Game Week 29 featured a WTA 1000 and ATP 500 event in Beijing and an ATP 500 event in Tokyo. And it was nice for the vast majority of us to field full teams again after a tricky few weeks.
We'll start with the WTA event in Beijing where Coco Gauff was looking to get some success with her new coaching team. It was a tournament once again where she had to dig deep. In her match against Naomi Osaka, she dropped the opening set before coming back to level and benefitting from Naomi's retirement and it was the same in the quarter final against surprise package Starodubtseva. Facing her in the semi final would be Paula Badosa who did not drop a set en route to the last four - a run which included a comprehensive win over Jess Pegula.
On the other side of the draw Karolina Muchova was looking in terrific form as well, setting up a Quarter Final with Aryna Sabalenka who has had her difficulties with Muchova in the past. Sabalenka did indeed lose the first set but struck back to win the 2nd set and looked to be in control of the match at a break up in set 3 but Muchova managed to hang in there and when Aryna's level dipped alarmingly, Karolina was there to take full advantage. Her opponent in the semi final was Qinwen Zheng and Muchova ran out a comfortable winner with Queenwen perhaps hampered by an unfortunate fall in the 1st set.
So to the final where Muchova was probably favourite for most people despite Coco's higher ranking given Karolina's impressive progress to the final. Coco had other ideas however and, if anything, it was Muchova who was the more nervous player in the final. Coco perhaps has a game which matches up well against Muchova and her impressive run in WTA finals continued as she ran out a fairly easy winner.
In the men's event in Beijing, we were delivered the dream final. World no 1 Jannik Sinner didn't have the easiest of weeks particularly in the early rounds where he had to come from a set down to defeat both Jarry and Safiullen but he managed to make his way to the final where he would face Carlos Alcaraz who had not dropped a set on his path to the final.
Sinner may be no 1 in the world but Alcaraz has had the better of the head to head matches between them this year and so it was to prove again. Sinner took the first set but Alacaraz came back to take the 2nd and then took the final set with an exceptional tie break performance. A delight of a match.
It was an all French final at the event in Tokyo. I have no idea how Arthur Fils made that final but he did and he got there with some pretty spectacular tennis. It was always going to be a tough section of the draw for Arthur and he needed three sets to beat Fritz before benefitting from a Berrettini retiral in the 2nd Round (when Matteo was actually a set up). Against Shelton he was cramping badly so it was remarkable that he somehow managed to stay alive in that match and clinch it in the 3rd set tie break and he needed two tie breaks to beat Holger Rune after which more cramping ensued!
In the final Fils would face Humbert. Humbert had an impressive week and he had not dropped a set before the semi finals but he would need three sets to see of Machac in the semi. The final itself was a terrific battle between two good friends. Humbert took the first set but Fils managed to secure the 2nd set tie break with some quite ridiculous shots! Perhaps inspired by that effort, Arthur pushed on to win the 3rd set to complete a remarkable week.
So lets take a look at the FTL game week. Here is the final global table for GW29.
Congratulations to Broccoli (Aleksey P) who was the clear winner this week scoring a fantastic 740 points. Tennis Talk (Cam Williams) was the closest challenger finishing 50 points back on 691 points. (For those of you who don't follow Cam already - please follow his twitter and youtube channels for some great tennis chat, draw analysis and ball by ball commentary. Tennis Talk (@thetennistalk1) / X
De Minotaurs, A.P.G. and Golden Slammers make up the top 5.
Lets take a look at the head to head between Aleksey and Cam.
Cam actually had more finalists that Aleksey with Muchova being an excellent pick for the week. Aleksey however scored heavily with Badosa and Qinwen Zheng which made a big difference and he also had a stronger dark horse with Osaka against Stearns for Cam.
Congrats to Aleksey for the game week win and (as has happened quite a lot this year), Cam can take solace from being the level 2 prize winner for this week. I think there will be quite a few folk reviewing their membership category for next year. 😂
