Battle of the Boards Bracket Contest

[Omegadoom]

Woo Hoo, thanks guys!

Congrats to all of the TATers who placed high too!

[steven]

Congrats to Omegadoom on the Rome victory and to Miles and jadesa for their top 10 finishes, even if have five finishers at the other end of the table in the bottom 25 cost you somewhat in the team competition!

Many thanks to those who kept some chat going on here when I didn't have time to look in - hopefully a few of you caught the updates on twitter too - which, btw, it is always ok to repaste into here if you think any of them will be of interest to your team-mates.


POST-ROME MASTERS 2011 BOTB PICK 'EM RANKINGS

The new overall ranking list (with 649 ranked players) and the pick 'em 'Hall of Fame' after the 2011 Rome Masters can now be found at http://bit.ly/l6F5cP

Remember that the points for Miami 2010 have come off as well as the points for Rome 2010, so whether teams or entrants have moved up or down in the rankings depends on more than just how their Rome performance differed between 2010 and 2011.

TEAMS

Congratulations to AM.com - they had been ranked 2 a record ten times without ever quite making it to the top, but despite Rome being their second worst performance of the last 12 months, they have finally hit the top of the rankings (up 1), because TAT, down 2 to WR 3 (after, coincidentally, a record ten times at the top), did even worse and had a lot more points to defend.

Of course, despite making their all-time high in much the same way as their hero has been known to make some of his CHs, it is their three 1st places (AO & USO team leagues, Wimbledon team KO), one 2nd and a 3rd achieved between June and January that have made the difference, and with very little to defend at RG compared to the main chasers, there is little danger of the Muzzanators losing the top spot before Wimbledon.

Also moving ahead of the former no. 1s are Rome winners BT.net, up 1 to WR2. MTF & Rusedski.co.uk, both unchanged, complete the new top 5.

Further down the table, there are new all-time highs for GBTG, up 1 to WR 6, MTL, up 1 to WR 9, and ATP DCC, up 1 to WR 15.

Apart from the former no. 1s, the only teams falling more than one place are the Gasquetaires, down 2 to WR 8 having not really benefited from their hero's fine run at the Foro Italico because it took them by surprise as much as it did the rest of us, and the Feddies, down 2 to WR 14 after picking up their fourth 'lanterne rouge' of the last 12 months, a precipitous fall since being world no. 1s after last year's AO.

NEW INDIVIDUAL TOP 10

With his closest chaser not playing in Rome, world no. 1 eblunt (BT) has increased his lead at the top to 300 points, despite not getting a counting score in the eternal city. However, the next two pick 'ems are two of the three slams that he is defending a double dose of top 10 points at, so things are going to get a lot tougher from now on.

Scratchy (BT) is still in 2nd despite missing Rome (though also has big points to defend at the next two slams), and Toronto 2010 winner airsmashers (BT) (who has very little to defend before Montréal) has moved up 1 to WR 3 after a top 10 finish in Rome to give his team a complete monopoly of the first three places, as andy_ipod (AM) slips 3 places to WR 6.

Also moving up in(to) the top 10 are former world no. 1 cazza99 (AM), up 1 to WR 4, Snoo Foo (MT), up 2 to a career high WR 5 and preventing another English monopoly of the top half dozen places, anne (IN), up 7 to a career high WR 7 (taking out daughter and current world no. 11 imoen (BT)'s career high of 8 set after Shanghai 2010 - there is quite a family battle going on there!), Borovnia (TY), up 2 to a career high WR 8, former world no. 1 Scotsguy (ML), up 2 to WR 9, and Roy (GR), up 15 to WR 10.

Three players who had top 40 finishes at both Miami and Rome last year have dropped out of the top 10 - TimS (GR), down 10 to WR 16, The Knight (BT), down 10 to WR 19, and Lizzim (AM), down 22 to WR 30.

