Game Week 7 Final Leaderboard
Women's tennis seems to be in pretty good shape if the last week and a half of tennis is anything to go by. We had three slam champions and the eternal semi finalist (Sakkari) make the final four and it certainly appears that Iga has a real challenge on her hands in the shape of Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka. Elena dismantled an "injured" Iga in the semi final and managed to keep her composure in the final to see off a misfiring Sabalenka.
In the men's event Carlos Alcaraz showed us once again why he is the brightest talent in men's tennis by playing some quite ridiculous tennis in a week where he defeated Kokkinakis, Griekspoor, Draper, FAA, Sinner and Medevedev without dropping a set. It brought to an end a remarkable 19 match unbeaten run for Daniil but given how much he hated the Indian Wells courts, this was a very succesful week for him!
Congratulations to our game week winner Marc Sab and "The Champs". This was a high scoring week all round as the top players really came to the fore so to win this game week you needed to have a really strong team. Marc had all four finalists plus semi finalists Swiatek and Sinner as well as decent supporting roles from Quarter Finalists Norrie and Fritz (who's contribution turned out to be fairly crucial).
Marc pipped Pete Schaumann into 2nd place but major Kudos to Pete and his team selection and placement. He had Alcaraz as Captain and Medvedev, Sabalenka and Rybakina as KPs as well as semi finalists Tiafoe and Sinner. Ultimately he only missed out because his other players Garcia and Pegula didn't perform as well as well as Norrie and Fritz.
The level 2 prize goes to 1st Round Loser. He also had all 4 finalists as well as 2 semi finalists but ultimately fell short due to the early exit of Holger Rune.
Congrats to all!
Here is the overall leaderboard after Game Week 6.
Leander is back on top after a 7th place finish in GW6.
Graham remains in 2nd place and Dragan drops two places to 3rd place. Faris Haze Muhammed is in 4th and Силви Георгиев rises an impressie 15 places to get into 5th place.
Other big movers this week
Martin moving up 21 places to 6th.
Samir moves up 20 places to 13th.
Kevin moves up 21 places to 23rd
Last years champ Alexei Ilinykh is also ominously on the move, rising 20 places to 28th.
Here are the final standings for the month of February.
Congratulations to Graham Metcalfe who won the month largely due to his impressive 1st place in GW5.
Martin ran Graham close in the end with his week 6 performance.
Dragan Josifoski takes third place after impressive showings in GW3 and GW4.
Силви Георгиев, Matthew, Sebastian Kromberg and Leander Oldenburger all had a terrific February!
We are always looking for ways to grow FTL and get more teams involved so this year we opened up the game to newbies who wanted to try it for free which resulted in the creation of the Global League which includes level 1 and level 2 supporters together with the free players. We have nearly 100 in the freebie category who are not eligible for prizes but we hope are enjoying playing along and might wish to become a level 1 or 2 supporter next year.
So it was great to see one of the new members winning Game Week 6 with a quite outstanding team. Congratulations Igor Savic - don't think Igor is in the group but hopefully someone knows him to pass on our congrats!
Igor's team this week was a belter of a team who did well across most of this weeks events.
He had both Monterrey finalists - Vekic and Garcia and both Dubai finalists Rublev and Medvedev. In addition he had the Acapulco winner Alex De Minaur. Zverev and Fritz also returned fairly decent totals for the Scorpion Warriors!
Just 6 points behind in 2nd place was Martin Hoffman and Spotec23. Martin had 4 winners with Austin winner Kostyuk, Santiago winner Jarry (coming in as an ER), Medvedev and Vekic. Captain Novak scored well but Martin may well have won the game week if any of his KPs had been Captain instead. Nevertheless, Martin is the weekly prize winner as level 2 participant!
Rounding up the top 5 was fc Vepyrite (Силви Георгиев), Serve n Volley (Vivek another global member) and Mirzini Sinovi (Samir Kadrić-Jelenko)
Here is the up to date global leaderboard.
Dragan Josifoski still leads the way in 1st place with 2418 points.
Graham M has moved up 10 place to take 2nd spot from Leander Oldenburger who is now in 3rd place.
Mover of the week is Taylor Andrew who moved up 26 places into 6th place in the overall table and Kei TO moved up 14 places to 7th thanks to a great game week.
In Dubai Iga looked to be baking her way to another title this week but Barbora Krejcikova (who was very close to a 1st Rd exit against Kasatkina) had other ideas and put in an outstanding display to beat the No 1 in straight sets.
