Game Week 27 results

ok, so this game week was always going to be an odd one.

First week after a slam, no ATP events due to Davis Cup so just a WTA 500 in Guadalajara and a WTA 250 in Monastir.

There were a fair number of withdrawals as usual and once again, the players who were supposed to do well....didn't do well!  😆

In Guadalajara, the reigning champ Sakkari withdrew before the tournament began. Zheng, Badosa, BHM and Kalinskaya were other notable withdrawals.  The top 3 seeds - Ostapenko, Collins and Azarenka all lost their opening match. Bouzkova who many picked for the title seemed to be playing pretty well but unfortunately had to withdraw before her Quarter Final with Caroline Garcia. 

 In Monastir, the stick on favourite, Elise Mertens went out in the 2nd Round after a remarkable comeback from Eva Lys and most of the other top seeds all bombed out in the 1st of 2nd Round as well!

The upshot of all this is that we had 4 players who had never won a WTA title contesting the finals!

In Guadalajara, Magda Frech was a reasonably popular pick and proved to be the key differential for the teams who did well this week. Magda overcame Caroline Garcia in the semi final to set up a final with the Australian Olivia Gadecki who came through qualies and then beat Stephens, Collins, Trevisan and Osorio to reach the final.  Frech won the final in two tight sets but both players will move significantly up the rankings thanks to this being a 500 event.  A great week for both.

In Monastir we saw another great run from a qualifier in the shape of the Brit Sonay Kartal.  Perhaps her toughest battle of the week was overcoming Jacqueline Cristian in the 1st round but after that she overcame Hontama, Starodubtseva and an unfortunately ailing Eva Lys to set up a final with Rebecka Sramkova.  Sramkova was probably the favourite going into the final but she was far from her best and Kartal took full advantage taking a 6-3, 4-1 lead in no time.   Sramkova rallied at little in the latter stages of the match but Sonay held firm to win her maiden WTA title and you feel her career is only now getting started after a decent run at lower tier events this year.

So lets take a look at the weekly table - i know it didn't make pleasant reading for most folk.  I, personally, had what I would normally regard as a pretty crappy week and finished 3rd overall so lets just say the scoring was pretty low.  If you had Magda Frech then it was a good week!

One person who did have Magda Frech was the esteemed manager of Grylla's Goldens - Elin Bondal who is having a quite remarkable season.  She has been on top of the overall leaderboard for quite some time but was briefly pushed down recently.  Elin has bounced back in style though and had what can only be described as an excellent week finishing 43 points ahead of 2nd place Olya who is also flying high in the overall leaderboard this season.

Lets take a look at the head to head between these two teams.

Both Elin and Olya had Magda Frech as a KP which pretty much provided them with half of their points this week!  They also both had Mertens and Bouzkova who both provided decent points. Elin did get some decent points from Parry and Kudermetova though while Kalinina and Sherif flopped for Olya so that pretty much made the difference. 

I think its safe to say that collectively this was one of the lowest scoring weeks in the history of FTL but these weeks can still make a big difference so congratulations to Elin and Olya for scoring some decent points this week to bolster their hopes for the overall title.