Time to start scratching your heads and come up with your predictions for 2026. We had 36 entries in 2025 which was 11 less than the women's competition, so I hope more will take part this time around. The closing date for entries is midnight on Saturday Dec 27th as I will be out of the country for the following week. So you have just over 2 weeks to get your entries in. No need to rush to enter. I won't be putting any entries onto the spreadsheet before Christmas, so until then you can change your entry as much as you like - but please, do it by editing your post rather than posting afresh, to save me some work !
The finishing date for the competition will probably be the 15th December 2026 to tie in with the womens competition - as this is likely to be the last ranking update of the season after the WTA125 indoor events. Just so everyone is clear, and for anyone who didn't take part last year, here are the competition rules
Select 10 players and give your prediction of their end-of season GB ranking and world ranking. As in the 2023 competition one substitute player is allowed, who must be named as such at the same time as the main selection of 10. Their predicted WR must also be given. The eleventh player may be substituted for any one of your main selections, but only in the two weeks immediately following the end of Wimbledon (i.e. 14th to 27th July only, to be confirmed precisely nearer the time). This will give a little flexibility, particularly in the case of long-term injuries, and will make it more interesting. The substitute will take your prediction of the GB ranking of the player they replace, so for example if you replaced Jay Clarke (GB #6) with Liam Broady (GB #16), Liam would become your #6 prediction so think carefully ! Continuing from last year, there will be two dummy entries, AsYouWere (based on the starting rankings) and Mr Average (based on everyone's WR predictions).
Points will be awarded with a maximum of 20 points per player split between GB ranking and world ranking.
I am changing the WR scoring system this year to reward those whose predictions are close for players inside WR100. This will be achieved by factoring the % difference by a variable amount depending on the players ranking. This will hopefully give better points. For example, a prediction for Jack Draper of WR14 when he finished WR10 would give 6 points instead of zero under the previous rules.
World ranking - based on % difference adjusted for the top 100 only. 10 points if your prediction is within 3.0%, 8 for +/- 6%,6 for +/- 9%, 4 if +/- 12%, 3 if +/- 15%, 2 if +/- 20 and 1 if +/- 25%. The reason why world ranking points is on % is that there is a big spread of rankings for GB top 10, so this method tries to even it out.
GB rankings will be double the points from previous years plus a bonus for a podium !
10 points for a correct prediction, 8 for one out, 6 for 2 out, 4 for 3 out, 3 for 4 out, 2 for 5 out, more than 5 out and the player finishes in GB top 10 will be 1 point. Note you can get points if a player finishes as low as GB14 e.g. You predict 10 they finish 14 difference is 4 so 2 points. You also get a point if your player finishes in the top ten if you havent gained any points for them already i.e. you predict GB7 and they finish GB1 you still get one point.
So no points if you are outside 20% for WR rankings above 100?
The limit is 25% for one point. For example, Billy is WR126. A prediction of 157 will give 1 point for 24.6%, 158 will be 0 points for 25.4%. I think that is a fair enough margin.
I've been tinkering with the formulae over the last month to make the points for rankings under 100 a bit more generous. Nested IF statements and added lookup tables. Excel can get complicated !
Points will be awarded with a maximum of 20 points per player split between GB ranking and world ranking.
I am changing the WR scoring system this year to reward those whose predictions are close for players inside WR
World ranking - based on % difference adjusted for the top 100 only. 10 points if your prediction is within 3.0%, 8 for +/- 6%, 6 for +/- 9%, 3 if +/- 12%, 2 if +/- 15%, 1 if +/- 20. The reason why world ranking points is on % is that there is a big spread of rankings for GB top 10, so this method tries to even it out.
TA, sorry if I am being thick here but I like if possible to do my own calculations. So I don't understand 1 point for +/- 25%, as in your example for Billy when above says 1 point for +/- 20%
Miriam, well done for spotting my typos - I wrote the notes whilst looking at the spreadsheet - and missed out the line for 4 points and subsequently the rest were wrong. I've edited the original with the correct figures. (And of course the women's has/had the same error)
And don't forget, the calculations for percentage difference are factored below WR100. The formula is 100(Predicted - Actual)/Actual and then multiplied by Actual/100
-- Edited by the addict on Monday 15th of December 2025 10:15:49 PM
1: Jack Draper 20
2: Cam Norrie 42
3: Jacob F. 98
4: Billy Harris. 123
5: Jack PJ. 140
6: Arthur Fery. 145
7: Jan Choinski 156
8: Ryan Peniston 165
9: Jo Monday. 168
10: Oli Crawford 175
