Entries for our Monte Carlo AMS pick 'em competition are now open.

You can access the entry form via http://www.britishtennis.net/Competitions.html - you can also find a link to the post-Miami overall pick 'em rankings there too. The results at the end of day 1 will be accessible via that same link before the start of play on day 2 (i.e. Monday) and intra-day updates will appear from Monday onwards.

We believe they are planning to schedule quite a few main draw matches for Sunday (along with the final qualifying matches), so for this tournament, everyone will need to make their picks without knowing who each qualifier is. Fortunately, there are no Q v Q matches this time, so that just leaves you to judge whether the players drawn to play (Q)s are so weak on clay that they are likely to lose to the average qualifier!

IMPORTANT: In order for your ranking points from this competition to be combined with your ranking points from earlier pick 'ems, you need to enter with EXACTLY the same name as you used for previous pick 'ems - even an extra space or a single missing character may be enough to throw the system. If in doubt, please copy the name after the 'Hi' at the top of this email and paste it into the entry form.

If you want to change the name or team you use for pick 'em permanently, please email btpickem@hotmail.com after you enter Miami to let us know what you have changed it from or to instead of just entering with a new name and hoping that we spot that it is the same person!

PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS

Because of the tight timescales and the ever-increasing number of boards/forums taking part, I won't have time to go round and advertise this competition everywhere as I have done in the past, so if you think that other people from your board/forum might like to take part too, I would be really grateful if you would set up a thread or post about the competition there if nobody else from your board has already done so. Representatives of tennisopolis, centrecourt and the Feddies in particular did a spectacular job of this last time and many thanks to them and everyone else who posted on their forum, thus helping us to shatter our previous AMS entrants record for Miami. I don't expect quite so many this time because of the tight deadline, but who knows!

ENTRY DEADLINE

The main entry deadline is when play is due to start in the main draw, i.e. 10 am UK time, (09.00 GMT / 10.00 BST / 11.00 CET / 05.00 US Eastern / 02.00 US Pacific) tomorrow, SUNDAY. However, late entries will be accepted without penalty until the first game in the first main draw match has been completed. Last year, the first main draw match was the second match on the main court and hence started at about 11.00 GMT but I cannot guarantee that this will be the case this year. Because people in different time zones will be receiving this email at different times of day (or night), to be fair to everyone we like to give people about 24 hours to enter from when this email is sent. So in this case, we will accept even later entries up to 15.00 GMT on Sunday (or 24 hours after the last of this batch of emails leaves our mail server), subject to the following conditions:

- late entrants will automatically score 0 for any matches that have already started by the time their entries are received
- no entries will be accepted more than 5 minutes after the last qualifying match ends, even if that happens before 15.00 GMT T

he second condition is to ensure that nobody gets to make their picks with qualifiers already placed in the draw, so if you are pushing it close, please keep an eye on the live scores to make sure you send your entry in time!

LATE CHANGES TO THE DRAW If you can, please use the Print button at the bottom of the entry form to print your picks before you send your entry so that you have a record of them. The page you will see after sending your entry will explain what your options are if there are any changes to the draw due to late withdrawals before play starts. Good luck :-)

Steven

Entered :ok:

Anyone else?

Just made it I believe :)

Just checked the overall rankings - I have gone up! :yahoo: course - I have just done these picks in a huge rush and will be going down again afterwards :unsure:

Entered this last night. I'm gonna lay the smackdown on all your candy asses this time. :yep: :yep:

are you using the dairylea again? :unsure:

:D :D

This time it's "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter". :yep: :yep: :ok: :ok:

Dairy Lea didn't get me very far last time.

:sicky:

I hate that stuff!

Bet I am permanently behind you now, gazing at it :moody:

I've entered (would be useless if i hadn't really considering i started this thread :P ) I think WimbledonAce and Viva said in another thread that they've entered as well :ok:

So it seems like there are a few of you that are queuing up to have the smack layed down on your candy asses! :yep: :yep:

are you dealing drugs or something gav???? :unsure:

its the only reason I enterered :devil:

I knew you had an alterior motive to entering the comp! :) :)

Only the ones that end in "-azepam" ;) ;)

that would be the smack then....... :P although laying it down on our candy asses is an.....interesting.....way of taking it :blink:

pebs, i think you're the top placed player from CC actually...... :P

:blink:

that cant be right for - I am :turkey: champion!

