NEXTGEN FINALS

The NextGen Finals are a couple of weeks away, and incorporate different rules than any other ATP Tour Level event.  As a result, its best to remind everyone about a couple important differentials.

• Round Robin Format  - 8 player - 2 groups of 4
  
• No AD scoring
• Tiebreaks are played when the set is tied at 3 games
  
• Best of 5
  
• No Ranking Points are provided

 

As a result, here are a couple of adjustments that are made for FTL purposes.

• Players are rewarded with a full Match Point when they make it into a tiebreak - covers the 4+ games rule
• Best of 5 is being played, so the 80% rule will come into play to adjust the FTL points
  
• Ranking Points similar to a 500 level event will be provided - as shown below
  

 

 

OVERALL LEADERBOARD - AS OF GW33

The top of the Overall Leaderboard has stayed virtually the same for the past few weeks, but that doesn't mean that big things haven't been occurring each and every week.  Hell what happened in GW32 will probably end up being the reason as to why Aoun ends up winning the Overall title  (he only had 4 players and managed to accumulate more points than his closest competitors).  

 

As we came into GameWeek 33, the FTL2023 Overall seemed like a race between 3 managers - Aoun, Samir and Dragan.  Sadly, Dragan missed the lockout, and Season Victory seems to be down to just a 2 man race.

 

Thanks to a 13th place finish this past week, Aoun (Fedex Superstars) continues to lead.  In fact, his lead increased by 32 points and he now sits with a 176 point lead over his closest rival, Samir.   Aoun had a hell of a week as he had 1 winner  (Sinner) and 3 finalists (Medvedev, Qinwen, and Hurkacz).  If not for Korda's inexplicable loss to Etcheverry in R1, he's looking at another top 5 finish. 

Samir (Mirzini Sinovi) continues to sit in 2nd thanks to a 30th place finish.  Sadly his thoughts of winning the overall title may require alot of help from Aoun.  He had 1 winner (Sinner), and 2 finalists (Medvedev and Hurkacz), but he still ended up losing ground to our leader.  With the result, he did however further cement the likelihood that he finishes 2nd (which for a rookie manager is a truly incredible result).

Tricia (Prepare for CzechMate) moved up a spot and now sits in 3rd but she continues to fall further and further back of both of our leaders.  She had one of those weeks where her team looked great on paper, but by the time the dust settled, she had 4 heavily favoured players lose in R2 (Fritz, Paul, Ruud and De Minaur), and finished in 43rd for the GW, and as a result, dropped another 62 points to our leader and 30 to Samir.  She's now 290 points back of our leader and a 114 back of 2nd.  She will need something special to happen in order to catch either of them.

Sadly Dragan (Nadal's Forehand) missed the lockout and paid the price.  He finished 83rd for the week, and dropped 125 points to our leader.  Honestly, it was a good thing that he set a quick preliminary lineup early in the week as he moved Medvedev to Captain and Sinner to KP.  If not for that quick adjustment, he ends up losing 250+ points to our leader, and its an absolute disaster, as it could have cost him a spot in the top 10.

 

 

GAMEWEEK 33 RESULTS

A huge kuddos goes out to our event winners this week - Jannik Sinner, Felix Auger Aliassime and Beatriz Haddad Maia.

Jannik Sinner was victorious in Vienna this week and upped his title count to 4 this season.  The final against Daniil Medvedev was closing in on Best of 3 match of the year until Daniil missed hit a forehand long into wide open court as he tried to level the 3rd set.  Jannik's played some exceptional tennis this season as he's now made 6 finals, and if he finishes the season strong, he will end up surpassing the 60 win total.  Sinner's level this week was incredibly high as he made the final without losing a set - beating Ben Shelton, Lorenzo Sonego, Frances Tiafoe and Andrey Rublev.

Felix Auger Aliassime has had a season that he'd like to forget, but him defending his title in Basel was a hell of an accomplishment.  Its rather ironic that he shares the same birthday as Roger Federer as between the 2 of them, they have now won the Swiss Indoors 12 times!!!  There was tremendous expectations for Felix coming into the season, but due to a combination of poor play, injuries and the weight of those expectations, its been a real tough go.  Its hard to imagine saying this, but Felix reached the Semi's of a tournament just once this year before this week.  Felix received a dream draw that you only hoped that he would take advantage of and once Taylor Fritz lost in epic fashion, his draw to the Semi's opened even further.  He took full advantage, and then beat Holger Rune in the Semi's and Captain Tiebreak Hubert Hurkacz in the Final (both in straight sets).   Maybe just maybe this will be the start of something good for Felix.

