Thought I'd add the points from the mens & womens tables, to see if there was any which way I could be a winner, but not even close, Indi comes out on top:
Indi 91
Ace 89
Brendan 88
Paulisi 87
Tennpar 84
Steve J 84
Jaykay 84
Yes, many thanks, Sim. Next year I won't spend much time on this, I'll just trust my first thoughts, and hope for the best. (And pray for no injuries !)
Thought I'd add the points from the mens & womens tables, to see if there was any which way I could be a winner, but not even close, Indi comes out on top:
Indi 91 Ace 89 Brendan 88 Paulisi 87 Tennpar 84 Steve J 84 Jaykay 84
Cheers Leafster for not entering the female predictions !
Yes, well done them (said through extremely gritted teeth ! , try and smile and be gracious, CD, come on, try harder.....)
Interesting, though, that the winning score for women was 45 and 62 for men.
Mind you, as Indy says on the men's - 62!!! That's just freaky.
But even below that, there were still 10 who scored over 45 in the men. Maybe to do with injuries? Or a bigger pool of women of a similar level?
I guess Naiktha switching in April would be the main reason for the contrast because that's one that would have stumped literally everyone, whereas Jan switched in December so was included in the vast majority (if not all) of the men's picks. Katie B not hitting a ball for 7 of the 11 months another, and I guess general underperforming from a lot of the women - I recall SuperT saying something along the lines of the 'top 7 pick themselves', which included Gabi, yet she ended up 12th or 13th. Likewise Naomi, while a few did forecast her struggles (and excluded her), the vast majority would still have included her in their top 10. Naomi might be a little similar to James Ward in the men's where age, length on tour, maybe not as many wildcards etc. could see them slide down, but most would still have expected them to remain in the top 10, James of course did, but Naomi didn't.
On a more positive note, Sam has pretty much consistently been playing around / above her career high for 6 months now at the ripe age of 32, and while it's great to see, judging by how few picked her, it was a pleasant surprise.
I agree that Naithka was a complete unknown and unpredictable (apart from someone really in the know).
But the others, although true, are just part and parcel of normal tennis i.e. someone gets injured (Katie B), someone has a bad year (Gabi), someone suddenly springs back (Sam)
THere's no reason that should just be in the girls. So, yes, maybe a fluke year that all the major impact events happened in the girls. Or maybe something about the women and the group of players makes it more likely.
It might be interesting, Sim, to have a year-end predictions summary thread i.e. for each year, the winning total, the losing total, maybe who won (or top three), to see if there's any common theme.
(NB Of the events you picked, AV, the only one I got right was Naomi who wasn't in the my top 10: as you say, got all the others completely wrong..... not easy....although, for me, it was Jodie who was my trump card, a max 10 points, which is pretty flukey, so Ta, Jodie ).
Yes, well done them (said through extremely gritted teeth ! , try and smile and be gracious, CD, come on, try harder.....)
Interesting, though, that the winning score for women was 45 and 62 for men.
Mind you, as Indy says on the men's - 62!!! That's just freaky.
But even below that, there were still 10 who scored over 45 in the men. Maybe to do with injuries? Or a bigger pool of women of a similar level?
I guess Naiktha switching in April would be the main reason for the contrast because that's one that would have stumped literally everyone, whereas Jan switched in December so was included in the vast majority (if not all) of the men's picks. Katie B not hitting a ball for 7 of the 11 months another, and I guess general underperforming from a lot of the women - I recall SuperT saying something along the lines of the 'top 7 pick themselves', which included Gabi, yet she ended up 12th or 13th. Likewise Naomi, while a few did forecast her struggles (and excluded her), the vast majority would still have included her in their top 10. Naomi might be a little similar to James Ward in the men's where age, length on tour, maybe not as many wildcards etc. could see them slide down, but most would still have expected them to remain in the top 10, James of course did, but Naomi didn't.
On a more positive note, Sam has pretty much consistently been playing around / above her career high for 6 months now at the ripe age of 32, and while it's great to see, judging by how few picked her, it was a pleasant surprise.
