by paulfmcintyre you can color me red as I have crashed out along with Danilovic

by JTContinental Unfortunately, I can only go by what was posted picks thread, especially as it was specifically called out to include a first initial.

by JTContinental After subtracting 2 No Picks, we are down to 107 already for Day 2. 1/3 of the groups hopes ride on someone who took out a huge group in a previous slam this year.

The breakdown

Elise Mertens 33
Anna Kalinskaya 9
Magdalena Frech 8
Peyton Stearns 8
Marie Bouzkova 7
Diane Parry 7
Maria Sakkari 7
Iva Jovic 6
Karolina Muchova 6
Daria Kasatkina 4
Liudmila Samsonova 3
Elina Svitolina 3
Caroline Garcia 2
Patricia Hon 1
Madison Keys 1
Petra Kvitova 1
Taylor Townsend 1

by JTContinental TMQ refuses to acknowledge the Sunday start, so the first recap of your losing picks will happen tonight.

by JTContinental Had anyone asked TMQ (and no one had), his recommendations to avoid for first round picks would have been V. Kudermetova, Kalinskaya, and Mboko. Never trust the random surge pre-slam.

by ponchi101

JTContinental wrote: ↑Mon Aug 25, 2025 7:04 pm Had anyone asked TMQ (and no one had), his recommendations to avoid for first round picks would have been V. Kudermetova, Kalinskaya, and Mboko. Never trust the random surge pre-slam.

Well, we certainly were not trusting Kudermetova's pre slam surge, because that is the reason we picked her in round 1.
One thing is expecting her to make a slam semi, another thing is watching her lose to somebody ranked 146 in the world. But expecting her to go one round on basically the same surface as she did so well two weeks ago was not asking her too much.
Other than that, sure, let these guys go have a word with her.

by JTContinental

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 25, 2025 7:25 pm

JTContinental wrote: ↑Mon Aug 25, 2025 7:04 pm Had anyone asked TMQ (and no one had), his recommendations to avoid for first round picks would have been V. Kudermetova, Kalinskaya, and Mboko. Never trust the random surge pre-slam.

Well, we certainly were not trusting Kudermetova's pre slam surge, because that is the reason we picked her in round 1.
One thing is expecting her to make a slam semi, another thing is watching her lose to somebody ranked 146 in the world. But expecting her to go one round on basically the same surface as she did so well two weeks ago was not asking her too much.
Other than that, sure, let these guys go have a word with her.

Usually, if a surger can get through the first round, they'll have a decent run in the tournament, but it seems hard to get past that hurdle for some reason.

by joanjettson Never trust a "K" - the first and most important rule of SP

by ashkor87

joanjettson wrote: ↑Mon Aug 25, 2025 8:04 pm Never trust a "K" - the first and most important rule of SP

Kalinskaya did win

by meganfernandez

paulfmcintyre wrote: ↑Mon Aug 25, 2025 12:49 pm you can color me red as I have crashed out along with Danilovic

This was a jinx. Ben Rothenberg picked her in a private chat. She almost won 3 times, had 7 match points in total (served at 5-3, 40-love in the third set, then had love-40 in the next game, then another MP in the tiebreak). I'm sure she is still scratching her head about why she lost. It was the SP curse.

Does anyone know if going out with a player who had 7 match points is an SP record?

by JTContinental Good morning all! While TMQ prepares for his sojourn to the gallery, please enjoy this information dump.

More shortly, including the ever popular recap STANK or DANK, rebranded for this tournament as FLUSHING MEADOWS orFLUSHING TOILETS. Please carry on with your day!

{info dump deleted}

Day 3 is finally the end of Round1 of the tournament, and we've already lost nearly half of the participants, clocking in at a sickly 91 players remaining, several with very questionable picks.

The breakdown

Maya Joint 19
Naomi Osaka 14
Linda Noskova 12
Ekaterina Alexandrova 10
Suzan Lamens 9
Danielle Collins 6
Eva Lys 5
Donna Vekic 4
Sorana Cirstea 3
Xinyu Wang 3
Diana Shnaider 2
Hailey Baptiste 1
Beatriz Haddad Maia 1
Sofia Kenin 1
Iga Swiatek 1

by JTContinental And now for the inaugural 2025 USO edition of FLUSHING MEADOWS or FLUSHING TOILETS! Does your errant pick belong sitting freely, enjoying a soft serve ice cream cone in the beautiful but shadeless, marijuana-scented lawns of the park surrounding the USO venue, or should we ship it directly to the otherly-scented horrors of a NYC public restroom, drop it into the nearest unclogged bowl, and send it from this earth into the swirling waters below? Find out now.

