Wimbledon 2010 'Battle of the Boards' pick 'em contest

LadyTigress · County player

RE: Wimbledon 2010 'Battle of the Boards' pick 'em contest

indiana · Tennis legend

LadyTigress wrote:

Gilles Simon just got a walkover to face Andy Murray in the third round.

Hey, I seem to already have two 3rd round picks through so early in the day

LadyTigress · County player

Sashko pulling off some STUNNINGLY GOOD shots in the Tsonga match. This is impressive. Ridiculous serving, awesome plays. Taken a set off Tsonga and break point chances to serve out the fourth. Good on him.

LadyTigress · County player

indiana wrote:
So I would be extremely grateful if LT's good friend Sashko could help me out of my self-imposed problem here and get rid of that Tsonga chappee.

biggrin He's working on it. Sashko forces Tsonga into a fifth set "decider" (though that term is now questionable after Isner-Mahut), and he's smiling at the sit down. smile He always seems to have a ready grin - unfailingly happy on court, a real sunny disposition kind of player. He enjoys what he does, I think that's going to push him onwards. He's also a serial winner on the Challenger circuit, so he'll be hungry to close this match out.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Thursday 24th of June 2010 02:14:47 PM

steven · Tennis legend

Bellucci v Fischer is a 92%-6% match, and my make or break R2 match - I gain on 94% of entrants if Martin wins, lose ground to 92% if he doesn't.

So why did I pick the Austrian? I noticed that the H2H was 1-0 to Fischer (on a hard court last year) and that Bellucci hasn't played on grass since 2008, when his 'stellar' results on the surface included a loss to current GB no. 13 Dan Cox, whereas Fischer came though qualifying against a former top 15 player, and two top 60 players without dropping a set.

The tightness of the match (3 t/bs so far) suggests that the 92%/6% split was indeed silly, but Bellucci is now 2 sets to 1 and a break up - is this going to be another case of research/knowledge being a dangerous thing?

LadyTigress · County player

I can't remember if I picked Fischer or Bellucci. I'm hoping Bellucci, he should have been the obvious choice to me given his results, current rise up the rankings, and recent form.

I'm pretty certainly I played it safe and went with Tsonga in the Tsonga-Sashko match.

Josh · Challenger level

I picked Fischer too, he looked very good in his last qualifying match and just assumed it was the obvious pick against someone who hardly has a great grasscourt pedigree.

LadyTigress · County player

Sashko-Tsonga now 8-7 on serve in the fifth. Only 100 or so more games to go.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Thursday 24th of June 2010 02:59:07 PM

LadyTigress · County player

And now 8-8.

steven · Tennis legend

2010 WIMBLEDON BOTB - DAYS 1-4 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Being at Wimbledon for a day and then trying to combine catching up on work with getting the BOTB results pages sorted out and trying to keep abreast of one of the most exciting first weeks at a slam that I can remember means that I haven't had time to do any daily reports up to now.

Hence this long report is a bit of a catch-up to ensure that those who did best (and worst) each day get the (for some reason, coveted) mentions they deserve!

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.

BIGGEST SHOCKS SO FAR (90:10 or more extreme, all in R1)

- Fognini 1% beating Verdasco 99% then reaching R3 despite just 2 entrants picking him to do so
- Mayer 1% beating Cilic 99% then reaching R3 despite not having been picked to get that far by any of us
- Istomin 10% beating Stani 90%
- Przysiezny 1% beating Ljubo 99%
- Lacko 4% beating Baggy 96%

Plus a special mention to Daniel Brands, who upset both Andreev and Davydenko to reach R3 as a 2% pick.

BIGGEST SWING MATCHES SO FAR (60:40 or closer)

- Bozo 44% beating Massu 56%
- Ilhan 59% beating Daniel 41%
- K Beck 51% beating Ventura 49%
- Lu 55% beating Zeballos 45%
- Dodig 45% beating Hernandez 55%
- Serra 47% beating Greul 53%

TEAMS

After day 1, TAT were in 1st place followed by BT.net, MTF & Rusedski.co.uk, with the Dammitaires completing the top 5 and the Ducklings the early lanternes rouges.

By the end of day 2, BT.net were on top as the top two swapped places with the rest of the top 5 unchanged. The Feddies had dropped back 2 to last.

After Wednesday's play, TAT were back ahead of BT.net but the only other change in the top 5 was newbies MTL climbing 3 places to 5th. The other new team, NewBallsPlease, had a nightmare day, dropping 7 places to last.

TAT had increased their lead to nearly a point by the end of Thursday, with Team CC joining the top 5, rising 3 to 3rd, and NewBallsPlease still bringing up the rear.

INDIVIDUALS

British_is-Best (BT) ended day 1 with a 1-point lead on 29/32 and has not relinquished the lead at any update since.

At the end of day 1, those just behind him were patrick (TA) & Togtdyalttai (TA) in 2=. By the end of day 2, Steven (GR) & Puschkin (RG), both up 8 to 2=, and GOATFed (RF), up 2 to 2=, were all 2 points behind him, and the same was true a day later, with Sparkey (GB), up 5 to 5th, just behind these three chasers on tiebreak.

By the end of day 4, British_is-Best (BT) still led, but now only on tiebreak from GOATFed (RF), now outright 2nd, and sparkey (GB), up 2 to 3rd. Steven (GR) & Puschkin (RG), both down 2 to 4=, cazza99 (AM), steady in 6=, Smidster (BT), up 3 to 6=, elisat (TA), up 6 to 8=, and greasepipe (CC), up 18 to 9=, are all 2 points behind, and t_torres (VB), down 2 to 10=, and bfp (SG) & SMC1809 (BT), both up 8 to 10=, are a further point back.

