Game Week 14 results

 Game Week winner

Tournament winners

Well I guess there is only one place to start the roundup of the final clay court week before RG although there were several great stories this week.

Novak had two big targets this year.  To win 100 titles and to make it to 25 slams.   There have been times when many questioned whether either would happen but as we all know, Novak should never be written off.

Taking the wildcard for Geneva turned out to be an inspired decision by him.  He was desparately in need of some confidence boosting wins and needed to work his best way to his best level again.  And he got exactly that in Geneva.  There were challenges on the way, Norrie pushed him hard in the semi final and Hurkacz probably should have won the final from a break up in the final set. But as he has done on so many occasions in his career, Novak dug deep to secure his 100th title.

25 slams seems a far more difficult task given the level of competition there will be at RG but Novak will no doubt build up his level as the tournament progresses and if it does turn out to be a Djokovic v Zverev quarter final, I am sure many will start to believe he can do it from there.

In the WTA event in Strasbourg, it was great to see the return of Elena Rybakina to match winning ways.  She has had a bit of an up and down season and her personal issues are well documented.  But she seemed in good spirits this week and played a great final to see off the dangerous Samsonova.  Elena has been out of the conversation when it comes to winning the slams in women's tennis but this result might change things and she will be relieved she no longer has to play Belinda Bencic in the 1st round of RG after Belinda's withdrawal.

The Hamburg title was won by Flavio Cobolli who defeated Andrey Rublev in the final.  It has been quite an odd season for Cobolli. Rick sums it up perfectly in this tweet.

Rublev will have been disappointed to lose the final but still pleased that this tournament saw a bit of a turnaround in his fortunes.  He'll be going into RG with a bit of confidence now and no doubt he will once again be the most popular dark horse pick on the men's side.   

Meanwhile, one man who may be doubting his level going into RG is Alexander Zverev.  A defeat in Rome to Musetti where he found a number of unconvincing excuses was followed by him taking a wildcard for Hamburg to get some more game time.  A surprising loss to Alexandre Muller will leave many questions unanswered for Zverev. The French Open may be his best chance of winning a slam but on current form, this one might just pass him by once again and he won't be pleased to see his nemesis Cerundolo looming nearby in the draw.

And last but not least, a huge should out to Maya Joint on winning her first WTA title.   Maya is one of the most promising talents in Australian tennis and looks like she has a bright future.  One of our prominent FTLers has even named his team after her!   Maya did not drop a set all week as she chalked up impressive wins over Konjuh, Volynets, Ann Li, Tomljanovic (via retirement) and Cristian in the final.

So lets have a look at the Game Week 14 leaderboard.

Congratulations to Cam Williams who is this week's game week winner.  For those unfamiliar with Cam, be hosts a popular tennis channel on youtube which features live draw analysis, ball by ball commentary and discussion during the top games and just general tennis chat. 

This seems like the perfect time to give him a plug.  Go check him out folks!

Tennis Talk on twitter

Youtube channel

Here is the head to head between Cam and Jamie Edmundson who was the closest challenger this week.

Cam and Jamie had very strong teams in a game week when even playing 8 was a struggle for many after the predictable barrage of withdrawals.

And the Captain and Key players were identical for both teams.  Both put Zverev as Captain which turned out to be ill advised!  However their Key players delivered with Djokovic and Rybakina winning the titles and Rublev finishing runner up in Hamburg.  

Jamie actually had an extra runner up in Hurkacz but poor performances from Bublik and Baez perhaps cost him the game week. Cam meanwhile benefitted hugely from the return to form of BHM and a decent score from Popyrin gave him the vital points he needed to win the game week.

Congrats to Cam and Jamie and everyone else who had a great game week!

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS AND DARK HORSE BREAKDOWN

I have attached the French Open Main Draw (FTL Version) and the Dark Horse Breakdown.  The 2nd round of Qualifying was completed earlier today (Thursday, May 22nd), and will be completed tomorrow.   The Qualifiers and Lucky Losers (there are at least 3 in the Mens event!) will be placed shortly after Qualifying is completed.

Do not forget to select your Dark Horses for both the Mens and Womens events! and just a reminder the French Open starts playing Round 1 matches on Sunday (May 25th)

 

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

Good Luck :)

ROME RESULTS

A huge congratulations goes to the winners of the Rome Masters 1000 -  Jasmine Paolini and Carlos Alcaraz.

 

To say that Jasmine Paolini's victory in her home event was well received is the understatement of the world!!  It was truly a raucous environment as she won the biggest title of her career.  She reached the finals at both the French Open and Wimbledon last year, so its hard to believe, that this win was only her 2nd WTA Tour level victory of her career.   On her way to the finals this week, Jasmine beat Lulu Sun, Jelena Ostapenko, Diana Shnaider and Peyton Stearns.  The analysts deemed her to be a heavy underdog in the final as she was set to play Coco Gauff.  Coco had struggled mightily with both her serve and her forehand in the SF but somehow managed to get past Qinwen in a 3rd set tiebreak.  One thing was for certain though, if Coco played at the same level as she did in the Semi's, you had to like Jasmine's chances in the final.  Sure enough, Coco sprayed balls all over the yard and Jasmine took full advantage.  Thanks to Coco's 55 unforced errors (Jasmine only won 72 points lol), Jasmine won in routine fashion 6-4,6-2. 