ON THE RISE

A 6th place finish in Rome makes Miles (TA), up 32 to WR 23, the biggest riser in the top 25, but the joint fastest riser in the top 50 (along with ManofJelly (BB), up 43 to WR 50) is Rome winner Omegadoom (TA), up 43 to WR 34 - coincidentally, Rome runner-up srberg (DF), up 10 to WR 35 (a rise limited by having Miami 2010 4th place points coming off) is one place behind in the overall rankings too.

The fastest risers in the top 100 are greatunclebulgaria (JM), up 76 to WR 66 after finishing 3rd in Rome, and FlirtingWD (ML), up 76 to WR 73. In the top 150, Meags (TN), up 83 to WR 149, leads the charge after finishing 4th in Rome, while jadesa (TA), up 85 to WR 171 after finishing 6= in Rome, is the fastest riser in the top 200.

The first triple-figure riser in the list is Agi (DC), up 110 to WR 297 after finishing 9= in Rome, and the only other one is John Galt (IN), up 131 to WR 536 after following up his 4th from last debut at the AO with a top 100 finish in Rome.

The highest new entrant is Mastermind (ML) at WR 553 and the highest re-entrant (after more than a year away) is osengur (TN), 15= in Rome, at WR 455

DODGY DROPPERS

The first triple-figure faller on the list is GVGirl (TA), down 101 to WR 204 after not playing BOTB so far this year, while the biggest faller in the top 300 is SuperBrat (ML), down 135 to WR 231 for the same reason. However, the biggest faller of all is maedal (TA), down 167 to WR 467. The top dropout is Robert/AIH (IN), who was WR 401 before his remaining points (from top 10 finishes at both Miami and Rome last year) came off.

Away from those with very few scores left, Miami 2010 winner francky (RG) (167th in Rome this year) and Rome 2010 winner fil-813 (IN) (128th this year) fell 28 to WR 47 and 63 to WR 284 respectively.

THE NEXT PICK 'EM

Entries for the next pick 'em, Roland Garros, open on Friday (with a Sunday deadline), with Wimbledon (and its more civilised Monday deadline) following a few weeks later.

[Miles]

My new ATP twin: Alexandr Dolgopolov.

At least I had a better clay court season than he did.

Who is your ATP twin?

[Omegadoom]

Thanks Steven!


I am, um, Sergiy Stakhovsky!

[Charlie02123]

Oh sheesh. At 198, I'm Fritz Wolmarans.

I've never heard of him.

[luvs10s]

Dropped to 120, just call me Lukas Lacko.

[ptmcmahon]

Appropriately enough...I'm Peter Polansky!

[beaujarkko]

Uh, TaT? We've got a crapload of points to defend at RG. No mistakes. (This is coming from me, granted...)

[James7]

Andrea Arnaboldi, whoever that is. Apparently he just jumped 43 spots to 270.

I'm surprised by the number of points I got. I thought I probably did terrible for Rome, but turns out I was at the middle of the pack. At this rate I should be able to recognize a ranking-buddy name when I get to actually having points for all tournaments.

[mmmm8]

I'm Paulo Mathieu. Which feels unfortunately appropriate at the moment. Like him I dropped waaaay out of the top 50 to 107.

[waylandboy-tw]

Call me Hot Sauce!

[ptmcmahon]

THE NEXT PICK 'EM

Entries for the next pick 'em, Roland Garros, open on Friday (with a Sunday deadline), with Wimbledon (and its more civilised Monday deadline) following a few weeks later.

I'm leaving on vacation Saturday AM, so thank goodness they're open on Friday...this may be the only FO contest I get to do!

[patrick]

I'm leaving on vacation Saturday AM, so thank goodness they're open on Friday...this may be the only FO contest I get to do!

PeterSkan should be available tomorrow after the draw along with You can't Win Jack.

[oploskoffie]

Call me Jurgen Zopp (rank 201)

[jadesa]

I'm Marco Chiudinelli. Looks like I didn't play Roland Garros last year, so maybe I'll move up a few spots or I will play horribly and tank TATs rankings.