Rome results

 

Another clay court masters and another title for the Queen of Clay - Iga Swiatek.  It was a sensational week for Iga as she progressed to the final without losing a set despite the best efforts of Putintseva, Angie Kerber and Coco Gauff.

Meanwhile on the other side of the draw, no 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka had to come through a couple of battles with Volynets and Svitolina (where she faced match points) before brushing aside Ostapenko and Collins to set up a repeat of the Madrid final.

The final itself was a bit of an anti climax after the drama of Madrid. Perhaps the Rome conditions are more suitable for Iga or perhaps Aryna had just run out of steam but Iga dominated to win  6-2, 6-3.

There were far more surprises in store on the men's side. The tournament got off to a bad start with the withdrawals of both Alcaraz and Sinner.  Would Djokovic take full advantage, he looked great in the opening match but what followed was quite staggering.  A bottle fell out a fans bag while Novak was signing autographs and gave him a fair clunk on the head for which he required treatment on site.  Despite putting a brave face on it the following day, there was no doubt that Novak was not quite himself when it came to playing his next match and he went down quite meekly to the Chilean Alejandro Tabilo .

That said, Tabilo did play a great match and indeed the story of the week was the progress through the draw of two Chileans.  Alejandro Tabilo and Nico Jarry well and truly put their country on the tennis map this week.  Tabilo followed up his win over Djokovic with wins of Khachanov and Zhang to set up a semi final with Zverev.  Meanwhile Jarry watched eagerly on by his tennis playing Grandad also progressed to the semi finals with an excellent win over Stefanos Tsitsipas to set up a semi final with Tommy Paul who himself had scored a surprise win over Medvedev.

In the end it was Alexander Zverev who was to break Chilean hearts winning his semi final over Tabilo and then completing a serving masterclass against Jarry in a straight sets win to earn his 2nd Rome title.

Here is the global FTL table for the Rome event.

With two significant withdrawals this week in the shape of Rybakina and Musetti, the emergency ERs came into play this week and had a significant bearing on the fortunes for a lot of team.   Dark horse picks were also key with both Tabilo and Jarry being available to choose as a dark horse.

Massive congrats to Pavel Prymaka who was this weeks winner and to Michael Schmardebeck who wins the Level 2 weekly prize.  Lets take a look at their teams.

Like many of us Pavel was off to a false start with the loss of Captain Djokovic but little did he know at that stage that his team would have all four finalists onboard.  Swiatek and Sabalenka rightfully made key players after their performances in Madrid, Zverev as a TP and Jarry as a dark horse.  There were useful contributions too from DH Ostapenko and TP Collins who both ultimately went out to Sabalenka.

Meanwhile Michael also had a great week and only finished  5 points behind the top spot.   Michael had the two women's finalists and also semi finalist Coco.  He had eventual men's winner Zverev and also benefit from a useful ER in semi finalist Tabilo (who came in for Musetti).  The biggest weakness in Michael's team turned out to be his DH's Cerundolo and Andreeva who could only secure 1 win between them which ultimately cost him top spot.

de Minotaurs, 1 Hit Wonders and No AO, No Problem make up the top 5 for Rome.

The overall leaderboard looks like this at the moment.

Taylor remains top of the pile with Mateusz moving into 2nd place above Elin.