Washington Draws

 

OLYMPICS DRAWS AND DARK HORSE BREAKDOWN

I have attached the FTL Version of both the Mens and Womens Olympics Main Draw, and the Dark Horse Breakdown for each event. 

Please remember that if you select a player as a Dark Horse and they are playing in Washington, they are ineligible and will receive zero points.

 

If you want a copy, click on the link, OLYMPICS DRAWS.  Once you do so, click on FILE, and scroll to MAKE A COPY, and call it whatever you want

Good Luck :)

GAMEWEEK 22 - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

GameWeek 22 is coming up in a few days and for clarification purposes, it requires some additional information.

First off, GameWeek 22 will be compromised of 2 separate events - The Olympics and The Citi Open in Washington.  Both the ATP and WTA Tours will be represented in both events.

Secondly, neither the ATP nor WTA Tour distributes ranking points for the Olympics, but in the FTL, a Special Event Ranking Point system was created to properly award players for their results in such a prestigious event.  The Breakdown is as follows:

Thirdly, the Dark Horse category is used for both the Masters 1000 and Grand Slam events, and because the Olympics are of similar stature, one will also be used this week.  Please note that if you select a player (as a Dark Horse) that is involved in the event in Washington, they will not be rewarded with any points.

Fourthly, from all reports, the first ball will be played on Saturday July 27th in Paris, so its extremely likely that neither Main Draw will be available from the Citi Open in Washington.  If the OOP comes out and there's a change of schedule, we'll be sure to adjust the time of the lockout tho.

Good Luck Everyone.

Monthly Standings for June

 

Here are the monthly standings for the month of June.

Game Week 16 seemed to be the pivotal one for this month with the top 5 at the end of the month all finishing in the top 10 for that game week and the eventual monthly winner Lou Warren winning the week.

Congratulations to Lou on winning the game month and also to Robby, Elin, Augusto, Sam and Silve for a terrific month.

Level 2 monthly standings taken from the FTL app

FTL Cup 4th Round results

Here are the results from the 4th Round of the FTL Cup

Game Week 20 was always planned as a bit of a curve ball for the FTL Cup to test how teams would manage would most of the top players were not playing.  In end we had even more withdrawals than expected and its fair to say that one or two teams suffered more than others due to the withdrawals.

That said, and perhaps its because I was not involved in it, but it turned out to be quite an entertaining round with a lot of differences between the teams and some very entertaining match ups.  

de Minotaurs were the team managed by Paul and Rick is now looking after this team admirably. They progressed against an injury hit Serve Squad.

Faris and Golden Slammers had an excellent game week and were too good for Stripes.

Cup specialist Pete (Bullseye) just pipped Antonela in a great match which ultimately came down a one off knockout between Berrettini for Pete against Tsitsipas for Antonela. 

Vlad (The Macedonian) had an excellent game week and were just too strong for Adnan (Advantage Infinity).

Alcarazian Domination (Anthony) defeated nbladeweilder (Nikhil) to set up a quarter final against Team Le Tourneau (Sindre) who managed to see off Prepare for Czech mate (Tricia) in the only contest which went to the final day. The win for Fils over Zverev may have proved crucial for Sindre but Tricia may have needed Muchova to win as well as Zverev if she was to complete and amazing comeback.

No AO, No Problem (Rick's experimental team) were completely written off by their own boss in advance of their match with Kalinisaurus Rex (Jeremy).  In the end they won the tie quite easily which just shows that you don't always need 8 player to have a great game week.  Their opponent in the Quarter Final will be Aditya Sharma who saw off a beleaguered Smash Bros (Pieter-Jan).  

    

The Quarter Finals of the Cup will take place in Game Week 24 (Cincinnati) so will be 10 player match ups with Dark Horses in play.

QF lineup

 

Wimbledon Results

 

Just catching up on an eventful and thoroughly enjoyable Wimbledon.   

Here are your champions - Carlos Alcaraz (expected!)  and Barbora Krejcikova (very unexpected!)

The biggest question mark before the event was what shape Djokovic would be in after his recent surgery. He was on pretty fine form if truth be told as he comfortably negotiated his opening matches. He benefitted from a walkover against De Minaur (QF) and in the semi final he made short work of the Musetti (who had a great Wimbledon.)   

Alcaraz, meanwhile, seemed to grow into the event, surviving a scare in a 5 set thriller against Tiafoe.  He came back impressively from dropping the first set in his semi final against Medvedev and we seemed set for a classic Wimbledon final.

In the end the final was both remarkable but also an anti climax.  It seemed to have all the makings of a 5 set thriller but Novak could just not cope with the high level of tennis from his young Spanish opponent and Carlos coasted to a surprisingly easy straight sets win. 

If the men's final lineup was predictable, the same can definitely not be said of the women's event.  One of the pre tournament favourites Sabalenka withdrew, Swiatek crashed out to Putintseva, Gauff lost to Navarro, Jabeur lost to Svitolina. Chaos! 

Meanwhile two players who were definitely not among many folks pre Wimby predictions were going deep.   Barbora Krejcikova had barely won any matches since the Australian Open but after surviving a 1st Round battle with Kudermetova she began to work her way quietly through the draw.  Jasmine Paolini has taken the tennis world by storm this year culminating in a French Open final appearance but she had no track record whatsover on grass prior to this season.

Krejcikova was on the tougher side of the draw but managed to defeat both Ostapenko and Rybakina to secure her place in the final.  Paolini meanwhile saw off the impressive Navarro with surprising ease before defeating  Donna Vekic in an epic semi final.

The surprise finalists served up a thoroughly enjoyable final but ultimately it was Krejcikova who prevailed winning 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 to secure her 2nd Grand Slam title.  Hopefully Paolini will have more chances after a spectacular run on the clay and the grass. 

Here is the final FTL table for Wimbledon

Congrats to the Commissioner and Muhammad for both breaking the 1000 point barrier at Wimbledon - an impressive achievement!   A little bit of detective work was required to establish who the mysterious commissioner was but it has emerged that its Jeremy P's 2nd team in the global league. Congrats Jeremy!!

Lets take a look at the two top teams who were only separated by 3 points.

The Commissioner and Muhammad had both male finalists as many teams did.  Muhammad also had semi 3 excellent semi finalist picks in Rybakina, Medvedev and DH Vekic.   The Commissioner had a solid male DH in Ugo Humbert but it was his female DH who made all the difference.  Barbora Krejcikova was indeed available as a DH folks but I don't think anyone imagined she would go all the way.  Jeremy's faith in her was rewarded big time!

Of course when it comes to weekly prizes, its the level 2 league which counts and we have a different 2 teams heading that table.  Here is the level 2 table.

Mohaib was the clear winner in level 2 finishing 40 points above his nearest chasers Anthony and Augusto.  Congrats to Mohaib and Anthony and Augusto on a great Wimbledon.

Lets take a look at the Head to head between the top 2.

Both these teams were actually very similar even to the extent that they had the same female DH pick.  The two crucial differences were firstly the player placement.  Mohaib had Medvedev as a KP whereas Anthony had him as a TP  and then Mohaib's DH Shelton scored higher than Sonego for Anthony.