TEAM KO L16 with 2 matches left

(16) RogerFederer.com 40.60 lead (1) BritishTennis.net 39.23
(8) MyTennisLounge.com 42.00 lead (9) NewBallsPlease 37.92
(12) The Daily Forehand 38.86 lead (5) RichardGasquet.net 38.15
(13) BBC 606 boards 40.86 lead (4) Rusedski.co.uk 40.00
(14) AndyMurray.com 40.17 lead (3) MensTennisForums 39.38
(6) GBTennisGirls.com 40.20 lead (11) Tennisopolis.com 39.43
(7) Centre Court Forum 41.36 lead (10) JamieMurray.org 39.29
(2) TalkAboutTennis 40.46 lead (15) AndyRoddick.com 40.25

I'll be back with list of daily risers & fallers plus winner picks shortly ...

steven · Tennis legend

ON THE RISE

Top scorers

Day 1: British_is_Best (BT) in 1st place with 29/32.

Day 2: JTContinental (TA), up 64 to 5= with 25/30.

Day 3: 21 entrants with 25/33 headed by sparkey (GB), up 5 to 5th.

Day 4: Raven (AM), up 62 to 14=, Drop-shot (TA), up 65 to 21=, and the three fastest risers (see below), all with 25/29.

Fastest risers

Day 2: rebel_rebel (BT), up 178 to 234= after scoring 24/30 (but would lose 164 of that rise the following day), and satorijimmy (NB), up 176 to 192= after scoring 23/30.

Day 3: jett (AR), up 107 to 246th after scoring 25/33.

Day 4: poolietennis (IN), up 134 to 224=, Fentiger (IN), up 126 to 71st, and Jtdrum10 (TA), up 116 to 277=, all after scoring 25/29.

DODGY DROPPERS

Lowest scorers

Day 1: Linz (NB), dot (IN) and recent world no. 1 Jose Javier/Buyaka86 (RF), all with 16/32.

Day 2: SuperBrat (ML), down 219 to 353=, white line fever (NB), down 91 to 409=, and Redshank.girl (IN), down 22 to 418=, with 15/30 .

Day 3: Redshank.girl (IN), down 2 to last having already lost her winner (Ferrero), with just 7/33.

Day 4: Redshank.girl (IN), now adrift by 3 points from the gorillas and 20 points from the entrant in 2nd last, with just 4/29.

Biggest fallers

Day 2: SuperBrat (ML), down 219 to 353=, and Alli (CC) & M.Mojo (GR), both down 212 to 281=.

Day 3: BHar11 (TA) & RobH (BT), both down 236 to 350= after scoring 15/33.

Day 4: Petzschner's Left Thumb (IN), down 164 to 191= after scoring 14/29.

MOST R2 WINNER PICKS SURVIVING R1

Puschkin (RG), now 4=, and bfp (DG), now 10=, with 28.

WINNER PICKS

49% Fed (a late surge almost took him to 50%)
28% Rafa
10% Muzza
8% Duckboy
1% Hewitt & Söderling
0% (2 picks) Nole & Ferrero
0% (1 pick) Chela, Llodra, Tsonga, Isner & Petzschner

Other finalist picks: Berdbrain, Davydenko, Huta Galung (!), le Monf, Cilic, Verdasco & Querrey.

steven · Tennis legend

OoP & pick %s for today's BOTB matches

CC - 2 R3 Lleyton Hewitt (AUS) [15] 93% Gael Monfils (FRA) [21] 6%
CC - 3 R3 Roger Federer (SUI) [1] 100% Arnaud Clement (FRA) 0% (0)

C1 - 1 R3 Novak Djokovic (SRB) [3] 95% Albert Montanes (ESP) [28] 0% (2)
C1 - 3 R3 Andy Roddick (USA) [5] 95% Philipp Kohlschreiber (GER) [29] 2%

C2 - 3 R3 Feliciano Lopez (ESP) [22] 47% Jurgen Melzer (AUT) [16] 47%

C5 - 1 R2 John Isner (USA) [23] 83% Thiemo De Bakker (NED) 4%
C5 - 3 R3 Yen-Hsun Lu (TPE) 0% (1) Florian Mayer (GER) 0% (0)

C12 - 3 R3 Tomas Berdych (CZE) [12] 79% Denis Istomin (UZB) 1%

C18 - 1 R2 Mikhail Youzhny (RUS) [13] 84% Paul-Henri Mathieu (FRA) 4%
C18 - 3 R3 Victor Hanescu (ROU) [31] 12% Daniel Brands (GER) 1%

There's no doubt about the biggest swing match of the day and probably of the tournament - F-Loppy 47% v Melzer 47%, with the Spaniard edging the picks by just 199-198!

No doubt about the deadest match of the day either - Lu v Mayer, which only liam_valid (CC), who picked Lu, can score for.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Had Mayer not been injured for the last few weeks and missed Roland Garros and the grass season I'd have picked him to beat Cilic and get to the 4th round. It was only his injury status that concerned me and in the end swayed me from picking him.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

yeah yeah easy to come up with the excuses now :)

eblunt · Club Coach

Looks like Isner is feeling the effects ! He's 4-0 in the first set. Don't mind that since I have Youzny to beat him in the next round biggrin