US Open results

 

Congratulations to the US Open Champions  Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka.

There was no surprise in the line up for the men's singles final at the US Open.   Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz look like they will dominate men's tennis for a long time to come.  This was the third final slam final in a row where they faced off against each other and of course Sinner won the first slam final of the year as well.

The outcome might have been a little surprising though.  Sinner has been dominant on the hard courts in recent times and having pushed Alcaraz so close on the clay and having taken his Wimbledon crowd, one might have thought that Sinner would be in a strong position to win his third slam of the year.

Alcaraz was prepared for the challenge though. His team chose to skip Toronto and instead had an intensive training block entirely focusing on how they would beat Sinner on the hard courts and the results were evident not just in the final but throughout the tournament.  

Alcaraz was a more consistent and professional version of himself at the US Open and his serve in particular was far stronger than  ever allowing him to control all if his matches and not drop needless sets in the early rounds. 

Carlos didn't drop a single set on route to the final.  Even Novak, who deserves all the credit in the world for being the best of the rest at the grand old age of 38, could not lay a finger on him in the final. In the other semi final Sinner defeated Felix Auger Aliassime in 4 sets.  It was an excellent tournament for FAA which saw him score wins over Zverev and De Minaur and will give him confidence going forward.

The final itself wasn't the classic battle we might have hoped for.  Sinner did manage to get a set but didn't really mount a serious challenge and Alcaraz comfortably took his 2nd US Open title and remarkably his 6th Grand Slam title.

Going into this years US Open, there had been 9 different winners in the 10 years since Serena Williams won her 6 US Open title.  Only Naomi Osaka had won it twice in that time and nobody had defended their title since Serena.  Aryna Sablenka was reminded of that stat and assured the assembled press conference prior to the tournament, that she was going to change that trend.

And so she did!  Its been an interesting year for Aryna.  As her no 1 ranking indicated, she had been the best player on the WTA tour this year but she didn't have a slam title to show for it having been runner up at the Australian Open and the French Open.  

Sabalenka benefited from a walkover in the quarter final with Vondrousova pulling out after a tough 3 set win over the much fancied Rybakina.  She was given a tough challenge in the semi final with Jess Pegula taking the 1st set before Aryna struck back.  Remarkably Aryna won the 3rd set while only taking 4 points from Pegula's serve - it just so happened those 4 points were all in one game and that break proved to be enough.  

On the other half of the draw, there was sweet revenge for Amanda Anisimova over Iga Swiatek after that awful Wimbledon final where she was double bagelled by the Pole. That set up a semi final against Naomi Osaka who is finally founding the form that won her four grand slams a few years ago.  It was a terrific battle with Anisimova finally coming through winning the third set 6-3 after the two had shared tie breaks.

Anisimova back in a slam final at the first opportunity after her Wimbledon loss, was determined to put on a better show and she did manage to push Aryna all  the way but it was to end in disappointment once again with Aryna battling to a 6-3, 7-6 victory and thereby confirming her place as No 1 in the WTA rankings.  

And so to FTL.  With budgets for many teams around the 200m mark, its not too surprising that so many manager can field super teams at this stage of the season.   Sinner, Alcaraz, Swiatek, Sabalenka would find themselves in every team.  And because Jess Pegula had been on such a bad run of form, she was suddenly available as a dark horse pick - nearly everyone picked her and she delivered!

So ultimately it was down to one or two differentials to separate the teams in this FTL week.

Here is the final global leaderboard table for the US Open

 

Massive congrats to Mark (Top of the Popyrins) who won the game week in an incredibly tight contest with Tricia (Prepare for Czech mate).   Perhaps even more remarkably, Mark pulled off this feat, while having one of the finalists - Amanda Anisimova on the bench.  Lets just say his winning margin would have been a lot higher had he foreseen Amanada's win over Iga and actually picked her!

Lets take a look at the head to head between the two teams.

Both teams trusted in Djokovic to deliver and he definitely did.  You can't count him out just yet!  Tricia had a strong differential in Naomi Osaka while Mark had a sold return from De Minaur and chose to trust Pegula in his starting 8 rather than relying on the reduced points she would get as a DH Pick. Instead he chose Muchova as his female DH and she paid him back handsomely.  Tricia's main weakness other than the male DH was Coco Gauff who despite a 55 point return, really had a US Open to forget.

 

Game Week 26 results

 

For two young tennis stars, this past week will be one they remember fondly for the rest of their lives. For most FTLers, Game Week 26 was definitely one to be forgotten!

Game Week 26 was always going to be a difficult one.  First week after the slam, the entry lists were always going to be fairly weak.   We also only had 2 WTA events with the men on Davis Cup duty which restricted choices somewhat.

