Talk About Tennis 2.0

Greetings, dear loser! Here is today's edition of FAIR DINKUM or CORPSE STINKUM, hot off the presses! Was your losing pick a FAIR DINKUM ripper or a CORPSE STINKUM not worth a bass razoo? Find out below!

FAIR DINKUM

Jessica Bouzas Maneiro (3 victims) She beat Coco in the glorified exo that is the United Cup, and had some decent results late last year, so losing to a doubles specialist when it really matters is a setback.


CORPSE STINKUM

Alexandra Eala (6 victims) Eala has a lot of potential, but this current iteration is massively overhyped. Not since Melanie Oudin has a player gotten so much mileage out of one good tournament.

Emma Navarro (3 victims) TMQ does not recommend choosing against a former semifinalist with a player who clearly peaked more than a year ago.

Anna Kalinskaya (1 victim) An excellent choice!...for Day 3

Marina Stakusic (1 victim) It's rare that TMQ has absolutely no comic material on a player at any given time, but congrats, you have managed to stump him with this, the worst pick of the day.

Renata Zarazua (1 victim) While ZARAZUA would make a great Scrabble word, especially if you got it on a triple word score, Zarazua makes a poor opponent for the much-better-at-tennis-but-also-a-good-Scrabble-score Marie BOUZKOVA.

JTContinental wrote: ↑Mon Jan 19, 2026 9:26 pm Alexandra Eala (6 victims) Eala has a lot of potential, but this current iteration is massively overhyped. Not since Melanie Oudin has a player gotten so much mileage out of one good tournament.

Quote of the year, so far (yeah, I know it is early).But totally on the money. She played three good matches last year, and a lot of people believe too much on her, including me.

IronMike wrote: ↑Mon Jan 19, 2026 6:01 pm I am worried about picking from the wrong day too. So I started copying the name of the player I pick from the first page instead of typing it. Seems to work

Mike. Jt is populating the drop down boxes EVERY DAY with only the players that play that day. Can't be safer than that (only the players of the day, properly spelled).
Give it a try

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 19, 2026 9:54 pm

JTContinental wrote: ↑Mon Jan 19, 2026 9:26 pm Alexandra Eala (6 victims) Eala has a lot of potential, but this current iteration is massively overhyped. Not since Melanie Oudin has a player gotten so much mileage out of one good tournament.

Quote of the year, so far (yeah, I know it is early).But totally on the money. She played three good matches last year, and a lot of people believe too much on her, including me.

To be fair she did just make Auckland semis. I didn't take her but seemed a good early choice.

Oudin had two really good tournaments.

Before her run at the U.S. Open, she reached the fourth round of Wimbledon and nearly beat Radwanska, hitting more winners than her opponents in rounds 2 and 3. I think she actually played better there than at the U.S. Open, when she needed a choke job by Petrova to advance deep.

This is a sensitive subject for me. I was fooled by her big time, and I kept harping on her Wimbledon run when people correctly predicted she was a flash in the pan.

By the way, later in her career she won three qualifying matches and then six main-draw matches at Birmingham to win the only tournament of her career, beating Jankovic in the final, before going back to irrelevance with a straight-set, first-round loss at Wimbledon to a nobody.

Just one no pick and one zombie today, leaving us with 89 remaining players just looking to get out of round 1

The breakdown

Katerina Siniakova 28
Daria Kasatkina 18
Elisabeta Cocciaretto 7
Leylah Fernandez 4
Maya Joint 4
Belinda Bencic 3
Ashlyn Krueger 3
Kimberly Birrell 2
Anna Kalinskaya 2
Madison Keys 2
Naomi Osaka 2
Liudmila Samsonva 2
Sloane Stephens 2
Jelena Ostapenko 1
Xinyu Wang 1

That’s why Jt didn’t want us picking Sinikova!

JTContinental wrote: ↑Tue Jan 20, 2026 12:31 am one zombie today

I've been playing for a long time, but I don't understand how there can be a zombie this early. I thought a zombie was a player who had no possible way to pick a winner in the final. Anyone care to explain?

aidsasis wrote: ↑Tue Jan 20, 2026 5:24 am

JTContinental wrote: ↑Tue Jan 20, 2026 12:31 am one zombie today

I've been playing for a long time, but I don't understand how there can be a zombie this early. I thought a zombie was a player who had no possible way to pick a winner in the final. Anyone care to explain?

A zombie is a player that already lost (and is dead) but keeps posting picks. What you are talking about is... a worthy contestant.

shmrck14 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 18, 2026 4:55 pm This was my exact rationale.

but can rational logic be applied to Sakari? I think not..!

With Kasatkina going down we have 42 or 44 of us remaining.

I am surprised at people who picked Samsonova..she has never done well at the AO..I think her defense is not good enough on a fast court..I had quoted her poor return win rate earlier..she is a very good player but so is Siegemund

I think you may overestimate the amount of research some of us do for our early picks I don't usually check historical records of players at slams until much later.

ashkor87 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 20, 2026 2:17 pm I am surprised at people who picked Samsonova..she has never done well at the AO..I think her defense is not good enough on a fast court..I had quoted her poor return win rate earlier..she is a very good player but so is Siegemund

She is/was the 18th seed, on a first round match, against a player that is crafty but has no weapons.
That was the way I saw it.

Down to just 40 players on Day 4, after subtracting 2 no picks and 2 zombies. Most of us have settled on one of three players

The breakdown

Diana Shnaider 15
Iva Jovic 9
Elina Svitolina 7
Karolina Muchova 3
Emma Raducanu 2
Storm Hunter 1
Victoria Mboko 1
Yulia Putintseva 1
Clara Tauson 1