FLUSHING MEADOWS

Lucia Bronzetti (7 victims) On paper this was an easy win, but Valentova is a top ranked junior who is making quite a splash on the tour. While all these highly touted Czech teens don't seem to be panning out as top players, Valentova is a different level of talent and TMQ suspects she won't need to qualify for the USO next year.

Marie Bouzkova (7 victims) Jacquemot is a perennial first round loser in every Grand Slam tournament, although she has turned the tables a couple of times this year. Bouzkova often looks listless and fussy when TMQ watches her matches (he did not see this one), but her winner/UFE rate was 18/34, while Jacquemot had more winners than UFEs.

Elina Svitolina (2 victims) Maybe she's struggling with her recurring foot issue? This loss was inexplicable to TMQ, so take comfort in the fact that you were right, and Svitolina was wrong. Unfortunately, you are still dead.


FLUSHING TOILETS

Veronika Kudermetova (25 victims) Despite her random run to the SF in Cincy, Kudermetova was 100 losing this match. Even though no one has (yet) heard of Janice Tjen, had one done their research (and TMQ did), you would have discovered that in the last year, she has made the finals of 16 ITF tournaments, winning 13 of them. Meanwhile, Kudermetova has lost to the first decent player in every tournament she's played this year except one.

Olga Danilovic (11 victims) Novak's skills aren't going to transfer over to her by osmosis just because she played a mixed doubles exo with him.

Caroline Garcia, Petra Kvitova (2 victims, 1 victim) Nostalgia picks are always bad, because they are not subjective and defy logic. These players are retiring for a reason: they are not competitive on the tour. You didn't see TMQ picking Venus even though he believes the ground she walks on is sacrosanct (TMQ's pick for Day 2 was in fact Muchova). I think Garcia has only won 1 or 2 matches this year, and Petra has not won one since October 2023. Now she can't even win games. I'm sure they both wanted to retire gracefully, but here you are dragging them to the toilets to give them a swirlie for a sendoff. These choices tie for worst pick of Day 2.

Camila Osorio (1 victim) This pick was so bad that I'm guessing it must have been made directly from the toilets for easy flushing. 3 of you insanely chose from this garbage match, which was easily the first one to cross off the pick list. {rings bell} SHAME. Consolation prize: you did win something! Worst pick of Day 1.

Madison Keys (1 victim) Extreme favorite to win or not, 89 UFEs in one match goes straight down the toilet, and will definitely require a second flush and a plunger to get it there.


TMQ is now finally caught up and you are officially informed! As always, all verdicts are final and legally binding.

by naughtyT vekic pulling four of us back from the the doorway of the losers lounge.

by JTContinental I count 81 remaining after losing only a handful of players yesterday

The breakdown

Leylah Fernandez 26
Barbora Krejcikova 15
Liudmila Samsonova 15
Emma Raducanu 11
Elise Mertens 6
Belinda Bencic 3
Alexandra Eala 1
Caty McNally 1
Emma Navarro 1
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 1
Elena Rybakina 1

by ashkor87 always doubted Samsonova on this court.. takes too long just to switch grips, and doesnt move that great either..Bencic is a surprise, after W, somethig must be wrong with her..
Samsonova and Bencic took out 18 people ! that is 22%

by JTContinental Here is today's info dump to tide you over. After missing last year's USO due to a laptop failure and drastically switching jobs, TMQ must say it is much more difficult to manage this competition when your job doesn't involve sitting in Zoom meetings on mute for 6 hours a day.

Day 5 is here! Footnote to yesterday: I believe I missed a Mertens picker yesterday in my count, so we actually had 82 remaining players. Today, after clearing out 2 no picks, 1 zombie, and 1 person who made a invalid late pick on Day 1 and then randomly made a second pick today, we are down to 60

The breakdown

Anna Kalinskaya 20
Marta Kostyuk 16
Linda Noskova 6
Laura Siegemund 5
Ashlyn Krueger 3
Ekaterina Alexandrova 2
Daria Kasatkina 2
Maria Sakkari 2
Amanda Anisimova 1
Jacqueline Cristian 1
Naomi Osaka 1
Diane Parry 1

by dave g

JTContinental wrote: ↑Thu Aug 28, 2025 4:54 pm TMQ must say it is much more difficult to manage this competition when your job doesn't involve sitting in Zoom meetings on mute for 6 hours a day.

EEK!!

by JTContinental We only lost 3 players yesterday due to Ashlyn Krueger, and we had 3 no picks, so we are down to 54 players. 2/3 of you are on two bandwagons, one which looks pretty rickety even before it gets started on its journey.

