I'm not sure whats tougher for the week after Wimbledon - for the players trying to acclimate to a different surface, or for the FTL Managers who are trying to have enough players for the week after the extremely long list of players withdraw from their respective events.
The week after Wimbledon (GW20) is a strange week to be honest, as there are a large number of clay court players that would like to pretend that the grass court season doesn't exist and don't bother to put forth any effort to acclimate to the grass court surface, so they are eagerly awaiting this week, then there are the grass court specialists that aren't quite good enough to have a deep run at Wimbledon, but are plenty good enough to do incredibly well in NewPort.
I'd like to throw a huge kuddos to our 5 event winners - Andrey Rublev, Pedro Cachin, Adrian Mannarino, Qinwen Zheng, and Maria Timofeeva.
There was only player that reached the Quarter Finals of Wimbledon that even played this week - Rublev. His victory this week was pretty amazing considering most people were truly surprised that he wasn't part of the long list of withdrawals. He beat Alexander Zverev, Francisco Cerundolo and Casper Ruud consecutively to close out the tournament. His level of play on the dirt this season has been incredibly high and unless you are Alcaraz or Djoker, I don't think you are too eager to see him in your section.
Pedro Cachin's victory is something that not many people saw coming. In fact, a total of 1 manager played him this week!. Pedro had a rather auspicious start to his season as he lost 8 of his first 9 matches - which would have been really hard to swallow as most of those matches were near his home of Argentina. His level has been improving as the season has gone on, but this was still a rather surprising victory - needless to say him beating the top seed in R1 (Roberto Bautista Agut) left many a critic shocked
Now Adrian Mannarino has LEGIT grass court skills and showed it off this week in NewPort. IF not for a horrible draw in Wimbledon (Medvedev in R2), he probably has a deep run. His level this week was virtually unmatched and should have won the event without losing a set - no one still knows what on earth happened in that 2nd set against Thompson where he led 5-1 and lost it lol. Adrian beat a young American (Alex Michelsen) rather soundly in the final, but I promise you, it won't be the last time we hear from him!
Qinwen Zheng won her maiden WTA Tour level event this week in Palermo. I'd argue that she was the most talented player in the draw - Kasatkina is ranked higher, but Qinwen's talents are hard to deny. She entered the event having lost 5 of her past 6 matches, but sometimes ya have to accept the fact that the draw gods did her no favours and she's still not comfortable yet on the grass, so maybe this was a perfect time to change her fortunes. She had a couple of matches where her opponents looked like they didn't belong on the same court as her (Errani, Navarro), but her other 3 matches (Diane Parry, Mayar Sherif, and Jasmine Paolini) all went to a 3rd set and easily could have gone the other way.
Budapest looked like it was going to be won by 1 of 2 players when the Entry Lists came out, but once Anastasia Potapova decided that she needed some beach time and Bernarda Pera lost in R1, the event was anyone's ballgame. If someone told me that a Russian teenage girl was going to win a tournament shortly after Wimbledon, I wouldn't have batted an eye as Mirra Andreeva is set to play in Lausanne this coming week and Belinda Bencic isnt playing. Meanwhile Maria Timofeeva beat her to the punch this week!! Maria lost in the final round of Qualifying to Siskova, but was able to get into the Main Draw as a Lucky Loser. All she did after that was beat 5 solid players - Saville, Shnaider, Juvan, Podoroska and Baindl. She nearly cut her ranking in half!!! (she's now up to 129 - was 246 coming into the event!!!)
In terms of FTL, this week was as close as it gets, as the final result wasn't decided until the final match of the week - Paolini vs Qinwen. Referee (Asen) had a 4 point lead over Nardismo (Andrea Russo) when the match started, but Nardismo had Jasmine Paolini. Safe to say that if Qinwen won the match in straights, Referee had a real chance at winning the event. Sadly, it wasnt meant to be and although Paolini lost, she accumulated 7+ points which was plenty enough for Nardismo to win the Game Week.
The top 12 managers had 1 thing in common - everyone had 2 winners! Everyone had Rublev, and 11 managers had Mannarino, and 1 had Qinwen.
Nardismo's week was truly special as he both Rublev and Mannarino win titles, and had Casper Ruud and Jasmine Paolini reach the finals. If Tommy Paul wins the 3rd set tiebreak against John Isner, he wins the Game Week rather comfortably to be honest. He accumulated an incredible 414.8 points for the week.
Referee is probably just wondering what if to be honest. He had Daria Kasatkina, and if she beats Jasmine Paolini, he wins the Game Week going away!! On paper, Kasatkina should win the match, but lets face it, tennis isn't played on paper!
