Game Week 4 results

 

Four tournaments in Game Week 4

The main event was the WTA 1000 tournament in Doha.

As usual Sabalenka and Swiatek went in as the big favourites to reach the final and this was reflected in most team selections.  However, every player has their kryptonite and for Aryna and Iga they were lurking dangerously in the draw.

Sabalenka had to face her nemesis in Round 2 - a buoyant Alexandrova fresh from winning a title in Linz.   In a tight match, Alexandrova once again proved to be the thorn in Aryna's side securing her fourth win over the Belarussian.

The eternal curse of Iga is a certain Jelena Ostapenko who seems to revel in that particular match up. This time they faced off in the semi final and was an incredibly one sided affair.  Quite simply - Jelena destroyed her and will leave Iga going back to the drawing board in an a bid to figure out this particular puzzle.  The head to head is no 5-0 Penko.

Meanwhile Amanda Anisimova was having a terrific week dropping only one set to Martha Kostyuk en route to setting up a final with the enigmatic Ostapenko.

Amanda prevailed 6-4, 6-3 to take her biggest title to date. Her tennis career has been a difficult journey so far so this was a sweet moment for a player who has so much potential,.

The ATP Tournament in Buenos Aires was notable for two players at opposite ends of their career, Diego Schwartzman managed one final victory against Nicolas Jarry before drawing the curtain on his remarkable career in front of his adoring Argentian fans.   However it was a neighbour who stole the show. Joao Fonseca downed four Argentians on route to the title with the young Brazilian winning 6-4, 7-6 final against Cerundolo.

There was also a home winner in Marseille with Ugo Humbert retaining the title he won last year defeating the big hitting Serb Hamed Medjedovic in the final.

And in Delray Beach, it was a Serb who was victorious with Miomir Kecmanovic winning the final against Davidovich Fokina.

Here is the global league table for the game week

It was an incredible week for Oliver Rojas and his team "just go with the flow!"  They ended the game week head and shoulders above all the opposition.  

Here is his  game week winning team:

Oliver had Doha winner Anisimova as well as semi finalists Swiatek and Alexandrova.  He also had decent returns from Djere, Jabeur and Bergs which ultimately gave him a remarkable total of 564.57 points which was well clear of 2nd place.  

The Level 2 Game Week prize goes to Greg Gaynor and Hail to the Victors.  

Here is the head to head between the to two teams.

Greg had an inspired selection with Miomic Kecmanovic as a team player but also benefitted from a stroke of luck as the withdrawal of Tommy Paul opened up a chance for his ER to come in - a certain Joao Fonseca.   As we know the rest is history.  San Diego Allstars unfortunately had two withdrawals and no ERs to come in as replacements so to manage a 2nd place with just 6 starting players was a damn good effort!

The first week of FTL Cup fixtures was also completed in this game week.  As you would expect, the fact that the likes of Medvedev, Sabalenka, Fritz and Zverev all crashed out early, caused a little bit of havoc in the opening fixtures. 

FTL Cup returns in Game Week 6 and Game Week 7,  In game week 6 the two winners will face of against each other and by extension the two losers play each other!  

All tables and fixtures can be viewed here: 

FTL Cup standings and fixtures

 

GAMEWEEK 5 DRAWS AND DARK HORSE BREAKDOWN

 

I have attached The Dubai Main Draw (FTL Version) and the Dark Horse Breakdown.  I've also attached both the Draws (FTL Version ) for the ATP 500 level events in Doha and Rio.  Plz note that the Qualifiers have only been placed in Dubai and sadly the Lockout for GW5 starts before the Qualifiers will be finalized in both ATP level events.

 

Do not forget to select your Dark Horse for the WTA event in Dubai!

 

If you want a copy, click on the link, GW5 DRAWS  Once you do so, click on FILE, and scroll to MAKE A COPY, and call it whatever you want

Good Luck :)

Game Week 3 Roundup

 

Four events in game Week 3.

