Turns out all Andrey Rublev needed to return to form was a dose of meditation to attain spiritual liberation. After a run of defeats following his infamous default in Dubai, Andrey definitely found his mojo again and had a terrific couple of weeks in Madrid. FTLers who traded him out prior to Madrid may be well advised to turn to some Samadhi too to cure their frazzled tennis brains.
And turns out all Felix Auger Aliassime needed to reach a final on clay was virtually every opponent he drawn to play him to witdraw injured. FAA had quite a remarkable tournament which saw Mensik retire against him in Round 2, Sinner to withdraw from their Quarter Final match and Lehecka to retire during the 1st set of their semi final. (Lehecka himself had benefitted from the withdrawal of Medvedev in their QF match).
Rublev was impressive all week winning is opening 3 matches with dropping a set and then coming back from behind to defeat Alcaraz in 3 sets, before brushing aside Fritz in the semi final. However there was news on finals day that Andrey hadn't been keeping well and concerns that FAA might benefit from yet another withdrawal. It certainly looked that way in the 1st set but Rublev was determined to turn things around and eventually triumphed 4-6, 7-5, 7-5. Feli Lopez will have been relieved that at least there was an excellent final to bookend what had been a disappointing men's event.
The same could be said of the women's event where we were treated to some thrilling matches over the course of the fortnight - most notably the semi final between Sabalenka and Rybakina where Aryna staged the most remarkable of comebacks and then the final between Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka where Iga had to play her finest tennis to see off the challenge of the Queen of Madrid!
Here are the final FTL standings for Madrid
Congrats to global league winner Aleksey (Broccoli) and Level 2 winner Sagar Chowdry (Goaldies) who both had an excellent week and finished well ahead of the chasing pack. Mike, Emi, Taylor and Jon were the best of the rest.
Aleksey just pipped Sagar to the top of the Global League standings by 3 points.
Here is how they matched up!
The two lineups were pretty similar but the crucial difference came with the player placement. Aleksey had Sabalenka as a KP which earned him an additional 20 points which Sagar missed out on by playing her as a TP. Both managers picked the perfect Dark Horses with eventual finalist FAA and also Ons Jabeur who had a decent run in the event.
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