GAMEWEEK 11 RESULTS

A huge kuddos goes out to our 5 event winners this week - Elena Rybakina, Sloane Stephens, Marton Fucsovics, Casper Ruud and Jan Lennard Struff.

 

The interesting part about Game Week 11 is that there wasn't a single top 2 seed that made the final!

Elena Rybakina won the Porsche Masters in Stuttgart for her 3rd title of the season.  The Porsche Masters has long been one of the toughest fields every year on the WTA tour, and it took some incredible tennis for Elena just to make the final this week - she beat 2 top 20 players (Veronika Kudermetova, and Jasmine Paolini) just to make the semi's, before beating the #1 player in the world (Iga Swiatek).  Interestingly enough, her only dominant match of the week was in the final against Marta Kostyuk.  Elena continues to give Iga troubles regardless of the surface, so it will be interesting to see if she could beat her at the French Open where Iga is a massive favourite to defend her title.

Sloane Stephens won the event in Rouen for her first title in nearly 2.5 years.  When Sloane is good, her tennis looks soo easy that you are left wondering why she's never been a top 3 player.  There's truly no reason for it.  She beat Peyton Stearns, Karolina Pliskova, Yue Yuan, Caroline Garcia and Magda Linette on her way to the title.  The only real question for Sloane is whether or not this is an omen of things to come, or if this nothing more than a blip, and something we won't see again for quite some time.  One things for sure, she has the talent to do something special at the French Open, now the question is, will she?

Speaking of timelines, Marton Fucsovics won the title in Bucharest for his first victory since May of 2018!  Yes 6 years!!! Marton was incredibly impressive this week as he lost a total of one set all week!  Hell in his SemiFinal against Alejandro Tabilo, he hit a ridiculous 12 aces.  Yes, 12.  I'm sure Tabilo is still wondering what hit him lol, as Marton didnt hit 12 aces in his other 4 matches combined.  It wasn't the greatest field in the world in Bucharest, but he beat 3 seeds (Griekspoor, Tabilo and Navone) on his way to the title.  Marton Fucsovics has always been a rather up n down player, but no one is in any hurry to face him in a Bo5 when the conditioning becomes an issue, so no seed will want to see him in Round 1.

Another feel good story happened in Barcelona!  Casper Ruud won his first event above a level 250 of his career.  Safe to say, its a rather large monkey to get off his back.  Casper's victory this week was rather emphatic to be honest as he didn't lose a single set all week.  Him getting revenge from the previous week as he beat Tsitsipas in the final must have felt incredibly sweet.  Going into the French Open, he's just about the only top 10 player that is healthy and in form, so you have to wonder if he could do something special.  

Now for the best feel good story of the week - Jan Lennard Struff!  Jan Lennard won his first ever ATP Tour Level event of his career this week in Munich!  Safe to say, it was long long long long overdue!  He beat 3 seeds (FAA, Rune, and Fritz) on his way to the title.  One things for sure, Alcaraz will be hoping that he's not in his section of the draw at the French Open!  He could cause some serious problems at the French, if he falls anywhere other than in Djoker's section.

 

In terms of FTL, a managers success was basically determined by 1 simple factor - did you have both Rybakina and Ruud?  12 of our top 13 managers this week had both ;)

Graham (Metty's Marvels) won the week by 4.35 points this week over Mikhail (Roger That).  Interestingly enough, both managers had a player withdraw after the lockout had started which forced an Emergency Replacement to come into play.  Sadly for Mikhail, Tomova lost in Round 1 and it cost him the GameWeek Victory.

Graham had a truly special week as he accumulated an incredible 482.52 points.  He had 3 winners (Ruud, Rybakina and Stephens), and 2 finalists (Tsitsipas and Kostyuk).   Hard to imagine but his 2nd Emergency Replacement made the final, so he could have done even better.

Win (Year of the Sinner), Florian (Slice for the Win), and Ashim (Ash Federer's) round out our top 5

Madrid Results

" Samādhi now i'm free!"

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.

April Monthly Standings

 Here are the final monthly standings for April

Congrats to Mikhail who was top of the pile in the month of April, a month which covered 4 game weeks.

Mikhail was the most consistent of the top 6 and managed to finish in the top 30 in every game week with his best position being 2nd in Game Week 11.

Well done to Niels, Mike, Andrea, Derek and Robby who all had a great month but all at least 1 game week that let them down in terms of chasing the monthly prize.

ROME MAIN DRAW AND DARK HORSE BREAKDOWN

 

I have attached the FTL Version of both the Mens and Womens Rome Main Draw, and the Dark Horse Breakdown for each event.  If you want a copy, click on the link, ROME MAIN DRAWS.  Once you do so, click on FILE, and scroll to MAKE A COPY, and call it whatever you want

Good Luck :)