Overall Leaderboard after Game Week 21

Muhammad still leads the at the top of the leaderboard as the top 4 remain unchanged.

Silvi (FC Vepyrite) made up the most ground this week with an impressive 455.92 points and a 2nd place fame week finish and Mikhail moved up a spot from 10th to 9th thanks to his 4th place finish. 

With less than 20 points separating the teams from 2nd to 5th, it could be all change after this game week and the teams ranked 6th to 10th are also very much in the race.

GW21 Results

 And so endeth another action packed week of fantasy tennis with 6 titles decided....

This week was a pretty good one for home players.  

Iga Swiatek was the most obvious captaincy choice for FTL managers and she cruised to the title against a fairly weak Warsaw field.  Her only significant rival for the title was the woman who faced her in the RG final -  Karolina Muchova but Karolina's hopes crashed when she contrived to lose her 2nd Round match from a position of 5-1 (40-15) in the final set. Ultimately it was Laura Siegemund who was the unfortunate lamb to the slaughter in the final and Iga duly delivered a bakery special (6-0, 6-1)

Alexander Zverev finally got back to winning ways in his native Hamburg. It was a strong field at the Rothenbaum but the stars of the week weren't Ruud or Rublev or Musetti as anticipated but rather Laslo Djere and Arthur Fils who both played impressive tennis as they progressed deep in the event.  In the end, however, neither had enough to trouble Zverev despite their best efforts.

In the women's event it was another local girl, Noma Noha Akague who delighted the home fans as she turned in some impressive battling performances to reach the final in her 1st ever WTA level event. Nerves seem to get the better of her in the final though as she lost the first set 6-0  before succumbing in the tie break in a much tighter 2nd set to the Dutchwoman Arantxa Rus.  Arantxa (who incidentally received her trophy from a more legendary tennising Arantxa) has won more than thirty lower tier events on the circuit but this was her first WTA title so definitely a special moment for her.

Continuing the home player theme (was this a bit tenuous? 😂), Taylor Fritz took the title in Atlanta defeating young Chinese prospect Yibing Wu, veteran Japanese legend Kei Nishikori and JJ Wolf on the way to the final.  His Australian opponent Aleksandar Vukic was the first player to take a set off Fritz all week but he couldn't prevent Taylor from securing a much needed title which should hopefully stand him in good stead for the US series.  

I'd set out to include Clara Burel and Dianne Parry in my home player themed report but then I realised they were playing in Lausanne in Switzerland and not in France as my tiring brain briefly imagined.  The French ladies did have a great week however and it was Clara who prevailed in the all French semi final.  The title however was to go to Italian Elisabetta Cocciaretto (2 ts, 2 cs, 1r, 2ts) who managed several houdini acts across the course of the week to win her first WTA title as she battled past Burel in a tight 3 setter. (There was actually a contingent of 7 Swiss women scheduled for this event but Bencic pulled out and Teichman was the only one of the remaining 6 to win a match) 

There was however a Swiss in the final of Umag (in erm Croatia - i may have gone off on a tangent here) but sadly Stan Wawrinka couldn't quite get his hands on what would have been a remarkable title as he was just pipped by Alexei Popyrin who came back from a set down to win. 

So the whole purpose of this home player theme was to seamlessly move across to the FTL results for the week and extend hearty congratulations to an FTL home favourite, our commander in chief, Rick Marsonet who secured his first game week victory in..to quote Rick  "quite some time".  Rick wasn't counting any chickens though as we approached the last final of the week. He was definitely a little worried that Fritz might not muster the 0.7 points required to move him to the top of the leaderboard!  It was never in doubt.

Here is the final game week table. 

Rick managed to amass a very impressive 467 points but was closely followed home by the chasing pack of Silvi (FC Vepyrite), Craig (OverServed), Mikhail (Roger That) and Jon (The Bakery)

One of the main reason behind Rick's success this week was the fact that he only had 8 players available which took the possibility of him leaving a high scoring player on the bench - out of the equation.  This has been a particular area of frustration for Rick this season!!  Another good reason for his success was the selection of Arthur Fils.  Rick had 3 of this weeks title winners in Swiatek, Zverev and Fritz but it was  those semi final points accrued by the talented French youngster that gave Rick the edge over his closest rivals. 

A hearty FTL congrats to Rick - our game week 21 Champion!