British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

British Wins at Grand Slam Tournaments - predictions contest overview thread

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

JonH comes home wrote:
And here is the updated year in table - Indy still leads the way, but a log jam behind and plenty of people who could catch him at the US Open! 30 points for a spot on prediction and then in line with F1 style points down the top 10 (top 12 or 13 in fact with ties)

Total Name AO FO W USO

43 Indiana 18 25
31 goldfish 25 6
30 Danten 30
30 DF 30
30 Sheddie 15 15
21 Coup Droit 6 15
20 Ralfie 2 18
18 Seagull 18
18 The Addict 18
17 JonH 2 15
15 9vicman 15
15 Bob In Spain 15
15 Miriamabc 15
15 Rain Delay 15
12 Var 6 6
10 Vhughes 10
8 Tanaqui 8
6 Blue Belle 6
6 Danny 1312 6
6 Elegant Point 6
3 Jan 2 1
2 mdewey 2
2 SuperT 2
1 Brendan F 1
1 Sliced Backhand 1

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Monday 14th of July 2025 09:51:02 AM

I will finalise the points table for the season once we know if we are hitting 17 or fewer, maybe later tonight, and confirm who is the seasons winner!

if youve worked it out, dont spoil it, the formal declaration will come soon enough!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Here is our updated roll of honour, to include Telstar. I will update the total once British interest is over and, in this tally, WILL also include the 2 mixed doubles winners as it is a better comparator when we look back on how many wins Brits achieved - better to have the two wins than not, right now!!

Wins	Titles
	2019	Best predictor
13	AO	Wolf, Miriamabc
11	FO	No winner named
25	W	Wolf (2)
24	USO	Miriamabc (2), MichaelD, Indiana
	2020
21	AO	Blue Belle
9	FO	SuperT
	W	no competition
11	USO	SuperT (2)
	2021
23	AO	Indiana (2)
9	FO	Brendan F
40	W	foobarbaz
32	USO	Miriamabc (3)
	2022
17	AO	brittak
16	FO	no competition
43	W	Miramabc (4)
26	USO	JonH
	2023
20	AO	Coup Droit, Indiana (3)
15	FO	Miriamabc (5), JonH (2)
30	W	Miriamabc (6)
26	USO	Elegant Point
	2024
21	AO	Elegant Point (2), goldfish
13	FO	mdewey
40	W	Indiana (4)
27	USO	Indiana (5), FlipFlops
	2025
28	AO	goldfish (2)
36	FO	Indiana (6)
39	W	DF, Danten
	USO	Telstar

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Sunday 31st of August 2025 10:30:05 PM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

In terms of the year long standings - we can still land on 17 wins in the contest, so Telstar can either remain on 25 points if we fall short of that or 30 if we end on 17 wins in total. Even with that, Telstar would fall short of the top 3.

Here is the table as it stands - I will update Telstar to 30 points and equal 4th with Danten and Sheddie if we end on 30. However, the full provisional table is below:

And we have a new champion, with DF running through to pip Indy at the post. Indy still gets a well done 2nd place but his form fell away towards the season end. goldfish won the AO and kept going to gain more points and take bronze medal

WELL DONE DF!!

Position	Total	Name	AO	FO	W	USO

1	45	DF			30	15
2	43	Indiana	18	25
3	32	goldfish	25		6	1
Eq 4	30	Danten			30
	30	Sheddie		15	15
6	25	Telstar				25
7	22	Var		6	6	10
Eq 8	21	Coup Droit		6	15
	21	Danny 1312	6			15
Eq 10	20	Ralfie	2	18
	20	The Addict	18			2
	19	Brendan F			1	18
	18	Seagull	18
	17	JonH	2		15
	16	9vicman		15		1
	15	Bob In Spain			15
	15	Miriamabc		15
	15	Rain Delay		15
	12	mdewey		2		10
	11	Vhughes	10			1
	10	Brittak				10
	8	Tanaqui	8
	6	Blue Belle	6
	6	Elegant Point			6
	4	Johnny Aitch				4
	3	Jan	2		1
	2	SuperT		2
	1	Sliced Backhand			1

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Sunday 31st of August 2025 10:44:32 PM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Theres a temptation to tinker with the points system for next year. Ive followed the F1 points system, just because. If I changed it, it would be to link it more to accuracy. Eg spot on vote would get say 10 points, 1 win away 9, 2 wins away 8 etc down to 9 wins away (up or down) getting 1 point. I could grade that a little more, eg 2 point differentials or 5 or something but the principle would be like that.

One to think about before the AO version!

I dont think Ill intro rolling rankings, just align it to the calendar year like this year and last. Dont need to over engineer it!

indiana · Tennis legend

One to think about indeed. My immediate reaction is that I do like the F1 points system as opposed to that kind of accuracy linked system.

Not connected to me getting 25 French Open points while being massively inaccurate. Honest.

Indeed, I think it keeps a lot of interest alive with the very possible 30 vs 0 turnaround or at least 30 vs not a lot while still being relatively close with predictions.

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 1st of September 2025 07:32:06 AM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Haha - yeah, I think I do as well. Questions in my mind included:

Does 5 bonus points over reward for getting spot on - on the other hand, so few get it spot on, should we reward the spot on vote more?

I award all those in , say, equal third the third place points - and if there are, say , 3 people on third place, next points are for 6th place etc. In that situation, should I award those three people 3rd to 5th points as an average of those 3 places? Or does this penalise someone who ended up with several others making the same prediction? Or deter people from making the same prediction as someone else, knowing their points will get watered down?