 

Beatriz Haddad Maia won the WTA Elite Finals in Zhuhai.  She seems to have been around forever, but it was still just her 3rd WTA Tour Level title of her career.   Nothing about a BIA match ever seems to be simple, as she's notorious for having matches that are extended deep into the 3rd set.  She's played a handful of matches this year that have exceeded well over 3 hours.  Her run to the final was surprisingly easy as she beat all 3 of her opponents (Madison Keys, Caroline Garcia and Daria Kasatkina) in straight sets.  The final against Qinwen was both complicated and played at an incredibly high level.  After winning the first set 13-11 in a tiebreak, BIA had a chance to serve out the 2nd set, but of course got broken.  It almost felt inevitable that BIA's final match of the season would be another epic 3 set war.   Hell, the match surpassed the 2.5 hour mark even before the second set tiebreak started. Incredibly enough, BIA held her nerve as she held off the home crowd fave Qinwen Zheng and won the 2nd set tiebreak.  Safe bet that we should see big things next year and in future seasons from both BIA and Qinwen.

Now in terms of FTL, GameWeek 33 is incredibly tricky for most managers, as the trade pinch is incredibly severe for most of us as the season comes to a close.  Many of us are at the point where we are just happy to be able to have 8 warm bodies be able to play in a given week , so the luxury of being able to improve our team for the week just isn't feasible.  Those managers that have been frugal with their trades earlier in the season, tend to take advantage tho.

 

Apparently Fritz Business (Philip) had very little issues this week tho as he amassed an incredible 565.17 points.  He had 2 winners, (Captain Sinner and Haddad Maia), and 2 Finalists (Medvedev and Hurkacz) both selected as Key Players!  His worst result of the week was by Taylor Fritz. If he manages to convert on 1 of his 15 break chances, Philip could easily have broken the 600 point barrier this week.

Spotec23 (Martin Hofmann), Wonders of Igaland (Emi), Dr. peRFect 2.0 (Mohaib) and Durky's Aces (Frances) round out our top 5.  Sadly once Qinwen lost in Zhuhai, no one was going to catch our leader even tho there were 2 finals that still had to be played later in the day

 

 

PARIS MASTERS AND WTA FINALS - DRAWS, GROUPS AND DARK HORSE CRITERIA

I have provided a link, GW34 DRAWS, for the Paris Masters and WTA Finals for the Draws, Group and Dark Horse Breakdown.  If you want to create your own copy, click on the link to open up the sheet, click on FILE, Scroll to Make A Copy, and save it as whatever you want.

 

Good luck everyone

Game Week 32 Results

 

Another busy FTL week comes to an end with 6 trophies up for grabs.  It was another week of shocks as all the main contenders for Tour Finals Spots (Zverev, Rude, Rune, Hurkacz, Fritz) all flopped.

Ben Shelton reaffirmed his position as the brightest young talent in American tennis as he comfortably defeated Karatsev to win the Tokyo title which takes him up to a career high of 15 rankings.

Gael Monfils seemed to fly under the radar this week when he clinched the Stockholm title against qualifier Kotov.  Gael last won in Stockholm 12 years ago and this was also his 12th career title since he won his first one in Poland way back in 2005.

And it was a serving master class from Alexander Bublik in Antwerp.  He only dropped 12 points on his 1st serve all week!  Poor Arthur Fils didn't have a chance in the final but the young Frenchman who had a win over Tsitsipas in the semi final, can look back on another great week.  

Katerina Siniakova has perhaps had more success in doubles in her career but like her doubles partner Krejcikova, she has a pretty darn good singles game when she's on.  She's been on fire of late, finishing runner up to Leylah Fernandez last week in Hong Kong before turning the tables on the Canadian in the semi final in Nanchang this week before clinching a tight match against fellow Czech Bouzkova.

In Monastir the crowd had to make do without home favourite Ons Jabeur but Elise Mertens was on fine form as she cruised through the week without dropping a set comfortably despatching Italian Jasmine Paolini in the final.

And it was a first title for the plucky German Tamara Korpatsch in Cluj. She had to battle coming from behind against Jodie Burrage and Daria Snigur to reach the semi final where she defeated compatriot Eva Lys before winning the final against home favourite Gabriela Ruse.

