Overall leaderboard after Game Week 29

 Here is the overall leaderboard after Game Week 29.

The top teams have been managing the chaos of these overlapping weeks pretty well and it looks like we are going to have a thrilling chase for the overall champion position.

Fedex Superstars (Muhammad) has been in the top 3 for the best part of the season and has been occupying the top spot for a number of week but the challenge is now coming from different teams in the shape of Mirzini Sivoni (Samir Kadric) and Nadal's forehand (Dragan Josifoski) who are now both within striking distance with a big Masters Event to come in Game Week 31.

Samir was the main mover this week scoring 554.45 points and finishing in an impressive 4th place for the game week but Muhammad and Dragan were not too far behind on 535 and 527 points respectively.

Prepare for Czech Mate and Roger That make up the top 5.  There is one new entry in the top 10 in the shame of the Right Struff who climbed 3 places to 8th place thanks to a 5th place finish in Game Week 29.

It really is also to play for especially with a tricky game week 31 coming up, not knowing who will be playing who in the WTA draws and the issue of remaining trades will now very much come into play as we enter te business end of the season.

GAMEWEEK 31 - DRAWS, DARK HORSES

HUGE UPDATE:

 

• After Sinner beat Medvedev in the ATP Beijing Final, GameWeek 29 has finally concluded, and as a result, you are now able to set your roster for GameWeek31 
• The lockout for GW31 is set - before the first ball is played in R2
  
• The results from GameWeek30 (the WTA Beijing event) have been input and are available for everyone to access
• I have provided both the Main Draw and the Dark Horse criteria for SHANGHAI  
• If you want a copy of it, click on the link, click on FILE, scroll down to MAKE A COPY, and enter a name.  
• Plz note that Shanghai isn't the only Event that's being played in GameWeek 31.  Sadly, it appears as though if you want to place players from Zhenghou, Hong Kong or Seoul in your lineup, you will be doing so via a blind draw.
  

GAME WEEK 29 - FINAL RESULTS

 So its time to review Game Week 29.

Now hang on......this is the one where Ons Jabeur beat Shnaider in Ningbo right...?  and the one where Kudermetova beat Pegula in Tokyo 🤔....?  (ok those events seem like a life time ago 😂)

And..its also the Game Week where Mannarino won in Astana (i think that event might have passed me by) and of course it was all finished up with Sinner defeating Medvedev in Beijing.  (Nothing to do with the women's in Beijing though - that has a game week of it's own!!)    

Right we are on the right page. Here are your winners!

Lets start with Tokyo.  This one came out of the blue a little. Since defeating Kanepi in the 1st Round at Wimbledon, VK had only won 2 out of the next 8 matches so it was quite the surprise when she took out Iga in the Quarter Finals and then followed that up with a semi final win over compatriot Pavs and then a resounding win over J-Peg in the final.   Well done Veronika.

It was also great to see good Ons back to winning ways in the Ningbo event. It wasn't plain sailing as she needed to go the distance to see off veteran Vera in the quarters and Nadia Podoroska in the semi finals. Her opponent in the final was Diana Shnaider who has had an excellent break out year and had seen off Kvitova in the Quarter Finals. Ons coasted to a 6-2, 6-1 win to take the title.

Mannarino is providing to be a late bloomer and has played some excellent tennis this year. He has been in three finals in his 35th year and has doubled his tally to 4 ATP titles with victory in Newport and now in Astana.  He defeat Sebastian Korda in three sets in the Astana Open final.

And finally we come to Jannik Sinner who is asserting himself as one of the most exciting young talents in the men's game. It was a awkward start for him as he had to overcome some physical issues to defeat Evans in Round 1 but he battled on through to the semi finals where he put in an impressive performance against Alcaraz to take a 4-3 lead in their H2H. 

The final perhaps may have seemed more daunting for him as he had to play a man who had beaten him in their 6 meetings to date, Daniil Medvedev.  Sinner took control of both tie breaks, however, to score his first win over the Russian.

And so to the FTL Roundup and it doesn't get much closer than it did this week between San Diego Allstars (Mike)  and  Wonders of Igland (Iga).  I mean 0.2 points between them in the end - that's just crazy.

Lets take a look at the head to head to get some more context behind these scores!  The first thing that jumps out is the value of having great ERs as Mike needed them both. Rybakina was in a huff about not getting a bye and Fritz was still drunk on Laver Cup champagne so Mike needed his ERs to come in and do the business and boy did they.  The special K's of Korda and Kudermetova both reached the final with VK prevailing in Tokyo.  Having Sinner as a KP also gave Mike an important edge.

So ultimately Mike had three champions in his team and three runners up across the 4 competitions. That's quite the team.  Meanwhile Emi also had three champs in Mannarino, Jabeur and Sinner and 2 runners up.  

Congrats to both Mike and Emi on an incredible week but its Mike that takes the glory this time round by the smallest of margins.  Henman United, Mirzini Sinovi and The Right Struff make up the top 5 in a pretty high scoring week, all things considered.

GAMEWEEK 31 LOCKOUT

We are in the midst of an incredibly difficult and awkward part of the FTL Calendar for both the Admin and the managers.

At the moment, we are still in process of finishing up the ATP events in both Astana and Beijing (GameWeek 29), and they are in the midst of playing Round 2 Main Draw WTA matches in Beijing for GameWeek 30.  Sadly, there will be Main Draw matches in Shanghai (GameWeek 31) in the next couple of days as well.

 

FTL can only have 2 weeks going on at the same time, as you cannot pick a team with unknown player prices, so the start of GameWeek 31 will be put on hold until GameWeek 29 has been finalized.  As a result, it should be expected that the Lockout for GW31 will not occur until after R1 in Shanghai has been finalized. (This should also give everyone 24 hours + time to set a roster)

 

The fact that there are 32 Round 1 byes in Shanghai, should help minimize the affects of this lockout being pushed back.   Some additional information for Hong Kong, Zhenghzhou and Seoul might also be available, to help everyone's decisions for the GW31 lockout.

Normally every FTL GameWeek is started just before the first ball is Main Draw match is about to take place, but sadly, it cannot be helped this week.

I apologize for the inconvenience.