Game Week 12 Roundup

 

Jannik Sinner wins another Masters Event.   A Ukranian wins the women's title. A dark horse option runs riot.   Have we been here before?

A different city but a very similar narrative to last week as the tennis tour moved onto Roma.

But its worth repeating the crazy records that Jannik Sinner is setting at the moment.  Sinner has now completed the series of Masters titles at the tender age of 24.  He has won 6 back to back Masters 1000 titles.  Paris, Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Madrid and now Rome.  And he has now broken Novak Djokovic's seemingly unbreakable record of straight wins at Masters 1000 level making it to 34 straight wins.  

Its just ridiculous and begs the question.... how many more records is he going to set this year?  With Carlos missing from Roland Garros and Wimbledon and possibly beyond that, the stage is set for Sinner to dominate men's tennis for the next few months.  Can anyone stop him?

The only thing that seemingly can stop Jannik is his own health at times as was evident in his semi final match against Medvedev.  He looked decidedly unwell in his semi final match with Daniil Medvedev. Was it the culmination of matches, the stress of trying to win a Masters title in Italy. Who knows? He managed to survive, somehow, did the rain delays help?  Possibly...

In the final Jannik would safe Casper Ruud who once again presented himself as a Dark Horse option. In Madrid he didn't quit deliver the points everyone was hoping for surprisingly losing to Blockx but there was no stopping Casper in Rome as he cruised through his semi final against Italian Darderi who himself was enjoyed his best ever Masters Run.  (Maybe the shades were a bit over the top Luciano).

There was one man who could stop Casper however and that was Sinner in the final.  Ruud played pretty well if truth be told but Sinner was just too good  6-4, 6-4 to Jannik.

In the women's event it was another tournament where a Ukranian was to hold the trophy come the end of the event.  In Madrid it was Marta Kostyuk but in Rome it was a more seasoned campaigner in the shape of tennis Mom Elina Svitolina.  

And boy did she take down some scalps to win the title.  In the Quarter Final she came from a set down to defeat Australian Open champ Elena Rybakina.  In the semi final she bounced back from a 2nd set loss to see of the Wimbledon Champ Iga Swiatek. And in the final, she was her determined best to see out a three set tussle with reigning French Open champ  Coco Gauff.

If you're taking down three reigning Grand Slam champ to win a Masters 1000 title, its fair to say you absolutely deserve it.  What about the reigning US Open champ I hear you ask...well you probably didn't but humour me here.  Aryna actually lost out to Sorana Cirstea in thee third round. Sorana was to go on to reach the semi finals in another incredible week for her in what is proving to be a remarkable retirement year for her as she moves into the World top 20.  Will she reconsider?  

In Fantasy Tennis we had the rather unique situation of three different winners this week.  As you know we have three tiers of Fantasy Tennis in terms of Prize Options.  The global level open to everyone where the only prize is bragging rights!  Level 1 members are eligible for the end of season prize.  But if you are one of the Level 2 sponsors then you are in the running for weekly and monthly prizes!

Here the Global Leaderboard for the game week.  

Massive congrats to Maria Varano and her team AlwayswithRafa who just edged out Aditya Sharma and his team Harakiri by the smallest of margins to top the Global Leaderboard charts this week.  Maria's team finished with an excellent 835.799 points.

Aditya can finally celebrate some glory however by topping the Level 1 standings for this week. He was only 3 points behind Maria.

And the Level 2 prize winning honour goes to Tricia and Prepare for Czech Mate who finished on 814 points.

Here are their teams for the week.

Maria had a terrific team. She captained Rome champ Jannik Sinner (didn't we all) but she also had WTA Champ Svitolina and WTA Semi finalists Swiatek and Cirstea!  Significantly Maria had men's finalist Casper Ruud as a Key Player rather than a dark horse which significantly boosted his total. Her starting 8 more than made up from the sub par performance of her dark horse which makes the game week win all the more impressive!

A good week too for Aditya, who's loyalty to Elina Svitolina was rewarded in kind this week has he picked up almost 150 points from having Elina in a key player role. In fact he had all four finalists with Sinner as captain,  Coco as a TP and Ruud in the DH position. His only regret may be making Tabilo DH instead of Darderi, With Fils withdrawing Tabilo came into play but the points he could have got from Darderi would have been far more profitable!

The same could be true for Tricia who also had Darderi on the bench but that was more academic as Tricia's replacement for Fils was Rafael Jodar who turned out to be a more than adequate replacement. As well as three of the finalists - Sinner, Ruud and Gauff,  Tricia had strong performances from Pegula, Rybakina, Andreeva and DH Penko.