 

Interestingly enough the victory by Paolini was a rain delay away from not happening!  In the QF against Diana Shnaider, Paolini was down a set and 4 love!  Safe to say, she was about 5 to 10 minutes away from getting eliminated when the rains came and forced a lengthy delay.  Once they came back, Diana struggled to find the court and Jasmine won the next 6 games to win the 2nd set and Diana never recovered.  

Meanwhile, the craziest thing that happened in the womens event wasn't Jasmine's title run! No, instead it was the ramifications to the French Open Seedings from this weeks results - The 3 time French Open winner - Iga Swiatek - will be the 5 seed!!!!

 

The story of the mens event was simple from day 1 - The Return of Jannik Sinner!  Due to a suspension for something that his team did (I'm still not sure how I feel about him accepting this suspension to be honest), Jannik hadn't played a single match in 4 months (Since he won the AO).    When the draw came out, his chances at a long run seemed rather tricky as it looked like he was going to have to beat 2 really talented players (Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Francisco Cerundolo) just to get to the QF.  Due to the inactivity, you had to expect him to luck rusty, but instead he made the finals rather comfortably as he beat Mariano Navone, Jesper De Jong, Francisco Cerundolo, Casper Ruud, and Tommy Paul.  (he completely dismantled the defending Madrid Champion (Ruud) 6-0,6-1).

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the draw was Carlos Alcaraz and although he didn't look anywhere near his best for most of the week, it was still plenty good enough for him to get to the final.  Even when he's not playing his best, that level is still crazy high and filled with incredible highlights.  He beat Dusan Lajovic, Laslo Djere, Karen Khachanov, Jack Draper, and Lorenzo Musetti in order to make the final.  The only set he lost on his way to final was to Khachanov.

 

The Final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner is something that fans and analysts have been salivating and begging for for quite some time.  Currently, they have the best rivalry in the mens game and its aided even further by the fact that a couple of their previous matches were played at a sky high level (the 2024 match in Beijing is the best Bo3 match I've seen in at least a decade).

 

It was hard to know what to expect in the final though as Jannik is the #1 player (by a large margin btw, and had lost 1 match TOTAL since August of 2024!!), but Carlos had beaten him in their last 3 matches before the final started.  Alcaraz had also won the French Open in 2024 and has appeared to be the best clay court player in the world over the past couple of years.  Honestly, it felt like a pick-em type of match, and for most of the 1st set, it actually felt like Sinner was the better player.  In fact, he even had a 40-15 break chance at 6-5, and missed a rather routine forehand on Set Point.  Sadly for Jannik, he never got another chance as Carlos played a great tiebreak and won the first set.  Jannik struggled to find the court with his first serve to start the 2nd set (and paid for it), and 15 minutes later, he was down 5 love!  It was a huge win by Carlos this week as he's now up #2 in the world, and will be seeded #2 at the French Open.  How great would it be if we could see a rematch in the final at the French Open?

 

btw it was really interesting to watch how differently Carlos plays against Sinner as compared to how he plays against EVERYONE else!  Carlos plays with a certain level of patience when he plays against Sinner, as he knows that if he opens the court with his forehand, Jannik will just take the ball up the line and the point is over.  He also plays a tonne of loopy forehands as he's trying to get Jannik out of rhythm.  It will be interesting to see if Jannik's team has a change of gameplan to help adjust to this approach.

 

In terms of FTL, the week was fairly tricky for most of us, as the Return of Jannik posed a couple of huge questions that everyone had to answer - What would it cost to trade in Sinner?  Can I afford to not have Sinner this week?  

Interestingly enough, the winner of the week, decided that it wasn't worth it to trade him in!  I'd like to offer a huge kuddos to Tom U (Tennis The Menace) on his first ever FTL Victory!!  He had both winners, another finalist (Gauff), a SF (Musetti) and 2 other QF (Ruud and Mirra).  

 

Considering how tightly packed the Leaderboard was this week, if Sinner does end up being victorious,  Tom wouldn't have won the Week.  I can only imagine how emotional he was as he watched that first set!!! lol

 

 

 

For Option 2, Sam G (Bagels & Breadsticks) found his way to the first place result.  He beat Christie (Controlled Aggression) by 2.05 points!!!  Both managers had both winners and Gauff as a finalist.  Hard to believe but the biggest difference in the week was that Sam selected Emma Raducanu as his Dark Horse!!!  For someone that had barely won a match on the dirt in her entire career, her putting up nearly 50 points was incredibly special and a truly inspired selection!