Oh dear - my words seem to have come back to haunt me!! I remember also expressing surprise that some had chosen to leave out Katy D and in fact a couple of weeks ago it looked as though she might be out of the top 10 too, so clearly nothing is certain in the world of predictions. I do think the female predictions were particularly difficult this year given so many unexpected events as outlined by AV. I was one of those that left Naomi out as her form had been showing clear signs of decline in 2018, but that was the only thing I got right and my emotional pick of Laura really scuppered my chances.
Having said all that I find the whole exercise completely fascinating and am so grateful to Sim for running this. From a not very thorough analysis of the results it appears that the key to winning is to get really accurate rankings. I notice that AV and Paulsi both scored 18 points on the rankings bit which was far more than the vast majority of us. Also coincidentally they seem to have been the first two to register their votes so maybe that should tell us something? I'm looking forward to next year's already.
Yes, well done them (said through extremely gritted teeth ! , try and smile and be gracious, CD, come on, try harder.....)
Interesting, though, that the winning score for women was 45 and 62 for men.
Mind you, as Indy says on the men's - 62!!! That's just freaky.
But even below that, there were still 10 who scored over 45 in the men. Maybe to do with injuries? Or a bigger pool of women of a similar level?
I guess Naiktha switching in April would be the main reason for the contrast because that's one that would have stumped literally everyone, whereas Jan switched in December so was included in the vast majority (if not all) of the men's picks. Katie B not hitting a ball for 7 of the 11 months another, and I guess general underperforming from a lot of the women - I recall SuperT saying something along the lines of the 'top 7 pick themselves', which included Gabi, yet she ended up 12th or 13th. Likewise Naomi, while a few did forecast her struggles (and excluded her), the vast majority would still have included her in their top 10. Naomi might be a little similar to James Ward in the men's where age, length on tour, maybe not as many wildcards etc. could see them slide down, but most would still have expected them to remain in the top 10, James of course did, but Naomi didn't.
On a more positive note, Sam has pretty much consistently been playing around / above her career high for 6 months now at the ripe age of 32, and while it's great to see, judging by how few picked her, it was a pleasant surprise.
Oh dear - my words seem to have come back to haunt me!! I remember also expressing surprise that some had chosen to leave out Katy D and in fact a couple of weeks ago it looked as though she might be out of the top 10 too, so clearly nothing is certain in the world of predictions. I do think the female predictions were particularly difficult this year given so many unexpected events as outlined by AV. I was one of those that left Naomi out as her form had been showing clear signs of decline in 2018, but that was the only thing I got right and my emotional pick of Laura really scuppered my chances.
Having said all that I find the whole exercise completely fascinating and am so grateful to Sim for running this. From a not very thorough analysis of the results it appears that the key to winning is to get really accurate rankings. I notice that AV and Paulsi both scored 18 points on the rankings bit which was far more than the vast majority of us. Also coincidentally they seem to have been the first two to register their votes so maybe that should tell us something? I'm looking forward to next year's already.
Haha, I recalled it because I was in full agreement at the time.
Congratulations AV - I'm surprised by my position.
Likewise paulisi.
I was hovering around the top of both lists for much of the duration, but ended in midtable mediocrity on the men's side, so nice to end up joint top here.
There was one particular ranking movement that probably had quite an effect in the final week.
Fran's drop by 3 places out of the top 10? Yes, many of us must have dropped points because of that fall - I had her in the right position at GB #9 until that decline. I'm very happy for Sam, who in fact scuppered us all by not only her revival, but the fact she was able to play the latter half of the year uninjured. Having just checked only telstar had Sam in his top 10, but benefited only to the sum of 1 pt as had Sam at GB #9 not 4 and rank 366 no 218.
There was one particular ranking movement that probably had quite an effect in the final week.
Fran's drop by 3 places out of the top 10? Yes, many of us must have dropped points because of that fall - I had her in the right position at GB #9 until that decline. I'm very happy for Sam, who in fact scuppered us all by not only her revival, but the fact she was able to play the latter half of the year uninjured. Having just checked only telstar had Sam in his top 10, but benefited only to the sum of 1 pt as had Sam at GB #9 not 4 and rank 366 no 218.
Fran's was a late movenent that no doubt effected some folk.
The one I had in mind was in the very final week when Maia dropped a net 50 points due to her Shrewsbury 25K title dropping out.