No, i've just checked - no one above you from CC at all, i'm second placed (just had to get that in there :P ) and Harry Potter gets the :turkey: award at the moment. hang on, i should check where Mr Dairylea is :P

Fishflaps is a new entry at 352 :P

Fishflaps is a newcomer. Fishflaps will teach you all that Fishflaps is the Great One! :yep: :yep:

Yeah Ive entered and printed off my picks this time! Just noticed q a few top players missing from this one.

really? i thought most of them were there :unsure:

Im in ! ;)

by my count we've got at least 7 players on our team, which isn't bad considering how late notice it was! :)

Yeah a lot of them are - but no Blake, Roddick, Berdych, Baghdatis, Gonzo

yeah, good point! The Americans usually ignore the European clay season as much as they can don't they? But wonder why no Gonzo, Baggy, Berdych :unsure:

Yeah have to say it wasn't an inspiring draw for me, and there were lots of players that I don't know much about in there then again I don't really follow clay.

Shame it was such short notice as we had to pick with the qualies missing, there might have been some names I'd known that were capable of upets :shrug: I just predited every Q to lose.

Btw did folks find it striaghtforward? Assuming he doesn't play badly or is injured I found Nadal's bottom bit reasonably strightforward, and I think Davydenko was down there too.

In the top half though there was a bit of a tricky bit for me - I think we started off with Robredo v Wawrinka, and Rob was seeded but that wasn't straightforward as Waw is good and coming up and Robredo is lousily unpredictable. Anyway the winner would meet Soderling, another good up and coming on form player, capable of beating Robredo and it's close with him and Waw at present. Then I think Nalby entered the mix, Waw has beaten him loads - and then if Fed was still around we all know he'd be vulnerable to Nalby, then Djokovic came into it :blink: I got lost I think! :lol:

the problem is that they're playing both the qualies and the main draw today so I think they've organised it so that no one will pick with the qualies entered - only way to make it fair. :shrug:

Yeah I had the same problem with Robredo and Soderling. :unsure:
And Nalbys no safe bet either .Cant remember about Murray think I had him going out in the first round . (Wasnt able to print mine out as dont have a printer at home ).
All good fun though :)

Yeah so I have just discovered! :wacko: I don't blame predictions the organisers at all, they are doing a great job :ok: Those tournie organisers are slefish though - they should consider the predictors out there ;) :lol:

Wonder what impact not knowing the Qs will have? And I wonder if anyone has predicted wins by Qs?I didn't even know who was in Quallies. If Robin Haase is in he might be dangerous.

i did but i can't remember who :blush: just thought there must be some chance that one would win :unsure:

I found the first round really hard!!!! For example Kiefer v Cilic, Robredo v Wawrinka, Stepanek v Soderling, Lopez v Murray, Andreev v Tursunov ......... could all go either way. In the end I went with Kiefer, Robredo, Stepanek,Murray and Andreev. Seems I did ok with Kiefer.

I put 2 qualies through - the one against Chela and against Starace. Although I think the qualie against Haas has a v gd chance as he is so under par at the mo. Couldnt do it to Tommy though!!

Have got Rafa going all the way in fact my semi finalists are all very predictable, shame on me!

Yours sound similar to mine ,but its the year of the unpredictable I guess ! !

Qualies in the mix are :


Gicquel
Minar
Lapentti
Ramirez Hidalgo
Rochus
Bollelli
Vliegen

Im not too bothered as I picked blind last time.

Deadline was 3pm so no new entries now :ok:

Think Kohlschreiber and Acasuso are up now, Im banking on Acasuso repeating his tricks from last time!

Yes, they seem to have overlaoded that part of the draw where Sod, Rob, Waw and Nalby are. Wouldn't bet on any of them or aghainst any of them - well actualyl I woudl bet against Robredo, and I did so watch him storm through now! :rolleyes:

So are mine but I tactically that is the way to do it cos you don't get as much points at the beggining. I fancied having Warik or Soderling as a SF though.

And all those matches you said were tough ones. I struggled too. Andreev is unpredicatable, but he's good on clay and I don't think Tursy's beaten him before, or not often, so I went for Andreev. He's a potential upsetter, but my feeling is he'll be out early with the competition. Now watch him win :lol:

I'm nervous for Murray against Lopez, and I put Cilic to beat Kiefer. I'd like Cilic to do really well but I don't think this is his surface and he's still a diamond in the rough.

i put cilic to beat kiefer too - but unfortunately he lost today :shrug: bodes bloody well doesn't it??? :giggle:

I do think Murray could easily go out first round, even dreamt it as well! But I still put him through.

Looks like it's raining there to put an end to our fun :(

Oh no! Uselss Cilic!:lol: