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!
