WIMBLEDON DRAWS AND DARK HORSE BREAKDOWN

I have attached the Wimbledon Main Draw (FTL Version) and the Dark Horse Breakdown.  The Qualifying for both the Mens and Womens events was completed on Thursday, and as a result, both the Mens and Womens Main Draws were posted with the Qualifers and Lucky Losers already added.

 

Do not forget to select your Dark Horses for both the Mens and Womens events! and just a reminder that Wimbledon starts playing Round 1 Main Draw Matches on Sunday (June 29th)

 

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

Good Luck :)

Game Week 17 results

Four events this week and four very worthy winners.

Berlin

The WTA event in Berlin had a pretty stacked line up but I don't think many would have predicted the final pairing even though both the women involved know their way around a grass court.

Wang Xinyu is a delightful personality who gave several fun interviews throughout the week and provided the first upset of the week beating the newly crowned French Open Champion Coco Gauff.  She benefitted from the retirement of Badosa after a one sided first set in the next round and then dispatched Samsonova with ease to reach the final.

Meanwhile on the other side of the draw, it was wonderful to see Marketa Vondrousova back playing great grass court tennis after all her recent injury woes. 

In a run which saw her beat Aussie Open champ Madison Keys, Diana Shnaider, two time wimbledon runner up Ons Jabeur and World No 1 Aryna Sabalenka,  Vondrousova only dropped one set (to Shnaider).   

Marketa and Xinyu served up a great final.  Marketa won a tight first set tie break, Xinyu struck back in the 2nd before the Czech proved too strong in the final set.  Marketa is showing the kind of form which saw her win Wimbledon a couple of years ago - could she repeat the feat in this years edition?

Halle

The most emotional winner of the week was Alexander Bublik in Halle.  Often seen as the jester of the tennis world, Bublik has always been infuriating as he is capable of playing some great entertaining tennis while at the same time throwing in some pretty dire performances and has been accused of not taking his tennis seriously. 

His form over the last year has been so bad that he had considered retiring but in the last couple of months things have started to turnaround for him perhaps starting with his win at the Phoenix Challenger in March.    Since then he surprised everyone with his results on the clay - a surface which in the past has been alien to him.  A great run in Madrid was followed with an even more impressive run at Roland Garros which was only ended in devastating fashion by Jannik Sinner.

Bublik was to get his revenge on Sinner in Halle though and found himself in the final against Daniil Medvedev, a player who he had a 0-6 record against.  This time Bublik was up to the task and he won the Halle title. The enormity of the occasion, finally getting one over Medvedev and perhaps the increasing realisation that he can compete with the best, especially on grass, is starting to make Bublik rethink his relationship with tennis.  I doubt the underarm serves will ever go though!

Queens

After that dramatic and remarkable French Open triumph and a bit of downtime in Ibiza, many might have expected that Carlos Alcaraz would struggle in his first event on the grass.

Not a bit of it.  Carlos loves the grass, perhaps even more than the European clay.  His winning percentage record on the surface is second to none and as the week progressed in London, his performances became better and better.

Jiri Lehecka is another man who finds the grass perfect for his game style.  Lehecka didn't drop a set all week with impressive wins over De Minaur, Diallo (Rosmalen champ) and the British pair Fearnley and newly crowned no 4 in the world Jack Draper.

The final was always going to be a more daunting prospect but Lehecka acquitted himself well and deservedly bounced back to take the 2nd set after Carlos had taken the lead.  Alcaraz found another gear in the third though and cruised to another Queens triumph. It would take a brave man to bet against the Spaniard claiming another Wimbledon title too.

Nottingham

It wasn't to be a third Nottingham title in a row for Katie Boulter.  She was a break up in the final set in the Quarter Final against the American McCartney Kessler but Kessler overcame the break and the crowd to secure a terrific win.

Kessler is another player who went down the college route so despite being a married woman who will be celebrating her 26th birthday during Wimbledon, she is a relatively new name on the tennis circuit but her rise up the rankings has been impressive.

She already had two WTA titles going into this even.  Cleveland last year and Hobart at the beginning of this year. Straight sets win over Rebecca Sramkova in the semi final and Dayana Yastremska in the final ensured she would have a third title and also secured her a seeded spot for Wimbledon.  McCartney is definitely one to watch.

FTL Results

Here is the final global FTL Table for the week

This has to go down as one of the more dominant victories of this season.  Massive congrats to Stacey and team Tayla for winning the game week by a massive 60 clear points. 

Lets take a look at their team

Tayla had both the Queens Champ Carlos Alcaraz as captain and crucially also the Halle Champ Bublik as a team player. In addition to that they had semi finalists Alexander Zverev and Jack Draper.  Altogether a really strong team that was too good for the rest of the opposition this week.  Congrats Stacey!!