In Doha Daniil Medvedev made it 2 tournament wins in a row bringing to an end the gladitorial efforts of Andy Murray who had spent another week battling through three set epics and numerous match points to get to the final!
In Rio, it was a repeat of the Argentina Open final but with a different outcome as Cameron Norrie managed to get the win over an injury hampered Carlos Alcaraz. It remains to be seen whether these two play Acapulco this week.
In Merida - we had a rare smile from Camilla Giorgi (see group cover photo) as she took the title and Hubert Hurkacz won his first title of the year in Marseille.
Congrats to our FTL Champ for the week Graham with Metty's Marvels. Graham had 1 champ this week with Medvedev and 2 finalists in Swiatek and Alcaraz. I imagine he wasn't a big fan of Krejcikova this week though as she beat 3 of his team members who just happen to be the WTA 1,2 and 3!
Taylor Andrew just missed out on top spot by 3 points! Taylor had both Rio finalists and was able to use his ERs to go effect with Cerundolo and Kalinina coming in for Draper and Coria. If only he hadn't had Draper as a KP, but congrats nevertheless on a great week.
Ashim Agarwal, Jayne Patricia Lewis and Kei TO make up the top 5 for the week,
I am not going to lie, its nice to be able to do a write up and say, we have a new leaader in the overall standings hahah . Sorry Alexei Ilinykh but last year we had the same leader for almost the entire season lol
Anyways, thanks to an exceptional GW where he finished 2nd, Dragan Josifoski moved up to the top spot!. Interestingly enough, many of the managers that were sitting near the top didnt have a great week, so he's now got a fairly sizeable lead (107 points)
Leander Oldenburger has been up n done all season, but our AO Champion, had a great week where he finished 13th and now sits in 2nd. Now the real question, can he have a 2nd good week in a row?? HMM!?! Its easier said than done!
Sebastian Kromberg had a good week (finishing 25th), and it was plenty good enough to move him up 7 spots and now sits in 3rd. He's a 135 points behind our leader, but thats plenty close enough that if he has a great week, to take over the top spot.
Some managers that have some very impressive resumes are lurking tho. PREPARE FOR CZECH MATE (Tricia) sits in 4th, Faris Haze Muhammed sits in 6th, Florian Berg sits in 13th, Emi Kottasz sits in 15th.
The top 18 are separated by less than 250 points, so in a week where Dragan Josifoski was 320 points better than one of our GOATS (Vlad Zuperman), anything can happen in a given week.
The biggest mover of the week was Sara Skinner. All she did in order to do so was have all 4 winners! She gained 33 spots and now sits in 57th. Congrats.
Some other big movers are as follows:
CRIMIN as he moved up 23 spots and now sits in 9th.
Oleksandr Sheremet gained 22 spots and now sits in 34th. Im not sure whats more impressive that or the fact that he beat a GOAT in the FTL Cup (MIKHAIL).
Augusto Mauriello moved up 22 spots and now sits in 40th., Mohaib Idrees has decided that he's done playing possum with everyone and he moved up 32 places and now sits in 42nd!
Pablo Dali moved up 30 places and now sits in 62nd.
Not only did Vladimir Jovanovski win the week, but he cut 34 places off his ranking and now sits in 64th
Olivier Rojas moved up 31 places and now sits in 77th
Huge kuddos goes to our winners this week - Swiatek, Medvedev, Alcaraz and Frtiz. Interestingly enough all 4 of these players had AO's that they would like to forget as not one of them made it to the 2nd week.
Some brainiac (yours truly, apparently i overthought it lol) had the notion that Swiatek was going to lose her first match of the week (would have been the first time she did so in quite some time), and all she did was lose a total of 5 games for the entire week. IMPRESSIVE doesnt even begin to describe.
Medvedev showed a level of form that we hadnt seen since the 2022 AO where he lost the final from 2 sets n a break up. If he plays anywhere near the level that he did against FAA, Dimitrov and Sinner, the tour should be scared. VERY SCARED.
Alcaraz may not have played in a few months, but that didnt seem to matter, as he brushed off some rust against Djere in his first match, and even tho he lost a set (where he was the much better player), he managed to look like he really has no business being in the South American Clay court swing lol
N then we get to Fritz, who seems to always make life interesting. He won for the 5th time in his career, but in all of his matches, you never get that comfortable feeling while watching him. Fritz was outstanding today against Kecmanovic, but still managed to lose the 2nd set, even tho it felt like Kecmanovic wasnt even in the match.
