Game Week 32 Roundup

 

He may have missed the a large chunk of the season through injury but Carlos Alcaraz is very much back and the man to beat right now.

Carlos followed up his recent titles in Tokyo and Vienna by securing the Masters 1000 title in Paris. Who says that indoor tennis didn't suit his game!?

Alcaraz defeated Shelton 7-6, 7-5 in a closely thought final.

The other storyline in Paris was the qualification situation for the tour finals.  Jodar went into the week in the 8th spot for the tour finals but an early exit at the hands of Casper Ruud opened the door for several rivals to potentially pass him.

None of them did!!

De Minaur was the closest contender but surprisingly fell to Etcheverry.  Djokovic's hopes of making yet another tour finals crashed at the hands of Hijikate.  Tommy Paul had a chance if he made the final but his good run was brought to an end by Ben Shelton.  And so it was Taylor Fritz who just had to beat Carlos in the quarter final to secure his spot at the tour finals.  He had a match point, it was on his racquet but he didn't convert and the rest his history.

Remarkably Jodar survived and in so doing became one of the lowest ranked (at season start) to make the tour finals!

Elsewhere this week Claire Liu defeated Alex Eala in some style to secure the Hong Kong title and in Chennai is was Magda Linette who took down Janice Tjen in a delayed final.

Here is the final table for this game week

It was a close run contest between The Umpire Strikes Back  (Jamie)  and Nadal's Forehand (Dragan) and if we look at the head to head we'll see why!

Both Jamie and Dragan had a great week with both Paris finalists (Alcaraz and Shelton) and both WTA runners up (Eala and Tjen). They chose the same DH - Casper Ruud anod both had Fils, Fritz and Zverev!  Aside from a few differences in player placement, the only material difference in the teams was Jamie fielding Wang and Dragan going with Medvedev and that one win for Wang would ultimately make the difference this week.

Congrats to Jamie who tops the Global table and wins the Level 2 weekly prize for GW32

WTA Tour finals and Stockholm

 

The WTA Finals are about to begin and I dunno about you guys but i'm excited for it.

They gave up a bit of pre tournament spice too with Jess Pegula being caught on mic calling Mirra a diva! (its all good though - Mirra quite likes being a Diva!)

What did we make of the outfits?  Social media was not kind to them this year!

The draw is:

Group 1:    Elena Rybakina,  Coco Gauff,   Jess Pegula,   Linda Noskova

Group 2:   Aryna Sabalenka, Mirra Andreeva, Elina Svitolina, Karolina Muchova

We get underway tomorrow with  Rybakina vs Noskova   and Gauff vs Pegula

Meanwhile the men's tour moves onto Stockholm for the final tour event before their tour finals.  Despite a number of withdrawlas, its still quite a strong lineup.  

This is the first lockout for tomorrow which matches due to get underway at 4pm local time.

The Tour Finals lineup has now been decided after a considerable amount of drama at the Paris Masters. When Jodar lost to Casper Ruud, it did look like he'd blown it.  But ADM, Djokovic, Paul and Fritz were all unable to take advantage of the opening.  Fritz was just one point away from beating Alcaraz and making the semi finals in Paris which would have been enough!

Tour Finals Line-up

Zverev

Alcaraz

Shelton

Medvedev

Cobolli

Fils

Tiafoe

Jodar

Monthly Standings for October.

 

Global League monthly standings for October.   Congrats to Please retire already venus who were top of the Global Standings for this month.

In the level 2 standings its Tony and Dreamteam who are top of the pile.  Slice for the win (Florian) finished 2nd.  Maoust, Dr PeRFect and jbatta44 make up the top 5.

Congrats to Tony and Dreamteam
 

Game Week 31 Roundup

 

Four tournaments to cover this week.

WTA Tokyo   -    Dayana Shnaider won her 6th career title by beating Leylah Fernandez in 3 sets. A brave effort from Leylah who had just learned of the passing of her grandfather on the day of the match. 

ATP Basel -   Valentin Vacherot secured his 2nd ATP title in a comeback win over Jiri Lehecka. Results haven't quite hit the heights of last year but this title has helped Vacherot backup his breakout year admirably.

ATP Vienna -   When it comes to 500 level events these days there is no-one even close to Carlos Alcaraz! Carlos didn't drop a set all tournament and comfortably defeated De Minaur 6-1, 6-4 in the final. He is unbeaten at 500 level this season, 16 wins!

