Massive kuddos goes out to our Overall Winner - Dragan (Nadal's Forehand) He accumulated an incredible 16115.665 points for the season, and won the overall by 67.6 points. Not only did he win the overall, but he also won the FTL Cup!!! ZERO IDEA how you win both lol - there's only a few ppl that have ever won the Overall, he's now the first person to ever win the FTL Cup, forget winning both in the same season!
Dragan may have won the overall, but for most of the season it felt like it was anyones game. In fact, there was a couple of prolonged periods where it felt like we could have a different winner. After Michael Blomer (ThunderTurkeys) finished in the top 3 in both March and April, he took a substantial lead and led for a prolonged period. Shortly there after, Sagar (Goaldies) took the lead for 5 or 6 weeks but had an incredibly poor stretch where he finished outside the top 50 in both June and July.
Dragan didn't win a single GameWeek or Month this season, but continued to put up top 20 result after top 20 result each month and by the time October hit, he had a 150+ point lead. But in the FTL, no lead is safe, especially during the Asian-Swing that's full of Semi-Blind draws, so it makes the results even more volatile. Hell all it takes is a couple of poor results, injuries or ill-timed withdrawals and you can lose a few hundred points in no time. Sure enough during the Penultimate week, it appeared as though Dragan's lead was going to disappear! Instead, Pegula couldn't find a way to close out Rybakina in the WTA Finals, and Djokovic withdrew from Turin!! I'm not a big believer in Karma, but this result felt like the Karma Gods did Dragan a massive favour! For those that don't know, a couple of years ago, Dragan was in 2nd place with 3 weeks to go, and due to a family obligation, missed the lockout. When I inquired about it, he didn't blame technology or anything else, just simply accepted the result of a horrible situation!
Nikhil (nbladeweilder) finished 2nd. I'm sure for most of the season he felt like he was out of contention for the top 10 forget the top prize, but his team got scorching hot over the final 4 months as he finished 5th in August, 2nd in October and 3rd in November! Like I described earlier, if Pegula beats Rybakina (its literally a point here or there from her doing so) in the WTA Finals, and Djokovic fulfills the expectation of playing in the ATP Finals, he ends up doing the unthinkable and winning the whole damn thing, while only leading the Overall for 1 week!! I'm sure that he'll take plenty of solace out of the fact that he won 2 Months, and 2 Game Weeks!!
Alex (broccoli) finished 3rd, 95 points behind Nikhil. Alex didn't win a single GameWeek or Month but was actually sitting in 2nd place with about a month to go in the season. Its an incredible result, but it looked like trades were an issue for his final few weeks, so like many of us, I'm sure that he felt like his hands were tied and was just hoping for the best.
Mathieu (NEW CAL ACES 🎾🏝️) finished 4th, 29 points behind Alex. Mat finished 2nd at the Aussie Open and was 3rd in the First Month, and was in contention all season, but just couldn't find a way to get across the line. Similar to Alex, Mat had trade issues, as he only had 1 trade left for the final 3 weeks, and was lucky that Djokovic withdrew from Turin.
Our 2023 Overall Champion Aoun (Fedex Superstars) finished 5th, 140 points behind Mathieu, and just 4.5 points ahead of one of our GOAT's Vlad. Its his 3rd straight top 5 finish!! Aoun was in the big cluster of managers that won the final GW of the season. Sadly for Aoun, it never felt like he was in contention to really win the Overall this season, but its still a hell of a finish.
I'd like to offer a shoutout to the rest of our top 10:
6. Vlad (Rafa) - he's one of the GOAT's for a reason, even during an off season, he still finished in the top 10.
7. Sagar (Goaldies) - felt like a what if type of season. He was soo good for soo long, but it appeared as though he got too caught up on being in the lead, that he lost focus of his salary cap and the number of trades that he was using, and eventually paid for it. (you cant play the final 3 to 4 months with your hands tied behind your back)
8. Tricia (Prepare for CzechMate) - her run of top 3 finishes finally came to a close (like 5 in a row?) - had to happen sooner or later!
9. Gord (Gordon Trailers) - probably should have finished 4th, but the decision to trade in a sick Paolini instead of Rybakina at the WTA Finals will haunt him
10. Jamie (The Umpire Strikes Back) - back to back top 10 seasons for Jamie. Thats special!
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