As we approach the sunshine double we are seeing quite a few players starting to make a name for themselves on the tennis circiut.
None more so than the new power couple in tennis. No - not Tsitsidosa and not Mr and Mrs Monfils but rather Alex De Minaur and Katie Boulter who are winning tournaments, reaching career high rankings and playing themselves into consideration for FTL team selection.
De Minaur's is establishing himself as a top 10 player this year and has already notched up wins over Djokovic, Fritz, Zverev, Rublev and Dimitrov in 2024. He came up just short to Sinner in Rotterdam but in Los Cabos he continued his great form beating Tsitspas, Draper and Ruud to win the title.
After winning the title in Mexico, Alex jetted straight to San Diego to watch Katie play the final there against Marta Kostyuk. Katie played her best tennis throughout the event and her opponents just could not cope with her big hitting. She wasn't quite firing in the final as she lost the first set to Martha but she quickly turned it around to win her first 500 title to add to the 250 she won in the UK last year. Katie has now broken into the top 32 and should find herself seeding for the French Open and Wimbledon if she keeps up this form.
Talking about form players, its been great to see Ugo Humbert playing at his best again. We all know he has great potential and if he steers clear of injury he can really make a mark this year. His coach Jeremy Chardy felt that conditions in Dubai would be perfect for his game and so it proved as he saw off veterans Monfils amd Murray before scoring impressive wins over Hurkacz and Medvedev en route to a final with Sascha Bublik. Bublik himself is having a good season but was a tad fortunate to benefit from the disqualification of Andrey Rublev for poor behaviour at the tale end of a very close match, Humbert prevailed in the final as he tends to do. He is now 6-0 in ATP Finals.
And then there is Sebastian Baez who has really mopped up on the South American clay following up his win in Rio with the title in Santiago beating home favourite Tabilo in the final. Baez had 52 owners this week and I suspect he will be a popular pick during the European clay season too.
The WTA event in Austin was contested by two Chinese players. Yue Yuan had already defeated compatriot Yafan Wang in the quarter finals and she followed up a semi final win over Schmiedlova by beating Xiyu Wang in the final. She moves up to 46 in the live rankings which makes her the 3rd highest ranked of the 7 Chinese players in the top 100. This is her first WTA title having been runner up to Jessica Pegula in Korea towards the end of last year.
Here is the FTL table for Game Week 6
Congrats to Ellen on a terrific week. evlkstennis24 topped the charts with an excellent 515.1 points. She was almost 30 points ahead of the chasing pack. Abhishek Puranik Puranik (Foot Fault) took 2nd place on 486 points and Sara Skinner (Ball Bandits) took 3rd place on 482 points.
Here is the head to head stats between Ellen and Abhishek
Ellen had players in 4 of the 5 finals. She had Los Cabos winner De Minaur in her side along with three of the runner ups - Kostyuk (San Diego), Bublik (Dubai) and Tabilo (Santiago). There were decent totals also from Rublev, Pegula and Rune.
Well done!
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