Over the last couple of years, the ATP and WTA have ensured that there's no ATP/WTA Tour level event that's being played during either a Masters 1000 level event or during a Grand Slam, so GameWeek 22 felt kinda strange to be honest - there was a 500 level event being played on both tours in Washington while the Olympics was being played.
The Olympics is a polarizing event where many players treat it in higher regard than a Grand Slam, and some others have little interest in playing in it (the fact that there's no ranking points or prize money available probably plays a huge roll). The Entry List for the Olympics further highlighted this polarization as 5 of the top 10 ATP Players and 9 of the top 20 WTA Players missed the event.
With all that being said, a huge congrats needs to go to our medalists this week
GOLD - Novak Djokovic / Qinwen Zheng
SILVER - Carlos Alcaraz / Donna Vekic
BRONZE - Lorenzo Musetti / Iga Swiatek
Novak and Qinwen both did something that not many of us saw coming - beat the defending French Open champs!
Alcaraz dominated Novak at Wimbledon, and most of us believed that another beatdown was coming in the Gold Medal match, but Alcaraz came out nervous and wasn't able to take advantage of a tonne of opportunities to break serve in the first set. The next thing you knew, Carlos played a poor tiebreak, and Djoker took full advantage. Carlos looked like he struggled with the pressure in the second set after he lost the first, and Novak took over and seemed like the better player for most of the set. Sadly, Alcaraz played another horrific tiebreak in the second set, and the match and the Gold Medal was all Novak's. It was probably the best match that Novak had played all season, and amazingly enough, his first top 10 win of the season. The question going forward will be - what will Novak's motivation level look like? In terms of Alcaraz, he was 1 poor match away from winning The French Open, Wimbledon and the Olympics in a 6 to 8 week span, so how will he handle the devastating loss (he openly discussed after that he felt more pressure competing for his country than at a typical slam)?
Its hard to pretend that Qinwen's Gold Medal isn't shocking. She probably should have lost both her R16 (Emma Navarro) and her QF (Angelique Kerber) matches, and then had to face the massive fave to win the event (Iga Swiatek) in the Semi's. Iga hadn't looked right all week (she's always struggled playing for her country, but the Olympics seemed to magnify the pressure), but not many pundits gave Qinwen even a chance to win a set. Sadly, Iga played probably the worst match that she's played on the dirt in at least 5 or 6 years, and Qinwen took full advantage. Iga even led 4 love in the second, only to hit herself off the court and lose the set 7-5. Qinwen took advantage of a very nervous Donna Vekic in the Gold Medal match and won in rather routine fashion. Qinwen had an incredible run at the Aussie Open and then did virtually nothing until the Olympics, so it will be interesting to see what she does after this incredible result for the remainder of the season!
Before the Entry Lists came out for the Olympics, most pundits were looking at the event (for both tours) as a nice soft place for players to bump their rankings due to a soft field. After the Entry Lists came out, that soft landing spot became far more difficult to find! In the end, Washington had 2 big name winners - Paula Badosa and Sebastian Korda.
Paula's ranking was outside the top 60 coming into the event, but that's only due to injury. The entire tour knows that she's a top 10 player, its simply a matter of her body staying healthy long enough for her to accumulate wins and ranking points. She beat Kenin, Samsonova, Raducanu, Dolehide and Bouzkova on her way to the title. Her ranking is now up to 40th. It was her first title since Sydney in 2022.
To me, Korda's looked like the best US born player since Andre Agassi, but the results haven't come quite as quickly as many of us have expected. (Most of us believe that his serve has been holding him back, n his serve looked alot better this week) His win this week in Washington was his first 2021!! (He had lost his last 6 finals). He beat Garin, Kokkinakis, Thompson, Tiafoe and Cobolli on his way to the title. With all that being said, if Kokkinakis doesn't require the Heimlich maneuver as he tries to serve out the match against him, Sebastian loses in the R16 lol.
It will be interesting to see if Paula and Sebastian's wins help propel them to something bigger for the remainder of the season.
In terms of FTL, managers were asked to decide if it was a better decision to pretend the events in Washington didn't exist and just select their team from the Olympics (I can tell you flat out that my team skipped Washington lol - it didnt work :P), or if there was far 2 many points available in Washington to do so.
In the end, Augusto (Abdi Pasha) made the decision that he would swing for the fence and took a player from both events in Washington and see if he could get both titles there as well. He didnt have either winner there, but the SF results that he got from both Sabalenka and Shelton was more than enough to help him get the win thanks to him having 5 of the 6 medalists in the Olympics!!! He accumulated a ridiculous 884.55 points for the week!
A huge kuddos goes out to the rest of our top 5 (everyone was within 50 points of our winner)
2nd place - Mike P (San Diego All-Stars)
3rd place - Kevin G (SloanePlease)
4th place - Jenny F (Ospreys)
5th place - Derek G (DG- Djokovic the GOAT)
