How to solve a problem like Penko?
WTA Stuttgart - To use the common parlance these days, Iga Swiatek is officially Penko's "pigeon!"
Ostapenko is one of those players who presents a huge problem for FTLers. For most of us she's not reliable enough to play in our teams but when you have Iga in your team and see Ostapenko in her section of the draw, you fear the worst. It seems to give Ostapenko extra motivation to do well in the event when she knows there is a possibility of notching up another win over the Pole. Its now 6-0 and guess what - they could face off again in Madrid this week! 😂
To be fair to Jelena, she didn't stop with Iga this time. She took the trophy and the car! Her opponent in the final Aryna Sabalenka made the final comfortably. After being awarded a walkover against the injured Potapova, she didn't actually play her first match until Saturday and managed to get through her Quarter Final against Mertens and her semi final against Paolini with minimal fuss. Aryna was well beaten in the final though - perhaps the frustration of never being able to win the car is beginning to weigh heavily on her so she was probably wise to admit after the match that she might as well just buy one - she has the money after all!
ATP Munich - There was a couple of significant sliding door moments in the Munich event. In the first round Ben Shelton survived match points against Borno Gojo and managed to win the match and then progress through the event all the way to the final maintaining a positive happy go lucky attitude throughout the event.
Meanwhile, home favourite Alex Zverev, went into the event having been on terrible form this year since reaching the Australian Open final. Would German clay signify a return to form? It could and probably should have gone wrong for him in the Quarter Final against Tallon Griekspoor who has been a difficult opponent for the German in the past. Griekspoor did lead by a set and a break in their match but when it came to serving the match out, he faltered and let the German break back and ultimately turn the match around.
Zverev won the final comfortably against Shelton and it now begs the question whether this is a return to form for the once again World No 2 or did he get a little lucky. Madrid will be a good test of where he is at as he has a pretty difficult draw to negotiate.
ATP Barcelona - The European clay season really does seem a particularly demanding schedule for the ATP players with many option to play 4 back to back events - the Monte Carlo event, followed by the 500 events in Munich and Barcelona then the 1000 events in Madrid and Rome. The Monte Carlo champ Carlos Alcaraz expressed how much he admired the fact that Nadal had managed to win Monte Carlo and Barcelona back to back on so many occasions.
Carlos came pretty close to achieving that feat having won in Monte Carlo and making the final in Barcelona. Solid wins in the Quarter Final against De Minaur and in the semi final against Fils seemed to have set him up nicely to complete the double. However on the other side of the draw Holger Rune was playing some fantastic tennis putting in a couple of his best performances of the season to beat Ruud in the Quarter Finals and Khachanov in the semi final.
The first set of the final was closely contested with Holger taking it on a tie break but Holger cruised to victory in the 2nd set as Alcaraz started to struggle physically. There were some concerns whether Carlos would be fit to play Madrid but at present he seems to be good to go.
WTA Rouen - This is a good time of the season to save trades with a lot of the top players having a full schedule but you do so at your peril!
The event in Rouen had the weakest lineup of the week and therefore most teams were unlikely to have many players involved in the event. However it also seemed at the outset a particularly easy event to predict. An Olga Danilovic vs Elina Svitolina final was the most likely outcome and so it proved.
Those of you who chose to trade in Svitolina for the game week were rewarded handsomely as she secured her 18th career title with a 6-4, 7-6 win over Danilovic.
Here is the final global league table for the game week.
Congrats to return of the champion (kazz) on a fantastic game week in which they accumulated 554 points winning the game week by just over 9 points over 2nd placed MTL89 (Kevin G). Lets take a look at their team:
Its a team full of winners and finalists! Kazz had three winners with Svitolina and Zverev as KPs and Holger Rune as a TP. In addition Kazz had two runners up in Alcaraz and Sabalenka. Five finalists from 8 players is not too bad a return and making Sabalenka a TP proved to be a good move as Aryna did not rack up as many points as the other finalists due to getting a bye and a walkover and ultimately losing the final.
Level 2 Prize
The level 2 game week award for this game week goes to MTL89 (Kevin G) who managed to beat 2nd placed Team letourneau into 2nd place. A great week for Kevin and also for Sindre who is very much on course for another great cup run on this kind of form.
Both picked a great Captain for the week with Kevin putting his trust in Zverev to have a return to form and Sindre was on the ball when trusting Svitolina with his captaincy. Both also had Olga Danilovic in their team clearly noticing the potential return of points available in the Rouen draw. Sindre did have a couple of weak links in his team though in the shape of Andreeva who lost early to Alexandrova and he didn't get much of a return from Navone who came in for the absent Lehecka. Kevin's weakest link remarkably was Iga Swiatek!
Congrats Kevin our game week champion!
