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%, 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.
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.