WTA Guagzhou -  And it was a first career title for Harriet Dart who has had a decent run of form of late. Harriet defeated Lilli Tagger in a closely contested final.

Here are the Global League Standings for the Game Week

Maoust (Noah) are this weeks winners both at Global and Level 2.  Fedex Superstars were a close 2nd. San Clemente Aces were the best of the rest in level 2.

Head to head between the two top teams.

Noah had a terrific team with two champions in Alcaraz and Shnaider and 2 runners up with Lehecka and Tagger.  Muhammad had the same two champs and one runner up with Fernandez 

Congrats Noah!!

GW32 DRAWS AND DARK HORSE BREAKDOWN

 

I have attached the GW32 Draws (FTL Version) for the Mens & Womens Events, and the Dark Horse Breakdown for The Paris Masters.  Please note that the Qualifying for all 3 events was completed earlier today (November 1st), so as a result, the Qualifiers and Lucky Losers (Lilli Tagger, Harriet Dart, Kaitlin Quevedo and Xinran Sun) have been placed.

 

Do not forget to select your Dark Horse for the Mens event in Paris.

 

If you want a copy, click on the link, GW32 DRAWS Once you do so, click on FILE, and scroll to MAKE A COPY, and call it whatever you want

 

Please note that the New Players Prices are listed as both the Mens & Womens events have been completed for GW31.

Good Luck!  All 3 events are set to start at different times, so the Event Specific Lockout will come into play this week

FTL Cup Final Update

 

Melissa and Swift Team are the FTL Cup Champions!!!!!!!!!!

In truth it was over as a contest pretty rapidy.  Kudos to Tomasz - he chose to gamble and leave Zverev and Rybakina on the bench and the call on Rybakina was probably correct as she chose to end her time in Tokyo once she had secured the no 1 spot.  The decision not to play Zverev was very close to being vindicted when Zverev nearly fell at the first hurdle against Landaluce.

But unfortunately for Tomasz his trio of differentials could not get it done.  Hurkacz fell to Rune, Humbert fell to Djokovic and Shelton fell to Kym.

Once Zverev overcame the 1st round challenge, he hasn't looked back and will face De Minaur in the semi finals today. Shnaider has delivered for Melissa by reaching the Tokyo final.

Melissa's week could have been even better if she'd selected Leylah for her main team but unfortunately she left her watching from the bench.  She wasn't the only one!

Game Week 30 update

 

A globe trotting week in the tennis world with 5 titles decided.

ATP Lyon

Lorenzo Musetti secured his third ATP Tour Title and his first since 2022.

Musetti beat Fritz   6-3, 6-4 in the final.

WTA Ningbo

Elena Rybakina is warming up nicely for the WTA Tour Finals by defending her title in Ningbo and she's not stopping there - back in action in Tokyo this week,

Rybakina beat Fernandez   6-2  6-2

ATP Almaty

Medvedev is finally running out of new cities to win in.  He successfully defended his Almaty title.

Medvedev beat Basilashvilli  6-7, 6-1,6-3 in the final

WTA Guanzhou

An impressive week for Siniakova.  After coming back from a set down to Stearns in the first round, she pretty much destroyed everyone else she faced from thereon in!

Siniakova defeated Ashlyn Krueger  6-1, 6-0 in the final!

ATP Brussels

Tallon Griekspoor beat veteran German Jan Lennart Struff to win his 4th ATP title 

Griekspoor beat Struff  4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the final

Here is the Global League Table at the end of the game week.

Another very tight game week in the Global Standings with Harakiri (Aditya) setting the pace from the start only to be pipped at the post by Sara's Smashers who had an ace up their sleeve with Tallon Griekspoor as ER.

Here is the head to head between the two:

Both teams had the Ningbo finalists Rybakina and Fernandez as well as Almtaty winner Daniil Medvedev and Lyon runner up Fritz.  But it was Griekspoor coming in as ER for Sara to replace Iga Swiatek that made all the difference on the final day when he took the title in Brussels.

And Level 2 glory this week goes to the tennis talker  Cam Williams!

Tennis Talk (Cam) edged out The Fons (Emi) by just 7 points!

There was actual only one difference between the two teams.  Cam had Nakashima while Emi had Cobolli but that was not what made the difference.  It was the choice of Medvedev as Captain by Cam that won his the Game Week.

Congrats to Cam and Emi  and Sara and Aditya on a great game week.