FTL2023 - OVERALL STANDINGS

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

FTL2023 - GW4 RESULTS

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!

Spotlight on...

The Giraffe Group featuring Rick, Jeremy, Jenny and Aditya.

Jenny has made a strong start to her FTL Cup campaign and has quickly taken a significant lead over Aditya in this tie. With only one unique player left versus two for Jenny there is no way back for Aditya in this tie unfortunately and he will have to pin his hopes on getting results from his remaining fixtures.

The tie of the round has lived up to its billing and Rick will be hoping that Norrie loses in Argentina and Sinner can close the gap with a win over Wawrinka. Jeremy has both WTA finalists so Rick will need Alcaraz to win the title in Cordoba to keep this match close.

In game week 6, the two winners will play each other and the two losers will play each other with the remaining fixtures played in Game Week 8.

Season Standings After Game Week 3

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.

Game Week 3 Recap

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.

FTL2023 - JANUARY FINAL STANDINGS

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

FTL2023 - GW2 FINAL STANDINGS

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