Game Week 25 results - ATP Winston Salem, WTA - Monterrey, WTA Cleveland

 

A little trip back in time is required to review Game Week 25 which was the final week of tournament play before the US Open.  We had a men's event in Winston Salem and WTA events in Monterrey and Cleveland.

The Winston Salem event had a remarkable 16 withdrawals from the main event so the starting line up bore very little resemblance to the original entry list.  And to make matters worse, the top 8 seeds in the event all lost in the 2nd Round.  

So the stage was set for a surprise winner.  We saw great runs  from American youngster Alex Michelsen but also old stagers David Goffin and PCB who both made the semi finals.  But ultimately it was Lorenzo Sonego who defied the form book.  He had a terrific week and was untouchable in the final against Michelsen who could easily have been defaulted had the umpire adhered to the letter of the law.

We've been waiting a while for the Noskova era to begin and perhaps it did in Monterrey as Linda finally secured her first WTA title.  And she did it in some style as she didn't drop a set in a week which saw her defeat Svitolina and Navarro before beating the up and coming Lulu Sun in the coming.

If Linda's first title was a long time coming, the title for McCartney Kessler in the Tennis in the Land event came out of nowhere. Unlike Noskova, Kessler was involved in quite a few battles during the week.  She came from a set down to defeat Xinyu Wang in the 2nd Round and then again to defeat Potapova in the semi final and Haddad Maia in the final.  It was quite the breakthrough for McCartney.

Here it is the FTL table for the game week.  Every now and again we have very close contest and this was certainly one of them.  Olga (Russian Warship Go Fuck Yourself)  just edged out Mikhail (Roger That) by the princely total of 0.25 points.

Here is the final global league table

Here is the head to head between the top two teams.

Olya had Monterrey winner Noskova but only as a team player.  She had Cleveland finalist Haddad Maia and also a great pick with semi finalist Carreno Busta.  Otherwise she had good returns from Emma Navarro and Magda Frech but captain Leylah Fernandez didn't deliver for her.

Mihhail also had Haddad Maia and Noskova but maximised the points from these two by having them as Captain and KP respectively.  Otherwise he had decent returns from Navarro and Siniakova.

Congrats to both Olya and Mikhail on a terrific week.  Mikhail can take consolation on just missing out on the top spot by the fact that he is still the level 2 prize winner!

Shout out to De Minotaurs, Dr peRFect and Grylla's Goldens who make up the top 5.