In terms of FTL, some managers took advantage of some highly owned players doing very well this week. Huge shoutout to Sara Skinner who had all 4 winners!. That not only takes some great picks, but some great money management as those 4 players combined salary is over 55 mill!
Huge shoutout to Vladimir Jovanovski for his first GW victory in a couple of years. Sadly im sure he's ready to spit, as he dropped down to Option 1 this year after being in Option 2 every other season. He had 3 winners (Medvedev, Swiatek and Fritz). He will tell u, that its hard to imagine winning the week without having Alcaraz tho lol. Selecting Medvedev as your captain where he puts up a ridiculous 98 points does help tho!
Dragan Josifoski finished 2nd just 3.5 points behind. Sadly for him, he led almost the entire way, but got eclipsed in the end thanks to Medvedev's spectacular performance in the Rotterdam final. Both Dragan and Vlad are great buddies, so im sure that Vlad will bug him about this for years lol
CRIMINI, Mohaib Idrees and Sara Skinner rounded out the top 5. Interestingly enough the top 5 were only separated by 13 points!
Here is the overall leaderboard after game week 3.
Carlito one of our Global entrants is leading the "way" after 3 game weeks with his team - the Artists! Carlito moved up an impressive 11 spots thanks to his 3rd place finish.
But its tight at the top. Mateusz Mikołajczak moved up 6 places in the overall leaderboard and is only 6 points behind in 2nd place.
Andrea Lenox and Faris Haze Muhammed occupy 3rd and 4th respectively. Other big movers in the top 10 were Dragan Josifoski and Arnaud who moved up to 5th and 6th respectively.
For those of you currently sitting in the lower reaches of the overall leaderboard, don't despair, the season is still in its infancy and there is a lot of tennis to be played.
And so concludes another fun packed extravaganza of tennis from around the globe.
In Argentina, Sebastian Baez found his form again on his beloved clay and lifted the title against Federico Coria. NK can "lol" all he likes! In Dallas, young Chinese talent Yibing Wu somehow managed to make veteran servebot John Isner malfunction in a final set tie break to lift his first ATP title.
In Montpellier Jannik Sinner won his 7th ATP title (out of 8 finals) against Maxime Cressy. In Linz Anastasia Potapova battled her way through several 3 setters this week but made short work of Petra Martic and in Abu Dhabi, Belinda Bencic recovered from a 1st set trouncing and saved several match points before turning her match around against the ever impressive Samsonova.
Baez had 19 owners, Potapova had 17 owners and Yibing Wu only had 4 owners although I believe he did come in as an ER for Robert Rowat!
Massive congrats to our game week winner this week Sebastian Kromberg who scored a very impressive 448.25 points. Sebastian had three of the tournament winners in his side - Sinner and Bencic as KPs and Potapova as a TP. He also had semi finalists Rune, Fritz and Sakkari.
Pieter-jan Vandenabeele was only 23 points behind in 2nd place also had 3 of the winners in his team with Sinner, Baez and Potapova. Collins and Etcheverry had early exits which proved costly in terms of the game week win.
The only other team to smash 400 were The Artists belonging to Carlito who continues his great start to the season. He also had 3 of the winners - Bencic, Baez and Potapova.
Dragan Josifoski and Arnaud were 4th and 5th respectively.
Huge congrats to Faris Haze Muhammed for winning the month. he was the only manager that finished inside the top 10 at both the AO(7th) and GW2 (7th). He ended up winning the month by 11 points.
AUSTRALIAN ARMY finished 2nd at the AO, and even tho he finished 42nd this week, it was enough to have him still finish in 2nd.
Devin (who's team is 2 controversial to use here lol) is the only other manager to finish within 25 points of our winner. Honestly Devin being in the top 5 after 2 weeks is a virtual miracle lol, as he's used the same approach for years, MAX Value for his lineup at the AO, n no one on his bench above 2 mill lol. Needless to say he wasnt setup for GW2, but it worked out nonetheless!
There was some massive movement in the leaderboard this week. Some great, but some not soo much! Lets focus on the good tho 🙂
Our top 3 GW2 finishers and our last years Winner is part of that list!