And should I go deeper than top 10, maybe award everyone points? So if 25 voters take part (excluding anonymous voters) then winner gets 25, and so on down. And if 30 take part, winner gets 30 etc

Probably other things but I will dwell a little in the background - happy to take input though!

mdewey · Junior player

If we are going to change the ranking system let me make a few comments.

At the moment people who enter the competition but are wildly out get the same score (zero) as people who never enter that one. That does not reward the loyal triers as much as it might.

Awarding a bonus to the exact score seems to reward chance too much. Getting it spot on as opposed to one off is not much better.

May I make a suggestion:
After each slam each person is awarded a score based on the absolute difference between their choice and the true outcome. Exact hits hence get zero and everyone else who enters get a positive score. Then after the US Open add them up and the lowest score wins. People who do not enter are given a score one larger than the largest score for that tournament.
If getting close is to be more highly rewarded then perhaps square the difference so they score 0, 1, 4, 9, 16 instead of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. If that is seen as too harsh on people who are ten out or more then perhaps raise to the power 1.5 which rounded are 0, 1, 3, 5, 8, 11, 15. 19, 23, 27, 32 and so on.

I am happy to go with whatever you decide would work but you did ask for suggestions.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

mdewey wrote:
If we are going to change the ranking system let me make a few comments.

At the moment people who enter the competition but are wildly out get the same score (zero) as people who never enter that one. That does not reward the loyal triers as much as it might.

Awarding a bonus to the exact score seems to reward chance too much. Getting it spot on as opposed to one off is not much better.

May I make a suggestion:
After each slam each person is awarded a score based on the absolute difference between their choice and the true outcome. Exact hits hence get zero and everyone else who enters get a positive score. Then after the US Open add them up and the lowest score wins. People who do not enter are given a score one larger than the largest score for that tournament.
If getting close is to be more highly rewarded then perhaps square the difference so they score 0, 1, 4, 9, 16 instead of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. If that is seen as too harsh on people who are ten out or more then perhaps raise to the power 1.5 which rounded are 0, 1, 3, 5, 8, 11, 15. 19, 23, 27, 32 and so on.

I am happy to go with whatever you decide would work but you did ask for suggestions.

Hi Michael - and that is much appreciated. I like the principles for sure (rewarding loyal triers, some bonus for being more accurate than others but maybe not too much), etc . And it doesnt penalise people who vote for the same number of wins en masse, which was a concern i wanted to avoid. Vote for what you feel is right, not to avoid popular numbers.

and I understand the process for scoring.

thanks for this. Lets see if any other ideas come in over the next few weeks - theres plenty of time - and take a look in the round. I may even have a vote on it!

thanks and other ideas welcomed

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Monday 1st of September 2025 04:04:50 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

The more I think it about it, the divergence between 30 for an on the spot 1st and 18 for second ( or less if there are 1st equals ) is yes maybe too much. So in some way, maybe a bit less comparative reward for being spot on.

In fact, I think we should retrospectively do way with these extra points for being spot on in 2025. No idea who that would then leave as the 2025 overall winner

( 1st paragraph serious, 2nd one not )

Anyway, very interesting post, mdewey. When I have time, I think I will have a play around with different scenarios to see the possible results of these ideas. Certainly thought provoking.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
The more I think it about it, the divergence between 30 for an on the spot 1st and 18 for second ( or less if there are 1st equals ) is yes maybe too much. So in some way, maybe a bit less comparative reward for the being spot on.

In fact, I think we should retrospectively do way with these extra points for being spot in 2025. No idea who that would then leave as the 2025 overall winner

( 1st paragraph serious, 2nd one not )

Anyway, very interesting post, mdewey. When I have time, I think I will have a play around with different scenarios to see the possible results of these ideas. Certainly thought provoking.

That would be cool, Indy, maybe using this years predictions; I also have last years saved as well so can post those to you. Im happy to send you the excel worksheet but not sure of best way of doing that? If I DMd you, would I be able to attach it as an actual excel you could then use?

Glad people seem to be invested in this - that is always my aim with these things, and with PoM and PoS, that they arent just mine, that others become invested in some way also.

Now this is done for the season, time to get it right for next year - and now time to refocus on the PoM and PoS end of season charge. 4 months to go!

PS last season the bonus was just one point for being spot on; ie 26 instead of 25. It would indeed have changed the result had we retained that. Getting spot on is relatively rare though (3 times out of last 8 slams) that it felt like bigger than last year but less than this year would have worked.

I like mdeweys idea of rewarding those who take part, the implication being all participants get points of some sort, and those who miss out get zero for that slam at least.

indiana · Tennis legend

Thanks for the offer, Jon but it's OK. I'm very much sit down with pen and paper than any excel stuff, mainly because I have never got round to improving my skills there, as I had ideas I might with more spare time.

And I'm happy to just look back myself for previous contest results.

As a total aside, because I am that pen and paper guy and update GB rankings and forecast rankings manually and actually write them out, a lot of these then stick in the otherwise vast empiness of my brain, so usefully or annoyingly I can often instantly spot rankings that are fairly well out ( such as a doubles instead of a singles ranking ).

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

No worries - I actually realised I dont have the full results of all entrants, just the points scoring positions, but the last couple of years results are all relatively easy to find in this thread, as you say.

And my brain is a complete sieve and that is no doubt related to too much computer use!