Tamara wasn't the only German to win her first title this week.  It was also a terrific week for Sonja Kessens who win her first FTL Game Week and by a distance too!

Here is the final game week table:

AceCream scored an outstanding 375 points in what was a pretty tough game week thanks to the withdrawals and early exits for the big names. Sonia had 3 of those big name flops in Fritz, Zverev and Tiafoe but the rest of her team selected proved to be inspired.  Here is the winning team.

That trio of KPs proved to be the backbone of Sonja's team with Shelton taking the title in Tokyo, Fils reaching the final in Antwerp and Diana Schnaider having another good week reaching the semis in Nanchang.  Meanwhile TP Elise Mertens contributed a massive 91 points to Sonja's total by taking the title in Monastir.  Why do you never do that when you're on my team Elise?  WHY!!???  😂

Congrats once again to Sonja on a terrific game week where she was head and shoulders above the rest of the pack.  Shout out to GOATic's (Augusto), Holger Bloom (Nathan), Cotton Eye Joe (Englebert) and Fighting Fantasies (James) who were the best of the rest!
 

 

OVERALL STANDINGS - AS OF GW31

Coming into the week, the lead at the top felt rather tenuous, as Samir (Mirzini Sinovi) had a 30 point lead on Aoun (Fedex Superstars) and a 130 over Dragan (Nadal's Forehand).  Sadly for Samir, his stay at the top lasted only 1 week as Aoun (Fedex Superstars) had a great week and finished 9th and picked up nearly a 100 points on him. 

Thanks to his top 10 result this week, Aoun now leads by 67 points.  Its funny to say this, but even tho he finished in the top 10, it was an incredibly frustrating week for him.  He had 2 late withdrawals (Gauff and Vondrousova), both of his ER lost early (Sakkari and Jabeur), Alexandrova, Zhizhen, and Sinner lost in 3rd set tiebreaks, and he had both Korda and Dimitrov sitting pretty on his bench.  In the end, he still had Pegula win Seoul and Rublev make the final in Shanghai.  Now the real question, how long can he hold onto the top spot?!?!

 

Samir finished 45th this week, and as a result lost 97 points to our new leader.  The only real difference between Aoun and Samir this week was that Aoun had Rublev, and Samir had ummm Zverev lol.  Sadly Zverev looked like he wanted to be anywhere other than Shanghai, and barely put forth an effort and got waxed in straight sets.

 

Dragan,  finished 48th and now sits 131 points behind Aoun. Needless to say, he's within striking distance of Samir.  Dragan was one of the few managers that didn't have a single player withdraw from his lineup this week - he decided to bench everyone that made it past R2 in Beijing.   Sadly, between Alexandrova and Sinner losing in a 3rd set tiebreak, Jabeur withdrawing before her R2 match and De Minaur being missing in action for his R1 match, he ended up losing ground afterall.  The only good thing was that he and Samir had virtually the same point total.

Tricia (Prepare for Czech Mate) continues to sit in 4th, but sadly she's going the wrong direction and continues to lose ground to our leaders.  She finished 66th, and now sits 293 points behind.  Unless a miracle happens, her chances of winning are virtually done.  Sadly this was another team that looked good on paper, and burst into flames early into the week as she had Zverev, De Minaur, and Sakkari all lose in R1, and had Jabeur withdraw in R2.

GameWeek 32 had a massive laundry list of players withdraw before the Main Draws were posted, so the results for the upcoming week could be real interesting.  I know that it left many a manager scrounging and wondering what to do (hell, our leader, Aoun, had 5 players withdraw, and was left with 1 player before trades), so we could see some movement up at the top.

GAMEWEEK 31 RESULTS

Congrats to our winners - Hubert Hurkacz, Jessica Pegula, Leylah Fernandez, and Qinwen Zheng.

Hubert's victory in Shanghai was his 2nd event win of the season (Marseille).  Coming into the week, Hurkacz had been having a very tough season as his ranking had fallen to 17th.  His level of play rarely seemed to be the issue, but he continued to lose big matches as he struggled to win tiebreaks.   In fact, he should have beaten Alcaraz in both Canada and Cincinnati earlier this year, but again, he lost 3 tiebreaks to Carlos.  Coming into the week, he had played approximately 50 tiebreaks this season, but his record in them was at 500 - considering his serve, its hard to fathom.  With all that being said, Hubert turned it around this week and was 4 and 0 in tiebreaks, including winning 2 matches in a 3rd set winner-take-all tiebreak against both hometown favourite, Zhizhen Zhang, and in the final against Andrey Rublev.

