Boris Becker is now engaged to his late manager’s 24-year-old daughter, Alessandra (Sandy) Meyer-Wölden.

Oh man, did I plummet. Ended the tournament at #148 - not even in the top half. Oh well. I did actually move up five spots in the overall rankings for the year though. The U.S. Open is next up, starting on August 25th. Still have a few weeks left to evaluate players! The Olympics next week sorta makes things interesting, what with the long trip over there and then right back again and who will even go, etc. For those who don’t lose early, players will have one week before the U.S. Open starts, so will they decide to play one last warm-up event or skip it so as to not push themselves too hard? Yes….hmm…

No, that’s not ‘REZ-uh-MAY’ above; it’s ‘reh-ZOOM’. From my Tennisopolis.com post: “i thought i’d get creative on the pick’ems and enter twice, each under a different username: one for my REAL picks and one just based on rankings/seedings just to see how it played out. well, i guess you have to use a different email address too when using two usernames, cuz it appears i’m only entered once - with my set of picks based on rankings! oof! not the one i wanted. oh well. learn for next time.” Yes, I just quoted myself. That’s ok, right? Anyway, so with my ‘mistake’ picks, I’m up to #71 out of 224. There are only three from our Tennisopolis team entered in this one.

update: up to #19 as of 9pm CST!

Good for Rafa, but something just doesn’t seem right in the world now that Federer is not the Wimbledon champion anymore. I had the same feeling when Lleyton Hewitt won in ‘02. We were watching while Roger was losing - namely, the first two sets and then again at 7-7 in the fifth! (We were returning from Dallas during the rain delays and the second half of the match.)

Because of my inaccurate finals guess, I dropped in the bracket challenge from 15th to #25. Still, not too bad out of 409 people worldwide. That’s good enough to move up 77 spots to #86 in the overall 2008 rankings out of about 700 people. I’m #1 from my team and the sixth American and hadn’t even entered three of the six events this year so far! Yes! Next up: Cincinnati’s Tennis Masters Series event in three weeks.

Before the tournament started, a few past champions made their picks on the winner this year. That ol’ brainiac Boris said these groundbreaking, wise words: “Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal. The better player will win.” Really? Very insightful.

Moved up one to #17 today thanks to one guy ahead of me thinking Federer would lose today. I’ll definitely move up at least another spot at the tournament’s end cuz another person ahead of me thought Roddick would win it all. Then, when Federer wins it, all the people ahead of me who thought Nadal would win will also drop and I could finish about 9th.

No, I didn’t forget to post yesterday; they don’t play on the middle Sunday. All four of the guys I had left advanced, the most dramatic of which was Andy Murray’s comeback from two sets to none down to win just before 9:30pm London time. I finished the day at #18. However, just as cousin Mark said, much of the remaining guesses are the same for everyone (a Federer-Nadal final), so it’ll be unlikely there will be much more movement. Indeed, none of the 409 participants have any more than four correct guesses going into the final eight. Side note: did you know you can download entire matches from the Wimbledon.org website? They’re WMV files just over one gigabyte.

Back up to #30. Rollercoaster ride, this game. A couple good picks helped and a couple popular picks of other people’s that lost furthered the cause. I have eight of the last sixteen players correct. Right now on the standings list I’m #1 on my Tennisopolis team and #5 in the U.S.

Finished the day down 44 from yesterday to #75. At one point today I noticed I was around 150, so could’ve been worse! But Mario Ancic beat that fraud David Ferrer (GOD, I hate him - just kidding) late today, so that helped. So the top half of the draw is finished with their third-round matches and only three of my eight picks made it thru. Ugh. With tomorrow’s bottom half I still have five of the eight left. Go team!

Rebounded today all the way to a tie for #31, probably on the strength of a couple obscure picks who have made it thru. I’m #1 on my team (Tennisopolis.com) and about sixth in the U.S. Just six points off the pace and as the tournament progresses, more points are awarded for correct guesses, so the standings could really start moving now! Too bad a fourth player of my final eight is now gone too (Roddick). If Ferrer beats Ancic, I’ll eat my hat!