Level 2 competition

The level 2 battle this week was a tight affair between with DJ_2025 outscoring the Matador by 11 points. 

Congrats to David Josseljohn who is the weekly prize winner and also secured an FTL Cup win thanks to his solid performance this game week.  DJ_2025 had Queens winner Alcaraz and Halle runner up Medvedev as well as semi finalists Sabalenka, Draper and Zverev.   The Matador also had the same five players and actually had Alcaraz in a better captaincy sport but it was the poor return from KP Gauff which proved to be the most costly setback for them this week.  Neverthess - a great week for both.  Congrats to David and Bhumin!   

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A SECOND CHANCE?!?!

Everyone always bemoans what could have been, and in FTL, you always hear the decisions that someone would have and should have made.  So what would you do if a second chance was actually available!?!?

 

FTL has always been a 1-n-done scenario where things are either going well or they aren't.  Yes, things can come full circle and your season can change on a dime, but WHAT IF you could actually start over?

 

Well for the first time, the FTL is giving everyone that opportunity!  Starting at Wimbledon, everyone will have the opportunity to pick a team from scratch and start the season over!

 

Because this has never been done, some of the details for future seasons are incomplete and as a result your feedback (both positive and negative) will be invaluable.  

 

Lets help everyone out and answer some FAQ's

 

1.  If the season starts at Wimbledon, when does it finish?

• Similar to the typical FTL Season, the season will end at the ATP Year End Finals 

2.How much? Prizes?

• The first trial will be a demo and as a result will be free to enter.  Sadly as a result of this, prizes won't be available.
• In Future seasons, we are looking at having 2 options just like we've had typically, except the prices would be 10USD for Option 1 and 25USD for Option 2 

3.  Players Values? Price Changes?

• Players values and price changes will 100% coincide with the typical FTL Season. 

4. Initial Salary Cap?  Trades?

• The starting salary cap at the AO has always been 100.000 and this will continue.
• The number of trades has always been capped via a simple calculation (2 X # of GW's) and capped at 3 trades for any given week.  In this demo however, the number of trades for the season will coincide instead with what we had for a full season (68) - as a result, trades will not be an issue (unless you wanted to use more than 3 trades in any given week)
• For future seasons, the number of trades for the season will be properly capped tho. 

5.  Does my 2nd Chance team have to coincide with my normal team.

• No.   

6.  Can I have 2 teams on the same account? How do I get started?

•  Currently, you cannot have 2 teams on the same account.  In future years, you will be able to have both a team for the full season and a 2nd chance team on that account, but not for the initial demo.
• Sign in via E-Mail, Google or Facebook, and then input your Name and Team name.  If you want to make life easy on yourself, you can easily mark your Name as John Doe 2nd Half.
• From that point, you make your team like you always have
• then join the Public League - 2nd Half Masters 

 

 

 

GAMEWEEK 16 RESULTS

I'd like to offer a huge kuddos to our winners this week - Tatjana Maria, Gabriel Diallo, Elise Mertens and Taylor Fritz

 

The week following a slam is always tough.  The week following a slam where they change surface is virtually impossible.  I'd like to tell you that you could look at how a players fared over the past couple of events and that would help give you some insight as to how they might do in such a scenario - but I can tell you this flat out - it didn't LOL.

 

Lets start with Tatjana Maria.  Her victory in Queens might be one of the most hard to figure results in years.  Coming into the week, Tatjana had a total of 6 WTA Tour Level Main Draw wins since Nottingham (thats a full year) of last year!  She came into the week on a 9 match losing streak, and then somehow won 2 matches in Qualifying and then beat 5 top 30 ranked players and won the title!!!! She lost 1 set all week (Karolina Muchova) as she managed to dispatch Leylah Fernandez, Karolina Muchova, Elena Rybakina, Madison Keys and Amanda Anisimova.  Lets add a little bit of context to these results, Muchova, Rybakina and Keys are 3 of the top 5 or 6 faves to win Wimbledon!  Another crazy fact is that it had been over a year and a half since she beat a single player ranked inside the top 50 LOL.

 

I can tell you this flat out, that Tatjana has looked like she hasn't belonged on the Main Tour for quite some time, so for her to win a 500 level event, is beyond hard to fathom.  With this new found confidence, its safe to say that the top ranked players won't be hoping to see her in Round 1 at Wimbledon!

 

Gabriel Diallo came into the S'Hert event without a single career ATP Tour Level Main Draw grass court win.  1 week later, he has 5 and came away with his first career event victory!  On his way to the title, he beat 3 of the faves to win the title - Jordan Thompson, Karen Khachanov, and Ugo Humbert.  Diallo's game has come a long way over the past couple of years (the positive results on the dirt was shocking btw), but this result was hard to see coming.   His ranking (44) is now up to a career high, so it will be interesting to see if his ranking continues to rise as the season goes on.  He could cause some problems at Wimbledon.

