Ahoy, Fellow Cruciverbalists! Welcome to week #4 of my crossword contest. If you’re new to the contest and would like to enter, please see the site FAQ on the left sidebar for instructions.

LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: 35 solvers successfully returned last week’s puzzle, “They’ll Never Abolish the Fed.” That title wasn’t a plea for returning to the gold standard, it was a reference to the winner of the last five Wimbledon championships on the men’s side, Roger Federer.

The puzzle featured six theme entries, each of which included the surname of a Wimbledon champion: BORG QUEEN (Bjorn Borg), CASH FLOWS (Pat Cash), TEST OF WILLS (Helen Wills), ROE VS. WADE (Virginia Wade), LIKE A KING (Billie Jean King), and DOESN’T BUDGE (Don Budge). The five asterisked entries in the grid (WAH, BMI, LED, ONC, and AMPS) led to the correct contest answer phrase, WIMBLEDON CHAMPS, which you found by connecting those five entries — which just happen to form, when connected, the shape of a tennis racket (see how awesome I am at Paint by clicking image at left).

Our lucky winner this week, whose name was chosen randomly from the 35 correct entries, is Sarah Knepp of Astoria, NY. Sarah has opted to receive an autographed copy of Sip & Solve Hard Crosswords as her prize.

Several solvers included horrific tennis puns with their entries: “I love it,” “Aces!” “Quite a racket you’ve got going here,” etc. I returned these lobs with “Thanks — I’m here to serve.” We crossword folk is witty folk.

Solution grid is above and also posted on the MGWCC Google Group:

http://groups.google.com/group/mgwcc

Reminder: join the Google Group to have the puzzle e-mailed to you right when it’s posted each Friday afternoon, or to solve the electronic Across Lite version of the puzzle.

THIS WEEK’S CONTEST INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a seven-letter word that describes a good one we recently lost (N.B.: the contest answer word does not begin with the letter D). Send it to me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com by Tuesday at noon EDT. Please put the contest answer word in the subject line of your e-mail. To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser.

WARNING: this week’s puzzle references some vulgar language. If you might be offended by such language, please consider skipping this week’s contest.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.