CINCINNATI DRAWS AND DARK HORSE

 I have attached the Cincinnati Open Draws for the Upcoming Game Week.  Both the Mens and Womens Main and Qualifying Draws are accessible, and so too is a break down of the Dark Horse selection.  Click on the link CINCI OPEN in order to access it.  If you want to create a copy, Click on FILE, Scroll down to CREATE A COPY.  

 Plz note that there are a large number of players in the Womens draw that have been out a significant period of time or got hurt in Montreal, so there could be some drastic changes to the Draw before the first ball is played.

Overall standings after Game Week 22

 

This is turning into one of the closest FTL seasons on record with less than 300 points separating the top 9.  

Muhammad still leads the way but Dragan is the main mover in the top 10 moving up 2 places to 2nd place while Robyn drops 2 places to 4th.

A lot of very similar teams for Game Week 23 and this is likely to be the case for Cincinnati and the US Open as well so could well be that the awkward game weeks immediately pre and post the US Open could be pivotal! 

Monthly Standings for July

 Here are the top performers in the month of July which covered Game Week 19 thru to Game Week 22.

Congratutions to Mikhail (Roger That) on winning the month by just 8 points frrom Dragan. (Nadal's forehand)  Both had en excellent final week finishing in the top 10 but Mikhail managed to hold on to finally win the month by the narrowest of margins.

Dragan had started this month the strongest with a 1st place finish in Game Week 19.  Consecutive 3rd place finishes for Craig (Over Served) in Game Weeks 20 and 21 put him in pole position going into the final game week but he missed out due to a 35th place finish in Game Week 22.

Ultimately, Mikhail was the most consistent performer throughout the month managing a top 20 finish in all 4 game weeks!

Game Week 22 Results

 Here are all the champions from Game Week 22

It was a timely return to form for Stefanos Tsitsipas in Mexico.  Having failed to take a set in his last 5 finals (including the AO defeat to Djokovic), he managed to secure the Los Cabos title, his first trophy since the Mallorca title in June 2022.  It was a great week too for Alex De Minaur who finished runner up.

And it was a very unexpected return to form for Dan Evans in Washington.  Evans by his own admission has been on a lousy run of late but he was inspired this week and managed to come through a tough double header against Shevchenko and Tiafoe on the Friday before defeating Dimitrov and the impressive Griekspoor in the final. 

The women's title in Washington was to go to Coco Gauff who entered the tournament with a new coaching team this week with Brad Gilbert mentoring. She definitely had a lot more confidence and swagger about her this week and the forehand was no longer as vulnerable looking as it has looked for the large part of this season.  It was a good week too for Maria Sakkari who came through some tough battles  to reach the final but she was understandably disappointed not to add to the Rabat title that remains her only triumph to date.

The weather in Prague made the tournament a bit chaotic with the 2nd semi final having to be completed on the Monday before the final could even be played.  After coming through a tough match against Ankita Raina,  Linda Noskova made short work of her next 2 opponents and it appeared she was odds on to win a home title.  Nao Hibino had other ideas however and after finishing off a semi final over Jacquelin Cristian, she managed to defeat an out of sorts Noskova in the final - perhaps Linda was thinking about that missed flight to Canada.   Hibino managed to secure the doubles title as well so a good week for her.

And finally - what a great week for Sebastian Baez in Kitzbuhel as he defeated home favourite Dominic Thiem to secure his second clay title of 2023. He told Dominic what an inspiration he had been and said he hoped Dominic would play better in the next tournament.  😂  We knew what you meant Seb!  

So here is the final FTL table for Game Week 22

Congrats to Adnan (Advantage Infinity) on the game week win.  Adnan just managed to beat Sebastian (Phenomenadal)  by 3.215 points with James (fighting fantasies) just 14 points further back in 3rd place. 

 

Here is Adnan's winning team

Adnan had two winners in Coco Gauff (Washington) and Stefanos Tsitsipas (Los Cabos) as well as two runners up  in Alex De Minaur (Los Cabos) and Dominic Thiem (Kitzbuhel).  Otherwise the rest of his team delivered decent results with the exception of Hurkacz who was a 1st Round casualty. 

Sebastian's team was pretty strong too and deserves to be highlighted

Congrats to Adnan and Sebastian and all 8 teams who broke 400 in what proved to be a tricky game week to prepare for!