Jessica Pegula's victory in Seoul was her 2nd event win (Montreal) of the season as well.  Jessica's road to victory was rather routine as she didn't have to play a single player ranked inside the top 75, but she still managed to lose a set to Claire Liu.  This victory may come across as meaningless to most people, but it was really important to Jessica as her mother grew up in Seoul, and was a home-coming of sorts.

Leylah Fernandez's victory in Hong Kong was her first event win of the season and 3rd of her career.   Leylah's struggled mightily with expectations and injuries since her run to the US Open final just a couple of years ago, and this was her first final since Monterrey in 2022.  As a result of her struggles, her ranking has dropped mightily over the past couple of years and her ranking had dropped outside the top 70 earlier this year.  It can turn into a vicious cycle as once your ranking drops, the draw gods can get real nasty and you end up facing top top players in R1 or R2 of every event that you enter. On her way to the title, she beat Victoria Azarenka, Mirra Andreeva, Linda Fruhvirtova, Anna Blinkova and Katarina Siniakova.  She'll gain a tonne of confidence from the event, not only because she won it, but because she avenged alot of losses from earlier this year.

NOW onto the real story of the week - QINWEN ZHENG!.  A couple of weeks ago, Qinwen won the Asian Games, and during her interview, she dropped a bombshell where she informed the media that her coach, Wim Fissette, had dropped her as a client and was going back to Naomi Osaka.  You could see the pain, frustration and anger from Qinwen, as she felt betrayed by someone she trusted and felt abandoned.   The only question surrounding Qinwen over the past few years was when she was going to breakthrough, not if, so for a coach to walk away from a player this talented is hard to imagine.  I know Naomi has won 4 slams over the years, but her lack of intensity and intention over the past few years makes this really questionable.  Anyways, days after winning the Asian Games, Qinwen didn't look like she was ready to be on court and got thrashed by the incredibly talented Elena Rybakina.    Then when the draw came out in Zhengzhou, it looked like the draw gods did her no favours as she was looking at facing an in-form top player in R2 (Maria Sakkari).  By the time the dust settled, she beat 4 top 30 players (Maria Sakkari, Anhelina Kalinin, Jasmine Paolini and Barbora Krejcikova) and won the event in her home country.  This was her 2nd victory of her career and 2nd of the season (Palermo).  As far as I'm concerned, the sky is the limit when it comes to Qinwen.

Game Week 31 was incredibly awkward for everyone involved, as Game Week 31 overlapped Game Weeks 29 and 30.  Most managers didn't have an issue with fielding a team for the week, but they had to decide who was actually going to play in the WTA events in Zhengzhou, Seoul and Hong Kong.  Almost an impossible task considering most of the top players were still playing in Shanghai.  Sadly, by the time a ball had been played in Zhengzhou, 4 top players (Gauff, Rybakina, Vondrousova, Muchova) had withdrawn.  After all of the withdrawals, the draw in Zhengzhou looked completely unrecognizable.

All of those late withdrawals showed the uptmost importance of Emergency Replacement ORDER AND SELECTION in FTL for most managers.   By the time the dust settled, there were 4 managers that finished within 15 points of our GW Victor (Peanutbutter-Picklejuice Power by Kei TO).  

Kei To amassed 483.11 points this week.  He was one of the few managers that had 2 event winners this week (Pegula and Hurkacz).  He also had Rublev make the final as well.  He was far from flawless tho, as he had 3 players lose in R1 (Sakkari, Zverev and Lehecka)

Faris (Henman United) finished 2nd just 4.5 points behind.  If Hurkacz loses either final set tiebreaks to Zhizhen or Rublev, Faris ends up coming out on top.  Tough loss considering Rublev was up 5-2 in the 3rd set breaker.

Hard to imagine but Christie (Controlled Aggression) missed the lockout and finished 4th this week just 10 points out of first.  I know I know, stranger things have happened right? ya, of course, but she hasn't changed her lineup since Madrid, and do not forget that the Dark Horse Category comes into play this week lol.   Needless to say, it wouldn't have taken much for her to win this week, and then lets be honest, we all should have been ashamed!!