FTL Cup Final (to be played in Game Week 31)

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The FTL Cup final is set after the completion of two enthralling semi finals this game week. 

Semi final 1

What a battle.

Swift Team makes the final at the expense of Vlad the Macedonian but both Melissa and Vlad had a fantastic week finishing well up the Leaderboard.

That was largely thanks to both of them picking Maja Chwalinska as their dark horse. Maja has just taken the WTA1000 title in Wuhan.

In a contest where Vlad was off to the worst start losing Rublev and Djokovic early on, he worked his way back into it and looked favourite to win it when it when he had Iga left and Melissa had Jodar. But the semi finals flipped the script and Iga went down to Chwalinska and Jodar defeated Medvedev.

Jodar couldn't quite get the title in Shanghai but he'd done enough to win the tie for Melissa.

Congrats Melissa.

Semi final 2

The 2nd semi final was fought out a little further down the table but for a while it was also a contest which was very much in the balance.

The loss of Jovic and ER Fritz put paid to the remaining hope for Kalinin-out-Burger (Jeremy Parrish)

It was in fact the ER of Tomasz K who made all the difference. Daniil Medvedev came into the equation after the withdrawals of Gauff and Andreeva and while he only made the semi final, that was enough to secure the tie.

Congrats to Yet Again and Tomasz on reaching the final!

Monthly Standings for September

 Monthly standings for September

It was another close run battle with Violet just pipping Mikhail and Vladimir to the top spot!  Congrats on the monthly win Violet!!

Here is the breakdown by Game Week

FTL Cup semi finals update

 

Its been another week of FTL destruction - i feel like a broken record saying that now but where do that leave our two FTL Cup ties?

There were plenty of differentials at the outset of the match between Vlad the Macedonian and Swift Team but the vast majority of them have already tumbled. Vlad's hopes are now entirely dependent on Iga Swiatek while Melissa still has Elina Svitolina and Rafael Jodar to count on.

There's only 5 points separating the two teams for the next match ups will be crucial.  For Vlad, Iga is next up against Ashlyn Krueger and has a seemingly favourable draw for the next few rounds.   Meanwhile, Swift Team have Svitolina against Hanyu Guo in Wuhan and Jodar against Ruud in the Shanghai Quarter Final.  Its too close to call!

The match between Kalin-out Burger and Yet Again is similarly closely matched and again the differentials have tumbled like drunk dominoes.

Its down to Iva Jovic for Jeremy versus Daniil Medvedev for Tomasz. Tomasz currently has a 10 point lead and the benefit of having Iga in a KP spot so the odds are in his favour right now.

Iva Jovic will play Maja Chwalinska next while Medvedev will face Tommy Paul.  Can they both progress further?

Still all to play for!

Game Week 28 Roundup

 

Here are the results for Game Week 28 (i'll get round to doing an extended roundup at some point!)

ATP Beijing   -  

Novak picked up where he left off all those years ago and continued his unbeaten streak in the Chinese capital.  In slightly strange circumstances.  Medvedev was defaulted in his semi final with Djokovic for hitting a spectator with a ball, admittedly Novak was on the verge of victory.  And in the final, he only required a set as De Minaur retired hurt.  But nothing can take away from a remarkable week from Novak who continues his record of winning a tournament every season since.....i dunno....time immemorial! 

ATP Tokyo

Carlos was the Tokyo champ. He took down Jiri Lehecka in straight sets in the final.

WTA Beijing

And what a story in the 1000 event in Beijing.  The Queen is back!!  Qinwen wins her first 1000 title on home soil defeating Mirra Andreeva in the final!

Here is the Level 2 FTL table 

Again the top of the standings was incredibly tight with just 7 points separating Dirty Jerzey (Mathew Markman), Austin3:16 (Bhanu Prabhakar) and (New Cal Aces)   Mat Mermoud 

Here is the head to head with the top two 

Bhanu actually had all 3 champs in Qinwen .Zheng, Alcaraz and Djokovic  while Mathew only had Alcaraz and Qinwen.  However Matthew's choice of Alcaraz as Captain and a decent return from Elise Mertens were enough to pip the game week. 

Congrats Matthew, Bhanu and Mat on a great week.  Congrats also to Sasha Sheremet with Ternopil who finished 2nd to Matthew in the Global standings. 

Game Week 27 Roundup

 

A quick roundup of Game Week 27

ATP Chengdu    Davidovich Fokina won the title defeating Hubert Hurkacz

ATP Hangzhou   Daniil Medvedev  defeated Andrey Rublev in an all Russian final

WTA Singapore   Leylah Fernandez beat Talia Gibson in the final

WTA Korea Open  Kimberly Birrell beat Maya Joint in an all Australian Final.

Here are the final Level 2 standings for the week.

Congrats to Lou Warren and one hip wonder who were the game week champs for Game Week 27 by the smallest of margins.  Big D (Cloudy with a chance of green balls) was only 0.206 points behind!! 

Here is the head to head between the two as there was literally nothing between these two teams. 

 Both teams had Hangzhou finalists Medvedev and Rublev.  Both had Chengdu winner Davidovich Fokina and both had Singapore winner Fernandez. In fact the only difference in lineup between these two sides was that Big D had Oliynikova while Lou had Mertens.  What did make a difference in this tie was captaincy choice with Medvedev getting valuable bonus points for Lou.

GW29 DRAWS AND DARK HORSE BREAKDOWN - UPDATED (WUHAN)

I have attached the GW29 Draws (FTL Version) and the DarkHorse Breakdown for the Mens Event in Shanghai.   Please note that the Qualifying was completed earlier today (October 6th), so as a result, the Qualifiers and Lucky Losers (Denis Shapovalov withdrew earlier today) have been placed.  Keep in mind that a few players retired from their last match via injury in Tokyo and Beijing, so there could be more withdrawals.

 

Plz note (as of October 11th), I have also attached the Draws and Dark Horse Breakdown for the WTA 1000 event in Wuhan.  The Qualifying was completed earlier today, so the Qualifiers and Lucky Losers have been placed.  Noskova and Oliynykova withdrew earlier today, so there was some significant revisions to the initial Draw that was posted yesterday.

 

Do not forget to select your Dark Horse for both the Mens and Womens events this week

 

If you want a copy, click on the link, GW29 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 available for both the mens and womens events.

Good Luck!

GW28 DRAWS AND DARK HORSE BREAKDOWN

I have attached the GW28 Draws (FTL Version) for the Mens & Womens Events, and the Dark Horse Breakdown for the WTA1000 event in Beijing.  Please note that the Qualifying for all 3 events was completed earlier today (September 29th), so as a result, the Qualifiers and Lucky Losers (Petra Marcinko & Alina Korneeva withdrew earlier today) have been placed.

 

Do not forget to select your Dark Horse for the Womens event in Beijing.

 

If you want a copy, click on the link, GW28 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 GW27.

Good Luck!  Btw both the Mens event in Tokyo is set to play their first Main Draw match an hour before the matches in Beijing, so the Event Specific Lockout will come into play this week