 

The last time everyone saw Elise Mertens, she shockingly lost in Round 1 at the French Open!!!  She wasn't considered a threat to win the French, but its normally a safe assumption that she'll at least win 2 or 3 rounds!  Elise received a tonne of flack for losing to a French Wild Card that was ranked outside the top 300, and in all honesty, it felt warranted!  Crazily enough, as each day passed the loss starting making more n more sense, as Boisson reached the SemiFinal as she beat 2 top 10 players (Jessica Pegula and Mirra Andreeva) in the process!  Coming into the week, you had to wonder just what Elise's head space was going to be and if that shocking loss was something that could snowball on her.  Instead Mertens won 5 matches and won the title.  I'd like to tell you that it was an easy win, but in her SemiFinal match with Ekaterina Alexandrova, Elise held off 11 Match Points in the 2nd set!!!  YES, YES, I did say ELEVEN!  I'd like to tell you that Elise did something special, but this was more a matter of what Alexandrova didn't do and that was keep the ball in the court lol - in the process of saving those 11 match points, Elise only hit 1 Winner!  The craziest thing about this victory for Elise, is that she joined a small group of players that have won 10 events on the WTA Tour!!

 

Taylor Fritz has had one of those years that he'd like to forget.  The year started great where he helped his team win the United Cup, but he got injured during the final against Hubert Hurkacz, and just hasn't looked right ever since.  Since Miami, he's won 2 matches in an event only once and hadn't beaten a player ranked inside the top 40 in the process.  To make matters worse, just like Elise, he lost in Round 1 at the French Open.  Amazingly enough he won 4 matches this week in Stuttgart without losing a set.  When he beat Felix Auger Aliassime in the Semi Final, he must have laughed hard with his team when he saw that he was going to have to play Alexander Zverev in the Final.  Last year he reached a career high (4) in the rankings and a big part of that success was due to his 4-0 record against Zverev in huge matches.  One interesting development in the week for Fritz was his success in the tiebreak - he won 3.  I know this doesn't sound like a big deal, but he had lost his past 7!!!

 

In terms of FTL, the week was tragic for many of our managers.  Many of the top traded in players, Ludmilla Samsonova, Elena Rybakina, Hubert Hurkacz, Daniil Medvedev, and Daria Kasatkina either lost in Round 1 or were vanquished before the end of their Second Match.  But, it wasn't all bad news for everyone!!!

 

In fact Tony (Dreamteam) accumulated an incredible 355.45 points as he came away with the Victory!  You know that it was a tricky week, when even the winner still had a player lose in Round 1 (Samsonova) and had 2 other players lose in Round 2 (Medvedev and Navarro).  BUT you can get away with this thanks to having 2 winners (Fritz and Diallo), a finalist (Zverev) and a SF (Keys).

 

There were 2 other managers that finished within 10 points of Tony!  John O (Wasaga Beach Warriors) lost by 3.558 points and is victorious if Zverev finds a way to beat Fritz.  I'm sure that was a rather crazy feeling for Tony as he was hoping against his Captain!!! Pretty amazing that both of them had Diallo!! Elaine (evjlkstennis25) also finished just 8.908 points back and ends up being victorious if a heavily favoured Anisimova beats Tatjana Maria in the Final!

 

 

 

 

 

FTL Cup fixtures this week

 

Monthly standings for May

 

Here are the level 2 monthly standings for May.

Congrats to Mohaib Idrees and Dr peRFect who was top of the standings by just 2.537 points from Jamie Edmundson. (The Umpire Strikes Back)   If we were to compare it to a hawk eye call, Jamie just missed out by a milimetre!!

Sam G (Bagels&Breadsticks), Dragan (Nadal's forehand) and Kevin G (MTL89) make up the top 5 and all had a great month of results.

Here is a breakdown by game week.

French Open round up

Ladies and gents - your French Open winners are Carlos Alcaraz and Coco Gauff

What a dramatic finale we had to the men's and women's events at the French Open.

The men's final between Alcaraz and Sinner was one for the ages.  5 sets which brought us 5 and half hours of back and forth entertainment.  We could argue about where it sits in the best matches of all time or the best comebacks of all time but I think we can all agree it was a high quality match full of drama.

Alcaraz went into the tournament as the favourite.  Clay is a favoured surface for him having recently won 2 Masters titles on the surface  and the recent head to head record against Sinner was also impressive and included a win in the Italian Open final.

Sinner was looking very impressive though.  He cruised through the French Open without dropping a set, continuing the trend of humbling solid ATP opponents like Lehecka and Rublev.  His first big test came in the semi final with the mighty Novak Djokovic the opposition.  Novak threw everything at Sinner but even he couldn't get a set of him.