And then came the withdrawals.  Kalinskaya.  Fernandez,  Navarro,  Stearns - names that were spread across many an FTL Team in the anticipation of them performing well in Game Week 26, Some of them had been traded in for the Game Week before the US Open and there were many hoping that poor performances in that game week would be rectified by a solid game week 26.  Oh these tennis players know how to troll our noble FTL participants.

So where did that leave us?  Haddad Maia, Kudermetova, Mertens, Eala seemed to be the more reliable options for those that either had them or wanted to trade a player or two in.   But this was never a game week that was going to go according to plan and those reliable picks (possibly with the exception of Eala) all flopped dramatically.

Veronica Kudermetova went down in striaght sets in her opening match against the Andorra representative Jiminez Kastintseva.    Haddad Maia came though her opening two matches but then fluffed her lines against the Mexican Zarazua.  Mertens (ah the ever reliable Mertens) lost to Elsa Jacquemot.  Eala did put some points on the table. Fresh from her triumph at the WTA 125 event in Guadalajara she scored a couple of wins but perhaps a little bit of fatigue set in when she went down fairly easily to the talented Indonesian  Janice Tjen.

There were other flops - Ostapenko, Tatjana Maria - the list goes on. This was a week for new names to shine and they grasped the opportunity.

17 year old American Iva Jovic has long been tipped as a standout talent and everything came together for her in Mexico this week. She defeated Kawa, Osorio, Jiminez Kasintseva and Bartunkova on her way to a final with the Colombian Emliana Arango.  It was clear Arango was not 100% in the final and it proved to be a straightforward win for Jovic but it was testament to her personality that her debut WTA triumph was met by a relatively toned down celebration aware, as she was, that Arango wasn't feeling her best.

For a 500 event, you could argue that the list of opponents that Jovic had to face was certainly not the strongest but she played some great tennis and took the opportunity that was presented to her.  The reward was the trophy and a climb in the rankings of 37 places to a career high of 36.

And so to Sao Paulo in Brazil where the eventual champion (excuse me while i copy and paste this from wikipedia) was ...... Tiantsoa Sarah Rakotomanga Rajaonah, a 19 year old Frenchwoman of Malagasy origin.   TSRR..no forget that....Sarah had a straightforward route through to the semi finals but she had to take out two form players in the semi finals and final.  First Zarazua (conqueror of Keys at the US Open and winner over BHM in Brazil) was despatched.  Even in the final, Sarah was not the favourite.  Janice Tjen has had an excellent year and looked like she would be the one securing her first ever title. But Sarah was having none of it, winning the final  6-3, 6-4.

Two young women to look out on the WTA Tour next year.

And so to FTL.

For all the aforementioned reasons, most teams were lucky if they had more than 3 players this week and given most of the players in those 2 or 3 woman teams flopped it was never going to be a high scoring week.

But these are fun FTL weeks right?  These are the weeks when managers who might not always be at the top of the leaderboard have a chance to shine and get some payback from those more obscure squads they had put together.

Here is the global league table for the game week.  This is isn't relevant for the purposes of the monthly prizes (game week and monthly prizes are only played for by level 2 members) but nevertheless we do like to bestow credit where its due and honour the global league weekly winner in the blog.

Congratulations to Amour 40 who were the highest point scorers this week and topped the Global League Standings.  They were one of only three teams to break the 200 point barrier in what must be one of the lowest scoring game weeks of FTL history.  Does anyone keep stats on this kind of stuff?

Here is the winning team:

If we exclude Sakkari who went out in the 1st round, Amour 40 effectively had a 3 women team but three women who all did a pretty good job and that was enough to win the game week.  Eala got two wins before succumbing to Tjen.  Jacquemot actually beat Sakkari, Mertens and Maria before losing in the semi final.  But its that Captain pick that sealed the deal.  Iva Jovic, Guadalajara champion, 136.2 points - thank you very much - that's how to win a rogue game week.  Congrats to Amour 40.

2nd and 3rd place involved two level 2 teams so we'll take a look at that head to head.  Mikhail (Roger That) just edged out Elin (Grylla's Golden) to take the level 2 prize for Game Week 36

First and foremost, both managers deserve credit for being able to field such strong teams in this game week. Roger That had 6 players whereas Grylla's Goldens remarkably had 7 (of which admittedly four flopped).  Again it was Jovic who made the difference with Roger That having the Guadalajara champ as a TP.    The top performer for Elin was Janice Tjen who made the Sao Paulo final.

Congrats to both of you on a great game week.