GAMEWEEK 11 RESULTS

A huge kuddos goes out to our 5 event winners this week - Elena Rybakina, Sloane Stephens, Marton Fucsovics, Casper Ruud and Jan Lennard Struff.

 

The interesting part about Game Week 11 is that there wasn't a single top 2 seed that made the final!

Elena Rybakina won the Porsche Masters in Stuttgart for her 3rd title of the season.  The Porsche Masters has long been one of the toughest fields every year on the WTA tour, and it took some incredible tennis for Elena just to make the final this week - she beat 2 top 20 players (Veronika Kudermetova, and Jasmine Paolini) just to make the semi's, before beating the #1 player in the world (Iga Swiatek).  Interestingly enough, her only dominant match of the week was in the final against Marta Kostyuk.  Elena continues to give Iga troubles regardless of the surface, so it will be interesting to see if she could beat her at the French Open where Iga is a massive favourite to defend her title.

Sloane Stephens won the event in Rouen for her first title in nearly 2.5 years.  When Sloane is good, her tennis looks soo easy that you are left wondering why she's never been a top 3 player.  There's truly no reason for it.  She beat Peyton Stearns, Karolina Pliskova, Yue Yuan, Caroline Garcia and Magda Linette on her way to the title.  The only real question for Sloane is whether or not this is an omen of things to come, or if this nothing more than a blip, and something we won't see again for quite some time.  One things for sure, she has the talent to do something special at the French Open, now the question is, will she?

Speaking of timelines, Marton Fucsovics won the title in Bucharest for his first victory since May of 2018!  Yes 6 years!!! Marton was incredibly impressive this week as he lost a total of one set all week!  Hell in his SemiFinal against Alejandro Tabilo, he hit a ridiculous 12 aces.  Yes, 12.  I'm sure Tabilo is still wondering what hit him lol, as Marton didnt hit 12 aces in his other 4 matches combined.  It wasn't the greatest field in the world in Bucharest, but he beat 3 seeds (Griekspoor, Tabilo and Navone) on his way to the title.  Marton Fucsovics has always been a rather up n down player, but no one is in any hurry to face him in a Bo5 when the conditioning becomes an issue, so no seed will want to see him in Round 1.

Another feel good story happened in Barcelona!  Casper Ruud won his first event above a level 250 of his career.  Safe to say, its a rather large monkey to get off his back.  Casper's victory this week was rather emphatic to be honest as he didn't lose a single set all week.  Him getting revenge from the previous week as he beat Tsitsipas in the final must have felt incredibly sweet.  Going into the French Open, he's just about the only top 10 player that is healthy and in form, so you have to wonder if he could do something special.  

Now for the best feel good story of the week - Jan Lennard Struff!  Jan Lennard won his first ever ATP Tour Level event of his career this week in Munich!  Safe to say, it was long long long long overdue!  He beat 3 seeds (FAA, Rune, and Fritz) on his way to the title.  One things for sure, Alcaraz will be hoping that he's not in his section of the draw at the French Open!  He could cause some serious problems at the French, if he falls anywhere other than in Djoker's section.

 

In terms of FTL, a managers success was basically determined by 1 simple factor - did you have both Rybakina and Ruud?  12 of our top 13 managers this week had both ;)

Graham (Metty's Marvels) won the week by 4.35 points this week over Mikhail (Roger That).  Interestingly enough, both managers had a player withdraw after the lockout had started which forced an Emergency Replacement to come into play.  Sadly for Mikhail, Tomova lost in Round 1 and it cost him the GameWeek Victory.

Graham had a truly special week as he accumulated an incredible 482.52 points.  He had 3 winners (Ruud, Rybakina and Stephens), and 2 finalists (Tsitsipas and Kostyuk).   Hard to imagine but his 2nd Emergency Replacement made the final, so he could have done even better.

Win (Year of the Sinner), Florian (Slice for the Win), and Ashim (Ash Federer's) round out our top 5