Australian Open Results

I'd like to offer a massive kuddos to both of our Australian Open winners - Madison Keys and Jannik Sinner.

 

Coming into the AO, Jannik Sinner was the prohibitive fave to walk away with the title (this is what happens when you've won 30 of your last 31 matches lol, and won huge titles at the US Open, ATP Finals, Cincinnati, Shanghai and the Davis Cup) and when the Main Draw was posted, it was all but expected that he would at least make the final.  More often than not, these type of expectations seem to be too much for a player to deal with, but Jannik ended up walking away with his 3rd straight Hard Court Slam with relative ease.  His level of play in the Quarters, Semi's and Finals was borderline special.  In those matches, he made Alex De Minaur, Ben Shelton and Alexander Zverev look like they didn't belong on the same court.  Hell early into the 3rd set of the Championship match, Zverev looked resigned to the fact that the match was over!!  During the acceptance speeches he even commented that he's just flat out not good enough to beat Sinner right now!

Now lets discuss Madison Keys!!! She's had a hell of a career, but her emotions and nerves always seemed to get away in the big moments of big matches.  Entering the week, she would be on a short list of most talented players in WTA history to have not won a slam.  Her victory this week might be one of the most magical runs that I've ever seen.  She beat 4 top 10 players (Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Elena Rybakina and Danielle Collins) and a former top 5 player (Elina Svitolina) in the same event!!!!  

Before getting into Maddies run, its hard to not bring up the elephant in the room - Coaching Pods.  I know, I know, what on earth are Coaching Pods?!?  This year, the AO decided that they would set up Coaching Pods right next to the court so that the players could talk to their coaches throughout their matches.  So instead of coaches giving their players signals and yelling single words to help their players, they could actually have a full conversation with them.  I'll be honest, I'm not sure Maddie ends up winning this title without these pods.  I know it sounds crazy, but thanks to the on-court coaching, Maddie was able to keep her emotions in tact, was able to stay in the moment and was able to change strategies quickly on the fly.  She ended up winning Five 3 set matches, included a 3rd set tiebreak in the Semi's against Iga Swiatek and in the Finals, she won 7-5 in the 3rd against the 2 time defending AO champ Aryna Sabalenka!!!  

Lets get this straight, Madison Keys was awesome at the AO, but without that coaching, I legit don't think that she gets that done.  Hell, I'm not even sure she makes it through Round 2, where she beats Ruse 7-5 in the 3rd!

Now in terms of FTL, I'd like to offer a massive congrats to our GW Winner - Blank (Bibek).  Apparently he knew something that most of us didn't, as he had all 4 players reach the finals this week!!  Between the 4 of them, he accumulated nearly 750 points!!!  The rest of his team didn't fare nearly as well, but it was still plenty good enough for him to win the week by 13 points as he accumulated 954.714 points.  What a way to start the FTL2025 season!!!

I'd also like to congratulate the rest of our top 5 finishers.  NEW CAL ACES 🎾🏝️ (Mathieu), Ultimate Zverev Hater (Devin), DalisVolleys (Jim A), Spotec25 (Martin H).  They were the only other managers to eclipse the 900 point barrier!!