FTL Cup Week 1 Results

The first set of fixtures in the FTL Cup are now complete. There were some dramatically close matches, some rough losses and a few jammy wins 😛 

If you won your match, congrats - you are on track to qualify for the next stage but don't rest on your laurels as it can all change.

If you lost your match - fear not, there are still two more group matches to turn it around and 17 lucky loser spots for those who score highly in cup weeks.

I have updated the spreadsheet to show the current standings in each group and the remaining fixtures have now been inserted. The two winners in each group will play each other in Game week 6 as will the two teams in each group who lost their matches.

There is a tab with standings (sorted) which shows the overall rankings and the lucky loser pool. Vladimir Jovanovski currently heads the standings and is in pole position to be our no 1 seed in the knockout stages. Leander Oldenburger heads the lucky loser pool at the moment. If you are below 17 in the lucky loser pool, its time to get your skates on!

FTL Cup Draw

FTL2023 - OVERALL STANDINGS

I am not going to lie, its nice to be able to do a write up and say, we have a new leaader in the overall standings hahah .  Sorry Alexei Ilinykh but last year we had the same leader for almost the entire season lol

Anyways, thanks to an exceptional GW where he finished 2nd, Dragan Josifoski moved up to the top spot!.  Interestingly enough, many of the managers that were sitting near the top didnt have a great week, so he's now got a fairly sizeable lead (107 points)

Leander Oldenburger has been up n done all season, but our AO Champion, had a great week where he finished 13th and now sits in 2nd.  Now the real question, can he have a 2nd good week in a row?? HMM!?!  Its easier said than done!

Sebastian Kromberg  had a good week (finishing 25th), and it was plenty good enough to move him up 7 spots and now sits in 3rd.  He's a 135 points behind our leader, but thats plenty close enough that if he has a great week, to take over the top spot.

Some managers that have some very impressive resumes are lurking tho. PREPARE FOR CZECH MATE (Tricia) sits in 4th, Faris Haze Muhammed sits in 6th, Florian Berg sits in 13th, Emi Kottasz sits in 15th.  

The top 18 are separated by less than 250 points, so in a week where Dragan Josifoski was 320 points better than one of our GOATS (Vlad Zuperman), anything can happen in a given week.

The biggest mover of the week was Sara Skinner.  All she did in order to do so was have all 4 winners!  She gained 33 spots and now sits in 57th.  Congrats.

Some other big movers are as follows:

CRIMIN as he moved up 23 spots and now sits in 9th.  

Oleksandr Sheremet gained 22 spots and now sits in 34th.  Im not sure whats more impressive that or the fact that he beat a GOAT in the FTL Cup (MIKHAIL).

Augusto Mauriello moved up 22 spots and now sits in 40th., Mohaib Idrees has decided that he's done playing possum with everyone and he moved up 32 places and now sits in 42nd!

Pablo Dali moved up 30 places and now sits in 62nd.

Not only did Vladimir Jovanovski win the week, but he cut 34 places off his ranking and now sits in 64th

Olivier Rojas moved up 31 places and now sits in 77th

FTL2023 - GW4 RESULTS

Huge kuddos goes to our winners this week - Swiatek, Medvedev, Alcaraz and Frtiz.  Interestingly enough all 4 of these players had AO's that they would like to forget as not one of them made it to the 2nd week.

Some brainiac (yours truly, apparently i overthought it lol) had the notion that Swiatek was going to lose her first match of the week (would have been the first time she did so in quite some time), and all she did was lose a total of 5 games for the entire week.  IMPRESSIVE doesnt even begin to describe.

Medvedev showed a level of form that we hadnt seen since the 2022 AO where he lost the final from 2 sets n a break up.  If he plays anywhere near the level that he did against FAA, Dimitrov and Sinner, the tour should be scared.  VERY SCARED.

Alcaraz may not have played in a few months, but that didnt seem to matter, as he brushed off some rust against Djere in his first match, and even tho he lost a set (where he was the much better player), he managed to look like he really has no business being in the South American Clay court swing lol

N then we get to Fritz, who seems to always make life interesting.  He won for the 5th time in his career, but in all of his matches, you never get that comfortable feeling while watching him.  Fritz was outstanding today against Kecmanovic, but still managed to lose the 2nd set, even tho it felt like Kecmanovic wasnt even in the match.

In terms of FTL, some managers took advantage of some highly owned players doing very well this week.  Huge shoutout to Sara Skinner who had all 4 winners!. That not only takes some great picks, but some great money management as those 4 players combined salary is over 55 mill!

Huge shoutout to Vladimir Jovanovski for his first GW victory in a couple of years.  Sadly im sure he's ready to spit, as he dropped down to Option 1 this year after being in Option 2 every other season.  He had 3 winners (Medvedev, Swiatek and Fritz).  He will tell u, that its hard to imagine winning the week without having Alcaraz tho lol.  Selecting Medvedev as your captain where he puts up a ridiculous 98 points does help tho!

Dragan Josifoski finished 2nd just 3.5 points behind.  Sadly for him, he led almost the entire way, but got eclipsed in the end thanks to Medvedev's spectacular performance in the Rotterdam final.  Both Dragan and Vlad are great buddies, so im sure that Vlad will bug him about this for years lol

CRIMINI, Mohaib Idrees and Sara Skinner rounded out the top 5.  Interestingly enough the top 5 were only separated by 13 points!