The breakdown

Elise Mertens 24
Ann Li 17
Jasmine Paolini 5
Mirra Andreeva 3
Elena Rybakina 3
Barbora Krejcikova 1
Jessica Pegula 1

by JTContinental And now for a super-sized edition of FLUSHING MEADOWS or FLUSHING TOILETS, which covers Day3-5. While that sounds like a lot, y'all aren't doing enough losing yet in this tournament in TMQ's opinion.

FLUSHING MEADOWS

Liudmila Samsonova (15 victims) TMQ has found it hard to get a read on Samsonova through her career, as she is pretty streaky. Despite having a name that makes her sound like an 80 year old club pro, Samsonova hits balls only hard and harder, which can lead to spectacular results or to a spectacular amount of UFEs. Today was the latter, aided by Hon's 18 (!) aces.

Belinda Bencic (3 victims) Bencic has returned from maternity leave with a solid game, but still a shade below what she once was. TMQ is confident she will be a factor again in 2026.

Sofia Kenin (1 victim) Even though Kenin has been slumping lately, this was probably still a 50/50 prospect that you were unlucky enough to come out on the wrong end of the stick.

Caty McNally (1 victim) An admirable try--one that TMQ also thought about picking, but ultimately didn't pull the trigger. McNally has played well since her comeback but lost the plot today.

Ashlyn Krueger (3 victims) Would TMQ have picked from this match? Absolutely not, but Krueger played well enough in Round 1 to warrant a look. Not the right look, of course, but a look just the same.


FLUSHING TOILETS

Danielle Collins (5 victims) Probably at the top of TMQ's do not pick list for the USO had anyone asked him (and no one did). Collins is playing through a herniated disc (I'm assuming to get the paycheck here), so she won't be winning anything for awhile.

Diana Shnaider (2 victims) As always, when a player has been having an average (or in Shnaider's case, abysmal) season and suddenly makes a random surge in a tournament before a slam, they are unable to carry that momentum into said slam. Kalinskaya is the only off-the-beaten-path pre-slam winner to avoid this curse.

Alexandra Eala (1 victim) TMQ finally got a chance to watch Eala play a couple of times, and while she has flashes of brilliance, she is not ready for primetime yet. She rides the knifes edge on point to point, and doesn't have much margin for error. Pick at your peril for now.

by JTContinental TAT's server seems very unstable today, and unfortunately for half of the pool so did Elise Mertens and Jasmine Paolini

by hoangers Can someone tell me what TMQ stands for? Thanks LOL

by ponchi101

hoangers wrote: ↑Sat Aug 30, 2025 1:41 am Can someone tell me what TMQ stands for? Thanks LOL

Thursday Morning Quarterback.
It is a term used in American football. The last game of the week is played on Monday, so being a TMQ is something like: "It is easy to say what you would have done AFTER the game has been played".

by ashkor87 what actually happened there - Vondrousova versus Paolini? I couldnt see it, middle of the night for me.. Vondrousova puzzles me a lot..

by ashkor87 what actually happened there - Vondrousova versus Paolini? I couldnt see it, middle of the night for me.. Vondrousova puzzles me a lot..

by JTContinental 22 players remain after yesterday's bloodbath

The breakdown

Ekaterina Alexandrova 9
Marta Kostyuk 6
Amanda Anisimova 3
Beatriz Haddad Maia 3
Coco Gauff 1

by ptmcmahon

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 30, 2025 1:55 am

hoangers wrote: ↑Sat Aug 30, 2025 1:41 am Can someone tell me what TMQ stands for? Thanks LOL

Thursday Morning Quarterback.
It is a term used in American football. The last game of the week is played on Monday, so being a TMQ is something like: "It is easy to say what you would have done AFTER the game has been played".

And by that you mean Tuesday Morning Quarterback since Tuesday is after Monday

by ponchi101

ptmcmahon wrote: ↑Sat Aug 30, 2025 11:19 pm

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 30, 2025 1:55 am

hoangers wrote: ↑Sat Aug 30, 2025 1:41 am Can someone tell me what TMQ stands for? Thanks LOL

Thursday Morning Quarterback.
It is a term used in American football. The last game of the week is played on Monday, so being a TMQ is something like: "It is easy to say what you would have done AFTER the game has been played".

And by that you mean Tuesday Morning Quarterback since Tuesday is after Monday

Oh, no. I mean THURSDAY, which are the people that really, really, really wait for a long time after the event has passed to say what should have been done.
I mean, you know JT. What can we say?
(Yep, Tuesday. What was I thinking )