Alcaraz meanwhile went through the tournament playing his delightful brand of expansive tennis but at times his form dipped and he did drop some sets along the way.  In his semi final against Musetti he lost the 1st and was pushed hard in the 2nd before injury caused Musetti's level to dip and ultimately he retired.

So, come the final, it was extremely hard to call and many anticipated there would be a 5 set thriller. They got their wish but it could have been so so different.  Leading 2 sets to 1, Sinner found himself with 3 match points on the Alcaraz serve and it seemed like the game was over.  Somehow Alcaraz survived and took the 4th set.   

By the 5th, Alcaraz looked on top, Sinner seemed to be cramping and Alcaraz took the early break.  Remarkably Sinner found some inner reserves to fight back however and threatened again to turn the match around. In the end it took a super tie break to separate them, a tie break in which Alcaraz hit winner after winner and finally conquered the resistance of his Italian opponent.

Its fair to say these two are likely to dominate men's tennis for some time to come!

The women's final lacked the quality of the men's final but it was not short of suspense.  Aryna Sabalenka was playing terrific tennis - and she had to -  in order to overcome a string of tough opponents including Anisimova in Round 4,  Qinwen Zheng in the quarter final and reigning champ Iga Swiatek in the semi final.   It seemed she was on a date with destiny and Aryna definitely believed it.

Her opponent in the final was Coco Gauff who had shown a real upturn in fortunes during the clay court swing but was often still reliant on winning ugly when her game did not reach the levels that she expects of herself.  That was certainly true of her quarter final against Madison Keys which saw both players put in an error strewn performance.

Coco's semi final opponent was the surprise package of the tournament. Frenchwoman Lois Boisson.  A few eyebrows were raised when Lois took out Elise Mertens in the 1st Round but it was her back to back wins over Jessica Pegula and Mirra Andreeva that got the tennis world talking and the French crowds dreaming.  In the end though Coco was too talented and powerful for her opponent but this run will definitely kickstart the career of Boisson.

The crucial moment for the final perhaps came right at the beginning. The windy conditions were clearly going to make life difficult for both players and consideration was apparently given to closing the roof.  In the end though they kept it an outdoor event and it quickly became clear that Coco was coping with the conditions far better than an increasingly frustrated Sabalenka.   Aryna was visibly annoyed that she wasn't able to reproduce the tennis that she had played throughout the fortnight and she will feel this is one that got away but for Gauff it was an intelligent and gutsy performance that secured her a second grand slam.

The battle for FTL supremacy was equally close!   At this time of the season it definitely pays to have built up a significant bank balance and its the only way you would have been able to afford a competitive team for this event.   At the start of the season, we have a budget of 100 million to cover our squad of 16. The  average 8 player starting line up for the French Open would have cost 120 million alone!  And most teams now have a value in excess of 170 million!

At the end of the competition we have the two top ranked players facing off in the mens and womens singles for the first time in decades.  And the most common FTL starting line up was Alcaraz captain, with Sinner, Gauff and Sabalenka as key players.

The choice of a good dark horse was also crucial to this week with Rublev, Samsonova and Kasatkina proving to be the most profitable picks.

There were question marks over some of the top names.  How would Novak play having been so poor during the clay season but eventually finding some form in Geneva.  How about Iga, a multiple RG champ but also out of form or Zverev who's season had been one of ups and downs.  In the end they all did pretty well and turned out to be solid picks for those who chose them even if they didn't make the final.  

Perhaps the main casualty from an FTL point of view in the early stages was Casper Ruud who was a surprise 2nd Round casualty to Nuno Borges and another popular pick Jasmine Paolini squandered match point chances in her 4th round tie with Svitolina to deprive us of a highly anticipated quarter final showdown with Iga.   Jack Draper was also a surprise early casualty as he fell victim to an inspired Sasha Bublik

So lets take a look at the final FTL table for the French Open  (Level 2)

Rick and Mamba Mentality led the way for a considerable part of the French Open but ultimately the loss of Jasmine Paolini and Iga's win over Rybakina put the brakes on his chances.

AND it was Gord MacCabe and Gordon Trailers who ultimate triumphed at the French Open edging out Antonella and "Just married...with child" by 24 points.  Congrats to both on a great week.

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

As you would expect both had all four finalists, they both had solid dark horse picks with both having Rublev and Gordon going for the impressive young talent Mboko and Antonella matching her score with Yastremska.  So really there was just one match that was the difference between them.  Gordon had Djokovic and Antonella had Zverev.  The two met in the quarter final and it was Novak who won!  That was it - that was the difference between first and second.  

The only match that prevented Gordon from having all 8 semi finalists was the shock defeat of Andreeva had the hands of Boisson.  Its unlikely we will ever see a better performance at a slam!

Congrats again to Gordon and Antonella on an incredible fortnight!