CANADA OPEN DRAWS AND DARK HORSE SELECTION

I have attached the Canadian Open Draws for the Upcoming Game Week.  Both the Mens and Womens Main and Qualifying Draws are accessible, and so too is a break down of the Dark Horse selection.  Click on the link CANADA OPEN in order to access it.  If you want to create a copy, Click on FILE, Scroll down to CREATE A COPY. 

Overall Leaderboard after Game Week 21

Muhammad still leads the at the top of the leaderboard as the top 4 remain unchanged.

Silvi (FC Vepyrite) made up the most ground this week with an impressive 455.92 points and a 2nd place fame week finish and Mikhail moved up a spot from 10th to 9th thanks to his 4th place finish. 

With less than 20 points separating the teams from 2nd to 5th, it could be all change after this game week and the teams ranked 6th to 10th are also very much in the race.

GW21 Results

 And so endeth another action packed week of fantasy tennis with 6 titles decided....

This week was a pretty good one for home players.  

Iga Swiatek was the most obvious captaincy choice for FTL managers and she cruised to the title against a fairly weak Warsaw field.  Her only significant rival for the title was the woman who faced her in the RG final -  Karolina Muchova but Karolina's hopes crashed when she contrived to lose her 2nd Round match from a position of 5-1 (40-15) in the final set. Ultimately it was Laura Siegemund who was the unfortunate lamb to the slaughter in the final and Iga duly delivered a bakery special (6-0, 6-1)

Alexander Zverev finally got back to winning ways in his native Hamburg. It was a strong field at the Rothenbaum but the stars of the week weren't Ruud or Rublev or Musetti as anticipated but rather Laslo Djere and Arthur Fils who both played impressive tennis as they progressed deep in the event.  In the end, however, neither had enough to trouble Zverev despite their best efforts.

In the women's event it was another local girl, Noma Noha Akague who delighted the home fans as she turned in some impressive battling performances to reach the final in her 1st ever WTA level event. Nerves seem to get the better of her in the final though as she lost the first set 6-0  before succumbing in the tie break in a much tighter 2nd set to the Dutchwoman Arantxa Rus.  Arantxa (who incidentally received her trophy from a more legendary tennising Arantxa) has won more than thirty lower tier events on the circuit but this was her first WTA title so definitely a special moment for her.

Continuing the home player theme (was this a bit tenuous? 😂), Taylor Fritz took the title in Atlanta defeating young Chinese prospect Yibing Wu, veteran Japanese legend Kei Nishikori and JJ Wolf on the way to the final.  His Australian opponent Aleksandar Vukic was the first player to take a set off Fritz all week but he couldn't prevent Taylor from securing a much needed title which should hopefully stand him in good stead for the US series.  

I'd set out to include Clara Burel and Dianne Parry in my home player themed report but then I realised they were playing in Lausanne in Switzerland and not in France as my tiring brain briefly imagined.  The French ladies did have a great week however and it was Clara who prevailed in the all French semi final.  The title however was to go to Italian Elisabetta Cocciaretto (2 ts, 2 cs, 1r, 2ts) who managed several houdini acts across the course of the week to win her first WTA title as she battled past Burel in a tight 3 setter. (There was actually a contingent of 7 Swiss women scheduled for this event but Bencic pulled out and Teichman was the only one of the remaining 6 to win a match) 

There was however a Swiss in the final of Umag (in erm Croatia - i may have gone off on a tangent here) but sadly Stan Wawrinka couldn't quite get his hands on what would have been a remarkable title as he was just pipped by Alexei Popyrin who came back from a set down to win. 

So the whole purpose of this home player theme was to seamlessly move across to the FTL results for the week and extend hearty congratulations to an FTL home favourite, our commander in chief, Rick Marsonet who secured his first game week victory in..to quote Rick  "quite some time".  Rick wasn't counting any chickens though as we approached the last final of the week. He was definitely a little worried that Fritz might not muster the 0.7 points required to move him to the top of the leaderboard!  It was never in doubt.

Here is the final game week table. 

Rick managed to amass a very impressive 467 points but was closely followed home by the chasing pack of Silvi (FC Vepyrite), Craig (OverServed), Mikhail (Roger That) and Jon (The Bakery)

One of the main reason behind Rick's success this week was the fact that he only had 8 players available which took the possibility of him leaving a high scoring player on the bench - out of the equation.  This has been a particular area of frustration for Rick this season!!  Another good reason for his success was the selection of Arthur Fils.  Rick had 3 of this weeks title winners in Swiatek, Zverev and Fritz but it was  those semi final points accrued by the talented French youngster that gave Rick the edge over his closest rivals. 

A hearty FTL congrats to Rick - our game week 21 Champion!