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

Game Week 26 Roundup

 

A quiet week for FTL in the immediate aftermath of the US Open. It was a Davis Cup weekend so there were no men's events so it was just two WTA events in Brazil and Mexico before the Tours move on to the Asian swing.

In Guadalaja Marta Kostyuk was the top seed but after getting a walkover on her opening match, she went down in three sets to Samsonova and there were subsequently injury concerns for Marta which gives some cause for concern for the rest of her season.

With Marta out, defending champ Iva Jovic became red hot favourite to win the title and she duly obliged cruising through the event without dropping an event.  Sonmez, Frech and Bucsa were all despatched before she secured a comfortable 6-4, 6-2 win over Peyton Stearns to win the trophy and that covered Sombrero!  

In Sao Paolo, top seed Leylah Fernandez caused considerable FTL consternation when she withdrew shortly before lockout. Many FTLers were unable to reverse trades in time to switch up their teams. As it turned out they needn't have worried too much as those that retained her benefitted from her switch to the event in Singapore which of course she ended up winning, Alls well that ends well.

But i've stepped forward into the future there - hopefully not a spoiler for anyone whose only source of tennis news is this blog!   Leylah's withdrawal really opened up an opportunity for some of the lesser lights competing in Sao Paulo to step up and perhaps winner a maiden WTA title.

Turned out it was Nadia Podoroska of Argentina and Kaitlin Quevedo of Spain who put themselves in that position.  Podoroska (many of you will remember her reaching the French Open semi final in 2020) had an excellent week.  Coming in on a protected ranking, she beat Lys, Lamens and Badosa en route to the final.

Quevedo meanwhile had a slightly easier route with wins over Kostovic in the Quarter Final and newly adopted Frenchwoman Anna Blinkova in the semi finals. 

It was to be the 20 year old Quevedo who prevailed after dropping the first set, taking the title and moving up to a career high ranking of 73.  One to watch! 

Here is the Global FTL table for Game Week 26

Plenty of you managed to field a strong team but it was John O'Mara and Wasaga Beach Warriors who were the stand out act this week with a terrific total of 361.508 points, over 30 points clear of the chasing pack which included I Just came to say yellow (Lukas), Grylla's slicing moonballers (Elin) and Grass Court Masters (Violet).  Well done to all.

John's team was fantastic.

But for the late withdrawal of Leylah Fernandez, John would have been fielding 8 players. As it turned out Leylah's contribution was in the post for the following week. 

Remarkably John had three of the four finalists - Jovic and Stearns in Guadalajara and perhaps most impressively the unheralded Kaitlin Quevedo who finally came good for him in Sao Paulo. Kostyuk, Beklek, Lys and Tjen all played relatively minor supporting roles but helped take John's score well over 300!  

Congrats John!