OK. Today was both good and bad for Andy.

Losers around him were Greg above and Lopez below. However, Vliegen went through as did Soderling.

Andy can't increase his points until the 3rd round and even then he wouldn't increase his ranking as no one is that close (above him). However, reaching the quarters would be quite lucrative. As it stands it would be a minimum increase of 6ranking places, and potentially 8 if Vliegen and Youzhny both lose their next matches. However, that is a long way away.

Therefore, our attention must turn to those creeping up below. Tomorrow the biggest dangers are Serra and Simon, both of whom overtake if they win their round 1 matches. They are playing Safin and Haas respectively so pins desperately needed.

Pins into Santoro and Soderling also please although both must reach the semis in order to overtake. Everyone else must reach either the semis/final or win the tournament to overtake which is a plus side of the points being lower and having to replace the 18th score (the minus point being that the same aplies to Andy!).

If Andy loses tomorrow or before the quarters it shouldn't be too bad on his ranking, maybe one or two places. However, doing well (ok, very well ie winning the thing) could result in Andy getting the seeding at Wimbledon that he targetted at the beginning of the year. (this senario requires Murray to win Queens, Tursunov to fall before the semis and none of Scrichapan/Vliegen/Youznhy/Serra to win either Queens or Halle, thus leaving Andy at number 30 in the rankings!). Should Andy reach the quarters he will definitely gain 6 places, the semis he will definitely gain 1 more, the final definitely another 1. Fingers crossed he begins the campaign by winning tomorrow.

Pins sharpened, sacrifices made, wax models formed and we'll give Andy all the help we can

(Ok, I realise I let myself dream a little in that last paragraph but I was just trying to show how things stand ranking-wise)

RobC wrote:

---

So if their name starts with an "S" we want them to lose.  nice & easy

---

First post updated.

Over to Imoen for the round- up

Just noticed this thread for the first time today. I've been doing something similar on the Rusedski board since Hamburg, stripping out all the points to defend between then and the end of this week and then adding on points gained since (while adjusting for 18th/19th bests, etc) to work out what Greg needed to do (and/or others needed to not do!) to get Greg seeded at Wimbledon.

See http://members3.boardhost.com/rusedski/msg/1150227277.html for the current version, which I hope agrees with your figures. I was very disappointed to see Vliegen win too!

As things stand, Greg will be seeded if the rumoured Gaudio and Acasuso withdrawals are confirmed (in addition to the already confirmed Coria and Andreev withdrawals) and one more player above him pulls out too, unless a player below him scores enough points this week to overtake him.

Since Youzhny lost to Santoro today, Greg's nearest challenger for 37th place in the rankings who hasn't been knocked out yet is Andy himself. Other than that, as you said, only Santoro and Soderling look like serious threats unless someone outside the top 50 at the moment goes really deep into one of this week's draws.

So, the GB no. 1 mini-battle takes on more significance than usual this week. (wouldn't it be good if two more players dropped out and Andy did well enough this week for them both to be seeded though )

Suddenly this all becomes important again: if Murray can't win, his competitors must lose .  Mirnyi on court now. 6-5 up, with serve, against Johansson.  Come on Thomas!

Unfortunately, Clement just won in Halle. double

> Welcome to trainspotters' corner

Speak for yourself!

Mirnyi wins the third in the tiebreak

Now it's between him & Bracchiali for a place in the third round. Either's as bad as the other