A huge kuddos goes out to our event winners this week - Jannik Sinner, Felix Auger Aliassime and Beatriz Haddad Maia.
Jannik Sinner was victorious in Vienna this week and upped his title count to 4 this season. The final against Daniil Medvedev was closing in on Best of 3 match of the year until Daniil missed hit a forehand long into wide open court as he tried to level the 3rd set. Jannik's played some exceptional tennis this season as he's now made 6 finals, and if he finishes the season strong, he will end up surpassing the 60 win total. Sinner's level this week was incredibly high as he made the final without losing a set - beating Ben Shelton, Lorenzo Sonego, Frances Tiafoe and Andrey Rublev.
Felix Auger Aliassime has had a season that he'd like to forget, but him defending his title in Basel was a hell of an accomplishment. Its rather ironic that he shares the same birthday as Roger Federer as between the 2 of them, they have now won the Swiss Indoors 12 times!!! There was tremendous expectations for Felix coming into the season, but due to a combination of poor play, injuries and the weight of those expectations, its been a real tough go. Its hard to imagine saying this, but Felix reached the Semi's of a tournament just once this year before this week. Felix received a dream draw that you only hoped that he would take advantage of and once Taylor Fritz lost in epic fashion, his draw to the Semi's opened even further. He took full advantage, and then beat Holger Rune in the Semi's and Captain Tiebreak Hubert Hurkacz in the Final (both in straight sets). Maybe just maybe this will be the start of something good for Felix.
Beatriz Haddad Maia won the WTA Elite Finals in Zhuhai. She seems to have been around forever, but it was still just her 3rd WTA Tour Level title of her career. Nothing about a BIA match ever seems to be simple, as she's notorious for having matches that are extended deep into the 3rd set. She's played a handful of matches this year that have exceeded well over 3 hours. Her run to the final was surprisingly easy as she beat all 3 of her opponents (Madison Keys, Caroline Garcia and Daria Kasatkina) in straight sets. The final against Qinwen was both complicated and played at an incredibly high level. After winning the first set 13-11 in a tiebreak, BIA had a chance to serve out the 2nd set, but of course got broken. It almost felt inevitable that BIA's final match of the season would be another epic 3 set war. Hell, the match surpassed the 2.5 hour mark even before the second set tiebreak started. Incredibly enough, BIA held her nerve as she held off the home crowd fave Qinwen Zheng and won the 2nd set tiebreak. Safe bet that we should see big things next year and in future seasons from both BIA and Qinwen.
Now in terms of FTL, GameWeek 33 is incredibly tricky for most managers, as the trade pinch is incredibly severe for most of us as the season comes to a close. Many of us are at the point where we are just happy to be able to have 8 warm bodies be able to play in a given week , so the luxury of being able to improve our team for the week just isn't feasible. Those managers that have been frugal with their trades earlier in the season, tend to take advantage tho.
Apparently Fritz Business (Philip) had very little issues this week tho as he amassed an incredible 565.17 points. He had 2 winners, (Captain Sinner and Haddad Maia), and 2 Finalists (Medvedev and Hurkacz) both selected as Key Players! His worst result of the week was by Taylor Fritz. If he manages to convert on 1 of his 15 break chances, Philip could easily have broken the 600 point barrier this week.
Spotec23 (Martin Hofmann), Wonders of Igaland (Emi), Dr. peRFect 2.0 (Mohaib) and Durky's Aces (Frances) round out our top 5. Sadly once Qinwen lost in Zhuhai, no one was going to catch our leader even tho there were 2 finals that still had to be played later in the day
