The first week of the FTL Season is done and dusted and its fair to say that while some experienced the highs of multiple finalists and mega points, others will have experienced the lows of first week carnage and an appearance on the 💩 list. Most of us will have been somewhere in between.
I shall begin by congratulating two very worthy champions. Aryna Sabalenka was simply outstanding in this Australian Open. She did not lose a set on the way to retaining her Australian Open title and save for 1 tight set against Coco Gauff, she never looked even close to losing a set. Her opponent in the final, Qinwen Zheng is destined for great things and makes her debut in the top 10 after her run to the final but she was no match for Aryna on the day.
A special mention too for Dayana Yastremska who has had an interesting career to date to say the least but I don't think anyone saw her coming throu,h qualifying and make it all the way to the semi final! She's gonna be a popular trade in this week with an inclusion in the Linz draw.
And congrats also to Jannik Sinner who, like Aryna, had not lost a set on the way to the final - no mean feat when you consider that his semi final win came against a certain Novak Djokovic.
His opponent in the final had taken a rather more scenic route to get there coming back from two sets down against both Ruusuvuori in the 2nd Round and again against Zverev in the semi final. Long hours on court and late nights in Melbourne, seemed to put Daniil at a massive disadvantage in the final and soon became evident that he believed his best chance to win was to play an unusually more attacking brand of tennis than we are used to seeing from him.
For 2 sets it worked but Sinner remained in touch and eventually turned the match around so that this time it was Medvedev who had a two set lead turned on its head, cruelly bringing back memories of his defeat to Rafa a couple of years earlier.
Surprisingly, given her early season form, Aryna was only actually owned by 27% of teams, perhaps a result of her humbling at the hands of Elena Rybakina in Brisbane a week before the AO. Elena meanwhile had almost 60% ownership but was a shock 2nd Round loser in a remarkable match against Anna Blinkova which eventually ended 22-20 in the match tie break. Meanwhile World No 1 Iga Swiatek managed to struggle through a couple of rounds but eventually succumbed to the talent young Czech Linda Noskova - an Australian Open to forget for the Pole.
Ah recency bias, the scourge of many FTL managers over the years and the same was true for the men's event. Take Jack Draper for example. (At 50%, he was the 3rd highest owned player) Some great form at the end of last season and a runners up trophy in Adelaide convinced many of us that he was the perfect low budget player to put on our teams. Our reward for this faith? - a 2nd Round defeat and a withdrawal from Montpellier.
Or how about Dimitrov? How often in his career has Grigor raised our expectations with some fabulous results only to cock it up in the slams - this time against Borges of Portugal. (You would think we would have learned by now).
Other popular players to bow out early included Rune, Lehecka and Shelton.
Some other popular picks survived the carnage... just! Mevedev, Zverev and Coco Gauff came through a few scares in the early rounds but ultimately made some healthy points for their owners.
And as for Novak? Despite the high price tag, he was highly owned at 25% and was the most popular Captain as everyone who picked Novak made him Captain! A run to the semi finals perhaps seemed a disappointing return for the investment but ultimately he still scored some decent points before his surprisingly limp defeat to Jannik.
So lets take a look at the final FTL Leaderboard after the Australian Open.
Congratulations to Devin (Bullshit Russian) who wins the game week with an outstanding score of 988.322 points (just fell short of the hallowed 1000) and also congrats to Cleeve (Another Season, Ample Grunts - AO24 Runner up (AO24 Runner up!!??? - hey - did you just change that team name Cleeve?) Cleeve took 2nd place with 937.004 points.
Lets take a look at the head to head between these two.
Both Cleeve and Devin had women's Champ Sabalenka as Captain men's champ Sinner as a KP and both had Qinwen Zheng as a TP.
Runner up Cleeve actually had all 4 finalists with Medvedev as a KP which is a remarkable achievement for the opening slam of the season but his selection of Naomi Osaka as a KP proved to be costly as she could only muster 6.84 points for him.
Devin meanwhile compensated for the lack of Medvedev with good scores from Quarter Finalist Alcaraz and semi finalist Zverev both of which were KPs on his side.
Despite their large scores, both Devin and Cleeve can point to one tale of woe as they both left some decent points on the bench, Devin had Arthur Cazaux on 62 points and Cleeve had Linda Noskova on 65 points.
Congrats are also due to the other three teams who managed to exceed 900 points.
Sam Austin takes 3rd place on 904 points. Tricia launces her campaign with an ominously good score of 904 points. (Could this be her year?) And in 5th place was we have Luke Angus on 903 points.
Ready for Game Week 2 folks?
Bring it on!!!
We now have all the draws for Game Week 28. The events taking place this week are: ATP Chengdu ATP Hangzhou WTA Hua Hin WTA Seoul Remember ...