ATP 500   Rotterdam -   Carlos Alcaraz went into this event as the overwhelming favourite but could easily have come unstuck in his opening match against Botic Van de Zandschulp. It was relatively plain sailing for Carlos after that but the ever improving Alex De Minaur gave Carlos a pretty competitive final with Carlos winning in 3 sets.  

A shout out has to made to Italian Mattea Belluci who entertained the crowds with two outstanding performances to defeat Medvedev and Tsitsipas.  He's a fun player to watch.

ATP 500 - Dallas  -    Great to see Denis Shapovalov back on the winner's podium.  Probably a player considered not to have achieved his full potential in tennis but he is still relatively young and if continues to play like he did in Dallas this week, he is going to have a great year.  Wins over Kecmanovic, Fritz, Machac and Paul set up for a final against Casper Ruud and he confidently prevailed 7-6.6-3

WTA 500 Abu Dhabi -   New mum Belinda Bencic is most definitely back.  After a tough battle over the impressive Sramkova, Belinda dished out a double bagel to poor Verokina Kudermetova before taking out former Wimbledon champs Vondrousova and Rybakina.

In the final she would face the younger American Ashlyn Krueger who is another player very much on the up. Krueger took the first set but Belina came firing back to win the match 4-6, 6-1.6-1

WTA 250 Cluj -   Anastasia Potapova is another player who is looking on good form this year.  She followed up some good performances in Linz by raising her game to another level again. Her opponent in the final Lucia Bronzetti was the first player to take a set off Potapova but Potapova bounced back to take the match in 3 sets.

The tournament also saw  the final match of Simona Halep who bowed out in the first round to Lucia Bronzetti.  Such a shame that Simona missed out on a large part of her career due to the drugs ban and she was never really able to return to a level capable of competing with the top players on tour.

 Here is the final FTL League table for Game Week 3

Congrats to Kevin Garand on being this weeks winner with an excellent week.   Kevin and Cris were the only two teams to break the 500 barrier this week.

Lets take a look at the head to head between the two.

Both Kevin and Cris took the obvious Captain pick for the week and were rewarded by Carlos with a hefty 134.55 points.  Both also had Rotterdam runner up De Minaur.

KevinG also had Cluj winner Potapova as a KP as well as Dallas semi finalist Tommy Paul.

Cris had Dallas winner Shapovalov as a TP which turned out to be a fantastic pick.

Congrats to both on a great week and as a level 2 player, Kevin will take the prize position for the week.

 

GW4 DRAWS AND DARK HORSE BREAKDOWN

I have attached The Doha Main Draw (FTL Version) and the Dark Horse Breakdown.  I've also attached the 3 ATP 250 level events in DelRay Beach, Buenos Aires and Marseille .  Plz note that the Qualifiers have only been placed in Doha and sadly the Lockout for GW4 starts before the Qualifiers will be finalized in all 3 ATP level events.

 

Do not forget to select your Dark Horse for the WTA event in Doha!

 

If you want a copy, click on the link, GW4 DRAWS  Once you do so, click on FILE, and scroll to MAKE A COPY, and call it whatever you want

Good Luck :)

Game Week 4 - preview Early Lockout, Dark Horse and FTL Cup!!

 Hi folks

A lot going on next week so I thought it would be worth doing a blog post to try and make sure that everyone is up to speed.   If you don't read the blog, you only have yourself to blame. 😜

Ok, first things first - lets look at the events next week.   

WTA 1000 Doha

This event is a Sunday start so its an early lockout for this week.  Make sure to keep an eye on time timer on your team page to ensure that your team is set up and time.

As a 1000 event as well, you will also be entitled to use a dark horse in your team.  Please note that its only a dark horse for the woman this week as the men are playing lower tier events so you will have a team of 9.

ATP events next week in Marseille, Delray Beach and Buenos Aires

Marseille

Delray Beach

Buenos Aires

FTL Cup

The first round of fixtures of the FTL Cup will take place in Game Week 4.  Everyone in level 1 and level 2 is included in the event and you will have been placed in a group of 4.  You will play every other team in that group over the course of three game weeks.  (Game Week 4, Game Week 6 and Game Week 7)

All groups and fixtures are available at the following link.

