GAMEWEEK21 RESULTS

Massive kuddos goes out to our winners this week - Alex De Minaur, Alexander Bublik, Luciano Darderi, Marie Bouzkova and Leylah Fernandez.

 

Alex De Minaur's victory this week in Washington was his 10th title of his career!  Its safe to say, of all his titles, this was easily the most unlikely.  On his way to the final, he played what was thought to be the match of the week in the R16 against Jiri Lehecka (7-6,6-7,6-4).   By the time the final was over, you realized that the Lehecka match was simply an appetizer for the main course against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.  As ADF looked for his maiden ATP Tour Level title, he led the 3rd set 5-2, and had a 30 love spot at 5-3 as he tried to serve it out and then all hell broke loose!!  Nerves got the best of Alejandro as he lost 4 straight points in horrific fashion (he hit multiple double faults and spewed 2 other unforced errors on simple rally balls) to break himself.  You had to wonder if ADF was going to crumble and lose the match 7-5, but instead, Alejandro did everything he could to get the break and win the match in the next service game.  In what felt like a 10 minute service game, ADF generated 3 break chances, but De Minaur somehow managed to hold serve.  In fact, one of the winners that Alex hit on BP/MP down was sooo close that the replay officials showed the mark on shot spot!   ADF did manage to win the service game with the match levelled at 5, but Alex quickly held serve to send the match to a 3rd set tiebreak, and then outplayed him in the breaker.  Now the real question, what do either of these players have left for the Toronto/Cinci Masters Double?!?!?

 

Alexander Bublik's victory this week in Kitzbuhel was his 7th title of his career and 3rd in his past 4 events?!?!?  For a player that's nickname has been Bubbles due to his bizarre n strange play over the years, he's showing some real consistency of late (minus that awful R1 loss at Wimbledon).  Its hard to imagine saying this, but the only question coming into Kitzbuhel was whether or not he was actually going to play.  With the North American Hard Court swing just a week away, was Bublik really going to play back to back clay court events?!?  This type of behaviour is something that you only see from your hardcore clay court specialists, soo most of us expected him to withdraw.  Well not only did Alexander show up, but he dominated as he won the title without losing a set.  He didn't have to play the highest level of competition (Tirante, Shevchenko, Van De Zandschulp and Cazaux), but it still felt rather emphatic as he won back to back clay court events.  Don't look now Alcaraz, but he's coming for your crown!  

 

Luciano Darderi's victory in Umag was his 4th title of his career and 3rd of the season!  Those 3 titles (all on the dirt) put him in some rare air!!  Just like Bublik, Darderi was able to win back to back titles after Wimbledon!  The only set he lost was to the young incredibly talented hometown hopeful, Dino Prizmic.  Otherwise, he beat Tseng, Ugo Carabelli, and Taberner in straights.  I'm curious to see if he can have some success on the hard courts for the rest of the season.  His game looks like it should be able to translate onto the surface, but it hasn't yet (he's 3-18 in the past 2 years on it)

 

Marie Bouzkova's hometown victory in Prague was only her 2nd title in her career!!  She seems like she's had a far better career to have only ever had 1 win coming into this event!  Marie had a far more adventurous run on her way to the title than either Bublik or Darderi, as she was forced to play 3 sets against Ann Li in the QF, and had to come back from 5-3 down (in the 2nd set) in the SF against an incredibly dangerous youngster (Tereza Valentova) and then beat Linda Noskova in 3 sets in the final.  It will be interesting to see if this helps Marie build some confidence and we see it parlay further into some big results in the North American Swing (just a warning, she's always played well in Mexico)

 

Leylah Fernandez's victory in Washington was not only her 4th title of her career but easily her biggest victory.  Leylah had a couple of massive wins on her way to the final (Jessica Pegula and Elena Rybakina) and then dominated Anna Kalinskaya in just over an hour in the final.  I'll be honest, I still have no idea how she beat Rybakina in the SF, as she was down a set and a break and Elena had multiple opportunities to take a 2 break lead.  Coming into the week, Leylah had a sub 500 win/loss record for the season, so this will be incredibly important for her confidence.  She's got a vicious draw in her hometown event in Montreal, so it will be curious to see if she can keep up this type of result!  She made the final at the US Open just a couple of years ago, so you have to wonder if this new found confidence might help aid in a similarly deep run there! (Personally i think the draw gods will have to help her)

 

In terms of FTL, the week was marred by withdrawals and Round 1 losses.  Its hard to imagine saying this but it felt acceptable if your team only had 2 or 3 of those Round 1 losses!! (Many of our top level managers had 4 of them!!)

 

Meanwhile, the winner of the GW, put up a ridiculous 510.508 points!! Value Picks 📈🤑 (The Commissioner) made many of us look silly as he had all 3 Mens Winners and a Finalist in Prague!  Beyond that, he only had 2 other SemiFinalists (Rybakina and Shelton) lol.  Just think, he could have been better as he had Andrey Rublev lose in Round 1.  He was sooo dominant that he won the week by 46 points and there were only 8 other managers (btw 2 of those managers are involved in the 2nd half Masters group) that were even within a 110 points of him!!!

 

I'd like to offer a huge kuddos to Michael Sommer and Eric Zoberman (Rydal Sponsors Exemption) who finished 2nd (and also won their FTL Cup matchup by dominating one of our admin).  He's also our first place winner for Option 2.  He wasn't as good as the Commissioner, but damn he was still real good as he had 2 winners (De Minaur, Bublik) a finalist (Noskova) and 2 SF's (Rybakina and Shelton).  If Pegs beats Leylah, he might have had a chance (thats a big if tho, as she needed another 50 points lol) to be our our GW winner.  

 

Mohaib (Dr. peRFect), Oli B (The Gravy Dinghies), and elle (hana kumatata) round out our top 5.