Game Week 11 - Final Leaderboard

 

For those FTLers who pay attention to recent tennis history, this week should have been a pretty good one as we ended up with 6 of the same finalists from the equivalent events last year and 3 of the same champions!  It was also a week when some managers decided to drop some big players in the expectation that they may withdraw or lose early. Some of these gambles paid off. Some spectacularly failed!

It was the same final and the same outcome in Munich as Holger Rune defended his title in a remarkable match against Botic Van de Zandschulp.  But it could have been oh so different with Botic being a double break up in the deciding set and Rune seemingly compromised by a shoulder injury and then an ankle injury. Botic became too passive however and allowed the young Dane to claw his way back into the set and clinch the win in the tie break leaving a visibly crestfallen Botic to look on as Holger collected his BMW (has he passed his test yet) and the obligatory lederhosen!!

And it was same story in another part of Germany as Iga Swiatek cruised to a straight sets win over Aryna Sabalenka winning another Porsche for her collection.  Aryna grudgingly congratulated Iga on winning another car before asking if they could have 2 cars next year as she had been runner up 3 times in a row now. She insisted she would keep coming back until she won the car before taking a jestful swipe at the car with her racquet as Iga was being shown to the door.  She really really REALLY wanted that car.

And it was the same champ again in Barcelona as an imperious Carlos Alcaraz cruised to a comfortable win over a magnanimous Stefanos Tsitsipas before taking the obligatory pool jump!

The only champ from last year not to defend his title was Andrey Rublev but to be fair the event had been moved from Serbia to Bosnia so perhaps that upset the cosmic balance in terms of history repeating itself.  What a week it turned out to be though for Dusan Lajovic who defeated Djokovic and Kecmanovic en route to defeating Rublev in the final. Shout out to Emi at this stage for being the only person to play Lajovic which turned out to be pivotal to her win in the FTL Cup!

So over to FTL and its a massive congrats to Mark McDonald who was top dog this game with an oustanding score of 526.97 points. Mark had 3 of the 4 champs in Alcaraz (Capt), Swiatek (KP) and Rune (TP) as well as runners up Tsitsipas and Sabalenka.  He also had decent points from leftfield pick Alex Molcan which ultimately proved very valuable.

Congrats also to Craig Miller who finished a tantalising 4 points behind 1st place. Craig actually had the same winners and runners up as Mark and a further runner up in Rublev. But FTL is a game of very small margins and crucial decisions and ultimately it was the placement of Djokovic a Captain that ultimately cost Craig the weekly win.

Asier Fernandez and Andy Riel were both pretty close to the top of the pile too. Both had 3 winners and 2 runners up.  Andy had a great pick with Botic in the Munich event.

Sagar Chowdhry, Tony, Yoann and Pete Schaumann all cleared 500 points for the game week. Well done to all.

Here is the final weekly table and winning team!