2010 TORONTO MASTERS BOTB - DAY 2 'SYNDICATED' REPORT

Another crazy day in Toronto led to Billy the bookie bot finishing R1 level with the gorillas on 50% and rankings bot Roberta doing only 1 point better. The madness was completed by Duckboy withdrawing extremely late, leaving those who picked him to win having to rely on that most unreliable of lucky losers, PHM! Devvarman came in as a LL for Gonzo too, but went out to le Monf almost before most of us had noticed he'd got in!

Muppet of the day, without a doubt, was 97% pick Cilic, who lost to Troicki. There are also dishonourable mentions for 91% pick Baggy, upset by Chardy, 82% pick Count Duckula, upset by Fognini, and 62% pick Petzsche, upset by Dolgopolov. Querrey in R1 and Söderling in R2 also also went a set down, but they at least managed to recover.

The big swing matches were won by 59% pick Numpty Nalby after a few wobbles v Ferrer and 48% pick Kohli - in the latter case, it looks like I was wrong to assume that all Tipsy's moaning on twitter over the last few days was a smokescreen, because he retired after just 4 games. Doh!

Detailed results can be found at http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/competitions.html and they are being updated regularly each day, with 'headlines' and the odd 'quote of the day' appearing on http://twitter.com/botb1 as well.

TEAMS

AM.com fell as low as 5th quite late on, but finished the day back on top by just 0.01 points from the Dammitaires, up 1 to 2nd - the French team won R1 and are doing remarkably well despite their hero's loss on day 1. In what seems like a shady 'serial muppets alliance', it was the Nalbandian win that gave the latter their biggest boost!

The only other teams to rise more than one place were Team CC, up 2 to 3rd, Rusedski.co.uk, up 3 to 4th, the Feddies, up 4 to 8th, and TAT, up 2 to 11th, the world no. 1s escaping last place with the very last match of the day.

BBC 606 fell 2 to 6th, but the fallers of the day were the Ducklings, down 7 to 9th (and that's before any of the matches their hero was due to play before his w/d have even taken place!) and the new lanternes rouges are GBTG, down 2 to 13th, just behind MTF, down 3 to 12th. Believe it or not, a few matches before the end of the day, AM.com and MTF were just one place apart, but they have gone in opposite directions since and are now at opposite ends of the table.

INDIVIDUALS

In only his 2nd tournament (he finished 399th at Wimbledon), bendixp (IN) is now the outright leader, but bizarrely he is also the first entrant to have lost his ultimate winner pick, Ferrer! With 19/24 correct in R1 and 3/3 so far in R2, he is 1 point ahead of Anne (IN), who ended Tuesday up 4 in 2nd after being the first entrant to claim the outright lead earlier in the day.

The 9 entrants who are 1 more point behind include 6 people who are in the top 100 of the overall rankings, Akhenaten (BT), Hawkeye (AM) & drewziph (AM), all down 2 to 3=, Dark_Necrofear (CC) & t_torres (VB), both up 3 to 3=, and robxon (BT), up 24 to 3=. The other three are genbrit (AM), up 3 to 3=, and the top scorers of the day with 17 points out of 19, bojek (RF) & Johnny (GB), both up 81 to 3=.

ON THE RISE

7 of the entrants who matched the new top 2 by scoring 16/19 on Tuesday rose over 100 places as a result - former world no. 1 Pebs (MP), greatunclebulgaria (JM), marina36 (RG) & Shayan86 (ML) all jumped 140 to 36=, while risers of the day Imoen (BT), elisat (TA) & Nevets (CC) went up 151 to 87=.

DODGY DROPPERS

The only entrants who scored less than 50% on day 2 were marion bernard (ND), down 181 to 265th, and Mom of Twins (IN), down 9 to last - the latter is the only entrant who is still in the gorillas' cage following a mass escape towards the end of the day. But never fear, our most famous serial gorilla botherer fell over 10 places, so sallydaisy (JM), bananas in hand, is already well on her way to rescuing them should they be at risk of starvation.

Others who fell more than 180 places were The Hoose (BT), down 189 to 216, and fallers of the day doublelix (AR) & unclefester (IN), both down 207 to 234=.

OUTLOOK

After such carnage in R1, it is not surprising that nobody has all of their R2 winner picks still standing, but jjnow (TA) has somehow managed to hold onto 15, with Tipsy the only member of his last 16 to have gone out in R1.

REMAINING R2 MATCHES

Rafa, Querrey, PHM, Muzza & Djokovic have all been picked to win their matches by 98% or more, while Davydenko (89% v Foggy 1%), Almagro (85% v Llodra 13%) & Verdasco (71% v Chardy 1%) are also very heavily backed.

Conversely, the Kohli 7% v Troicki 1% and Hanescu 6% v Polansky 0% matches are not of much interest to many of us, though anyone who has picked the winner of these two matches will get a nice boost against virtually everyone else in the field.

The matches that will see the most shuffling around in the rankings if the favourites win are le Monf 55% v de Bakker 6% (Thiemo's chance to atone for putting out F-Loppy) plus Numpty 58% v Robredo 3% and Youzhny 57% v Dolgo 7%, where both favourites put out the 2nd fav to win those R2 matches in big swing matches in R1.