FTL Cup draw     it will be under the following tab (FTLCup - Group Stage R1 - GW4)

As usual you can check the following spreadsheet for an up to date player schedule which may be useful if you are looking to plan ahead with regard to your trade ins.

Player schedule    -

(for anyone playing me in the cup - don't rely too much on the tab with my team details - i might throw you a curve ball)   😜

Everyone can of course view their opponents current squad (prior to GW4 trades) using the app.

Right - that's enough from me just now,  i have a few draws to review and a strategy to plot for my cup tie against Abhishek!

Good luck everyone!

Game Week 2 Roundup

The FTL Season is now very much up and running with the 2nd game week now behind us.  How is your team doing so far this season?

We had three events in play this week.

WTA Singapore

It was an impressive week for Elise Mertens as she took the title in Singapore beating Ann Li 6-1, 6-4 in the final.  Elise only dropped one set all week (against Tatiana Maria in the 2nd Round)

Elise and Ann will both be getting a hefty price increase in Game Week 3. A worthwhile trade for this many manager for Game Week 3 even if they aren't actually playing.

Top seed Kalinskaya still seems to be plagued by injury issues and had to retire from her semi final against Ann Li.  Honourable mention for up and coming Thai player Manachaya Sawangkaew who had a great run to the quarter finals.

ATP Montpellier

FAA is always a good bet at an Indoor Tennis event and so it proved in Montpellier where he claimed his 7th Tour Title.  Remember when FAA was 0 and 8 for tour finals.  He is now 7 and 10 so definitely going in the right direction.

Player of the week however has to go to his opponent American qualifier Aleksandar Kovacevic who looked outstanding in his wins over Bublik and Rublev before running FAA pretty damn close in his final.  (Bublik was so exsasperated at his opponent's amazing level that he sent on the ball kid for a point to see if he could have any better luck).  Kovacevic is back in action in Rotterdam this week.

Honourable mention to another qualifier Jesper de Jong who had a great run to the semi finals.

WTA Linz

Ekaterina Alexandrova bounced impressively back from a pretty woeful 1st Round exit at the Australian Open to take the title in Linz.  She had an impressive win over Karolina Muchova in the semi final to set up a final against Dayana Yastremska who had beaten Clara Tauson.

Alexandrova took the first set against Yastremska before her Ukranian. opponent pegged her back and was only a couple of points away from winning the title herself in a hard fought final.

Here is the Global Fantasy Tennis League Table for the Game Week.

Congratulations to USA tennis who top the table this week with an incredible score of 501 points beating Forever Losers into 2nd place by over 60 points!

Here is the head to head between the two top teams

USA Tennis were starting afresh from this week so were a bit of an advantage over those of us with an Australian Open focused squad but that being said, they made some incredibly good choices this week.

They had all three winners in FAA, Mertens and Alexandrova as well as semi finalists Tauson, Kalinskaya, Muchova and Rublev.  Its difficult to see how they could have done any better!

The weekly prize always goes to a Level 2 team and our two top level 2 teams were Acehammer56 (Demy) and Nadal's Forehand (Dragan).  Congrats to both on a great week. 

Here is the winning Level 2 team. 

 

Demy had the perfect captain choice in FAA and also had Singapore winner Mertens.  Yastremska, Tauson and Potapova weighed in with plenty of points in Linz to give Acehammers6 a total score of 407.724

And after two game weeks, we also completed our first month of the season so the first monthly prize was up for grabs.  Here are the final standings.

Bibek's impressive performance at the Australian Open was always going to set him up with a great chance of scooping the January prize as well.  In the end however, the Commisioner and his value picks ran him tantalizing close with only 1.5 points separating the top two teams in the global league.

Bibek finished week 2 in an excellent 21st place in the Level 2 league which consolidated his place at the top of the leaderboard,  New Cal Aces continue to be the closest challenger in the Level 2 League. 

GameWeek 3 Draws - FTL VERSION

 ABU DHABI OPEN

ROTTERDAM

 

 

DALLAS

 

 

TRANSYLVANIA OPEN