% had actually picked the German to win that match) and Queen's Club champion Querrey 78% eventually scraped through 9-7 in the 5th.

Meanwhile, in the barely alive matches 10% pick Benneteau saw off Foggy and PH GEM beat de Bakker in the battle of the 1% picks.

However, as expected the big match of the day for BOTB purposes was Pics Ferrer 45% v GEMremy Chardy 1%, with the 49% of us who picked Baggy desperately needing an upset too. As the Frenchman recovered from 2 sets down, all I could think was "you'll regret spending time following this one, he's just going to get your damage limitation hopes up only to choke right at the end," and sadly that's the prediction that turned out to be correct - from the moment he served for the match, he embarked on an epic choke that predictably ended with a DF on MP.

Detailed results, lists of everyone's picks and so on can be found at http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/Competitions.html and these are now being updated regularly each day.

TEAMS

World no. 1s TAT have increased their lead to more than 1.5 points after a decent R3, but the stars of the last 4 days have been MTL, up 1 to 2nd on Saturday. Their 8 entrants have finished with the highest average in each of the last two rounds, and they have now dislodged world no. 2s BT.net, down 1 to 3, from their position as the main challengers.

MTF stayed in 4th and Team CC, up 1 to 5th, have dislodged Rusedski.co.uk from the top 5, but the biggest gainers of the day were AM.com, up 6 to 7th - perhaps not a big surprise given Ferrer's win and the penchant many of their members seem to have for the Tenispain boys. Tennisopolis, up 3 to 8th, also had a good day, but the Dammitaires did not, falling 4 to 11th.

Debutants NewBallsPlease are still propping up the table, just under a point behind last year's winners the Feddies.

INDIVIDUALS

One of the overnight joint leaders, Puschkin (RG), got 6/8 correct on Saturday and is now the outright leader by a point from sparkey (GB), up 4 to 2nd.

However, the outright highest scorer in R3 was JTContinental (TA), up 17 to 3rd on Saturday. He was one of just 9 entrants who had finished R2 with 13 of his R3 winners standing and he ended up as the only one of those 9 for whom every single one of those 13 players won their R3 matches too!

Other players moving up in the top 10 after getting 6/8 correct were Gillyflower (GR), up 5 to 4th, Raven (AM), up 5 to 5th, cazza99 (AM), up 7 to 7th, and t12j23r90 (AM), up 6 to 9th.

After getting 5/8 correct, Steven (GR), down 5 to 6th, Smidster (BT), down 4 to 7th, and GOATFed (RF), down 5 to 10th, all dropped back, while getting just 4/8 correct saw long-time leader British_is_Best (BT), down 33 to 37th, and SMC1809 (BT), down 31 to 38th, fall out of the top 10 altogether.

ON THE RISE

Half a dozen entrants top scored with 7/8 on Saturday, including the entrant now in 3rd place. The others were salish (ML), up 75 to 19th, Shayan86 (ML), up 86 to 31st, jepg (IN), up 129 to 115=, riser of the day Liz (LH), up 136 to 196=, and SONIque (AR), up 122 to 219=.

DODGY DROPPERS

Lanterne rouge Redshank.girl (IN) ended day 6 with less than half the points of Canadian WxMan (IN) in 2nd last has lost all of her QF-ists, so it is probably time to stop referring to her in this section every day.

Three entrants got just 2/8 correct - faller of the day Alien (CC), down 188 to 366=, vchap (LH), down 140 to 392nd, and BigMac (RG), down 105 to 401st. Gazzpash (BT) got one more than that correct but was the second biggest faller, down 160 to 273rd.

OUTLOOK

Around half of us have at least 7 quarter-finalists still standing going into R4 and about 50 have all 8, including JTContinental (TA) and Raven (AM) in the current top 5. Somewhat oddly, the only member of the top 30 with less than 7 QF-ists left is the current leader!

It looks like everyone else has at least half of their QF-ists still standing except the lanterne rouge, who has none.

TEAM KO

The QF results and SF pairings are:

(8) MyTennisLounge.com 34.13 beat (16) RogerFederer.com 29.85
(13) BBC 606 boards 30.43 beat (12) The Daily Forehand 30.00
(14) AndyMurray.com 31.35 beat (6) GBTennisGirls.com 29.40
(15) AndyRoddick.com 30.00 beat (7) Centre Court Forum 29.76

(8) MyTennisLounge.com v (13) BBC 606 boards
(14) AndyMurray.com v (15) AndyRoddick.com

For the 9th-16th playoff QF results and the 5th-16th playoff SF draw, please see the detailed results pages at http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/Competitions.html

MONDAY'S OoP DETAILS & PICK %s

CC - 1 R4 Roger Federer (SUI) [1] 99% v Jurgen Melzer (AUT) [16] 0% (1 - Jett (AR) in 56th place)
CC - 3 R4 Andy Murray (GBR) [4] 89% v Sam Querrey (USA) [18] 10%
C1 - 2 R4 Lleyton Hewitt (AUS) [15] 54% v Novak Djokovic (SRB) [3] 44%
C1 - 3 R4 Rafael Nadal (ESP) [2] 94% v Paul-Henri Mathieu (FRA) 0% (0)
C2 - 3 R4 Andy Roddick (USA) [5] 86% v Yen-Hsun Lu (TPE) 0% (1 - legorik27 (IN) in 125th place)
C12 - 2 R4 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA) [10] 41% v Julien Benneteau (FRA) [32] 2%
C12 -3 R4 Robin Soderling (SWE) [6] 89% v David Ferrer (ESP) [9] 4%
C18 - 2 R4 Tomas Berdych (CZE) [12] 64% v Daniel Brands (GER) 0% (0)

With only one underdog picked by more than 10% of us, there is no doubt what the big swing match of the day is on Monday - Nole v Lleyton, In addition, the 50% of us who picked Verdasco to reach the QFs will be hoping for some damage limitation from Benneteau in the all French match - anyone else think he will probably give us false hope then lose just like Chardy did? Or maybe no hope at all ...