Our GW2 winner, Muhammad Aoun Abbas moved up a ridiculous 51 spots and now sits in 20th. Our 2nd place finisher, Tricia moved up 45 places and now sits in 11th. Our 3rd place finisher, Augusto Mauriello moved up 58 places and now sits in 65th. Alexei Ilinykh reminded everyone why he won last year and moved up 39 places and now sits in 46th .
5 other managers moved up 40+ spots!!
Dimitris moved up a ridiculous 50 spots and now sits in 59th.
John O'Mara moved up 41 places and now sits in 84th.
Mike P moved up 41 places and now sits in 72nd.
Derek moved up 41 spots and now sits in 58th
Craig Miller moved up 40 spots and now sits in 53rd
Huge congrats to both Lin Zhu and Alycia Parks to their first career WTA level event wins! Both have shown some real high level form over the past month, now the question is can they continue this level going forward. All of Alycia's great results have come on an indoor court, so it will be interesting to see how she fares once she's forced to play matches outdoors.
Now in terms of FTL, Muhammad Aoun Abbas had an absolutely incredible week, where he led virtually the entire way. Coming into the final day, he was going to win unless Lin Zhu put up a ridiculous 30-ish points lol. You had to like his chances.
Aoun wasnt that optimistic coming into the week as 2 of his players that he was counting on withdrew (Linette and Vekic), so this result must feel like a bonus. He had his Captain reach the final (CarGar), a Team Player (Parks) win the title, and had 2 other players reach the SF (Xinyu and Andreescu). Aoun finished inside the top 10 last year, so maybe this result will be a great omen for things to come!
PREPARE FOR CZECH MATE (Tricia) finished 2nd - just 9.5 points behind. Her week started with 2 convincing R1 losses (Boulter and Sharma), so im sure that she's thrilled to finish 2nd. She was one of the few managers that had 3 players make the finals (both winners and CarGar). She's finished in the top 3 in B2B seasons, so look out.
Augusto Mauriello finished 3rd - just 28 points behind. Sadly at no point, did it look like he had a chance to win the week, but its hard to argue with a 3rd place finish when you came into the week with only 7 players and lost a player in R1. So thats a hell of a result.
Asier Fernandez decided to join for GW2, and put all of the information that he gathered from the AO to good use as he finished 4th. Sooo much for the steep learning curve that many of us suffer when we first start out!! Kuddos Asier!
Lastly, one of our GOAT's Florian Berg finished 5th. Pretty damn impressive when he started with 6 players as 2 of his players withdrew
A massive congratulations to both Sabalenka n Djoker for their victories this week. Its pretty old hat for Djoker (especially at the AO), but a huge accomplishment for Sabalenka, who many of us knew had the talent to win a Slam title, just wasnt sure that she had the nerves to get it done!.. (hint hint Sakkari - it can be done 😉 lol)
I will not lie, Sabalenka tore out my heart this week as she took out 2 of my players (Bencic n Rybakina) but what she did this week was truly special. Her match with Rybakina is the best womans Slam final in quite some time. Rybakina's level was soo high that its hard to fathom that she lost, but when Sabalenka hits 17 aces, 50+ winners, keeps the UE count low, n serves over 70%+ for the 2nd n 3rd sets, it was just 2 much to overcome.
Now, Im going to be honest, im not sure what offended me more, Rybakina's court schedule (playing in the parking lot for her first couple of rounds is beyond inappropriate for a Wimbledon champ), Djoker's ridiculous Draw (almost felt rigged), Djoker playing every match at night (not a single match looked competitive on paper) or Djokers gamesmanship. I am not telling u that Djoker doesnt win this week (he was the best player by a mile), but every player had to adjust between playing day n night matches. Hell Rybakina will tell you that the court played completely differently depending upon the time of day. I really have issue with the crazy preferential treatment that Djoker received.
Now to the FTL side of things. Leander Oldenburger had a dominant week as he amassed a ridiculous 972 points! How dominant do u ask? well there was only 2 other managers that were able to stay within 50 points of him, n only 9 managers that were within 100!
Interestingly enough, the entire top 12 had both the mens and womens winners! Apparently the rest of us that didnt have that should be ashamed n asked what were u thinking!?!?
The top 3 (Australian Army), and Kei TO even managed to have both winners and a finalist (Tsitsipas).
btw Leander was sooo happy with his victory this week that he changed his team name to illustrate his incredible result!!