 

Interesting to see that both Sam and Christie made the same decision as Tom did about not trading in Sinner and were rewarded for their efforts!

 

I'd like to also give a shoutout to Natatatat (Salty and Sweet) who finished 2nd just 3.587 points behind our winner.  Preston (Maya Joint is Lit) was the manager that finished the highest (6th) that selected Jannik Sinner.  If Jannik ends up winning, I think its a pretty safe bet that Preston ends up being victorious.  (makes that routine FH miss on SP even harder to take!!)

 

GAMEWEEK 14 MAIN DRAWS - FTL VERSION

 GENEVA

 HAMBURG

 STRASBOURG

RABAT 

RPG (Random Player Generator)

 

The RPG  (Random Player Generator)

Who do you plan to trade in for game week 14?

Will you be bringing in a big hitter to bolster your RG team?

Will you look for a leftfield pick at the WTA Rabat event?

If you are looking for inspiration, why not pick a number from the random player generator. Comment with  number between 1 and 93 and the RPG will respond with a suggested player for you to trade in!

Game Week 14 - early lockout

 Game Week 14 - Early lockout

Remember its an early lockout next week folks with the French Open looming.

There are 4 events this week.

WTA Strasbourg, ATP Geneva and ATP Hamburg all start on Sunday.

The WTA Rabat event begins on Monday.

We will post the draws here as and when they become available.

Quite a few significant withdrawals to be aware of including

Hamburg: Humbert, Korda, Tsitsipas

Geneva: Dimitrov, Griekspoor, Shapovalov, Sonego, Thompson

WTA Strasbourg: Danilovic, Alexandrova

Also some significant wildcards - most notably

Geneva: Djokovic

Strasbourg: Pegula, Rybakina, Raducanu

Expect there to be plenty more before the events start. I'm thinking potentially Musetti, Paul and Sinner who are in the Rome semi finals and potentially Stearns who went deep in Rome but is defending her title in Rabat.

Full entry list details can be found here.

AO FTL2025 - Google Sheets

Game Week 12 Round up and April standings

 

Madrid Open Roundup

Mens singles

It was a maiden title for Casper Road at 1000 level and some would argue its been a long time coming!  Casper had an excellent week not dropping a set en route to the final, a run which included wins over Korda, Fritz, Medvedev and Cerundolo.

Meanwhile on the other side of the draw Jack Draper was proving that his game could work just effectively on the clay courts of Madrid with some very impressive straight set wins over Griekspoor, Berrettini, Paul, Arnaldi and Musseti.

They served up a cracking final with Ruud eventually prevailing 7-5, 3-6, 6-4.

Womens singles

Reigning champ Iga continued her patchy form in Madrid losing a set to Eala in her opening match and suffering a surprise bagel in the opening set of her Quarter Final match against Madison Keys but despite that she still managed to reach the semi finals where she humbled by a resurgent Coco Gauff.

Aryna Sabalenka showed why she is No 1 these days dropping just one set (to former doubles partner Elise Mertens) en route to the final overcoming tough challenges from the Ukranian pair of Kostyuk and Svitolina in the Quarter Finals and semi finals.

Coco also seems to be finding her best form and what is potentially her best surface. After a surprise bagel in the 1st set of her opening match against Yastremska, Coco found her feet quickly and scored an impressive 7-5, 6-1 win over Andreeva before the 6-1, 6-1 drubbing of Iga.

It was Aryna who prevailed in the final however edging out Coco with a 6-3. 7-6 win.  They will meet again in the Rome Semi Final.

And so to FTL.   Here is the Global League table for Madrid.

Congratulations to the Mountain Newts for finishing top of the pile in Madrid with 658 points.

Here is the game week winning team.

I guess what is most surprising about this team is that they won the game week without the women's champion Sabalenka.   Mountain Newts had both men's finalist in Ruud and Draper as well as women's runner up Coco Gauff and semi finalists Swiatek and Alcaraz.  Pretty impressive!

In the Level 2 league where the prizes are to be won it was Nachiket Gadgil who topped the table.

Massive congrats to Nachiket Gadgil (Amaze-balls) for winning the game week just pipping Kevin Ratcliffe (Chafing the Dream) into 2nd place.

Here is the head to head between the 2.

Both Nachiket and Kevin had the two Madrid winners in Sabalenka and Ruud.  And both had the losing semi finalists in the WTA event in Swiatek and Svitolina with Kevin benefitting from her position as an ER replacement for Alcaraz.   Nachiket had the stronger dark horse pick, in particular Sakkari brought home some very valuable points.

And finally to the Level 2 monthly table.

The winner for April was Emi Kottasz with 1539 points.  Congrats to Emi.  Michael Blomer took 2nd place with Evan Dersio in 3rd.   Monthly breakdown will follow shortly!!