Monte Carlo results

 A nice easy round up this week as there was only one tournament in progress.

Headlines of the week:

Zverev's woes continue

Some may have expected that the beginning of the European clay season would bring about a return to form for Alexander Zverev after a string of disappointing results since the Australian Open but once again it was an early exit for the German at the hands of Matteo Berrettini.

Davidovich continues his good season

Another good week for Davidovich Fokina which began with a hard fought win over Jack Draper and saw him progress to the semi finals where he ultimately lost to Alcaraz.

Musetti the comeback king:

What a week it was for Lorenzo Musetti.  He looked on the verge of an early exit when trailing by a set and a break to Yunchaokete Bu but his impressive comeback in that match set the tone for the week.  He repeated the feat against Jiri Lehecka, comfortably beat compatriot Matteo Berrettini and then repeated the comeback feats against defending champ Tsitdipas in the Quarter Final and Alex De Minaur in the semi final.  

Alcaraz finds a way

It could be argued that Carlos was far from his best this week but he still provided plenty of class and entertainment to entertain the crowds and ultimately secure the crowds.  He dropped a set against Cerundolo and was very lucky to survive his quarter final match against the impressive Arthur Fils.  

Musetti would present a tough challenge in the final and probably played the best tennis in the week so it was no surprise when he took the first set.  However Alcaraz stormed back and by the time we had reached the third set it was clear that the tough matches he had played to reach the final, had taken its toll on Musetti as Carlos coasted to a 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory.

Lets take a look at the FTL tables for the week:

Congrats to Anthony who was top of the pile this week with his team Alcarazian Domination.  Anthony was just 6 points ahead of "What would Paul Do?" the team that Rick is continuing to run in memory of Vicki's husband Paul who was a very keen player of FTL  - a lovely tribute which Vicki was quite touched by.   

The top two teams in level 2 were Alcarazian Domination and Cleeve's New Season, New(ish) Grunts.

Lets take a look at the head to head between these two.

As you can see, they both had quite similar sides.   Both had Alcaraz as Captain and crucially both had finalist Lorenzo Musetti. They were both stung by Djokovic's performance and also shared Tsitsipas, Fils and Dimitrov.   

Cleeve had the better ER in Gasquet but ultimately, it was clay king Daniil Medvedev who proved the difference in this match up!  Medvedev's 41 points from 2 wins proved to be a better return than Muller and Nakashima for Cleeve!

Congrats to Anthony and Cleeve on a great week!

FTL Cup Game Week 11

 The FTL Cup knockout stages commence in Game Week 11.

For those involved, still time to use the app and check out your opponent's squad.  Most of the top players in action this week so will be tough to find that all important differential.

The full draw is available here:

AO FTL2025 - Google Sheets

1st Round matches:

The Matador vs Team Le Tourneau

Footfault v nbladeweilder

Racket Rebels v Aces not Djokers

fc izrodite v Stilon Gorzow

Slice & Swarm v Metty's Marvels

👻 v TC Choker

Over Served v The Lord of the Strings

Team Espana 3 🇪🇦 v Rydal 250 Sponsor Exemption

Ace🎾💨 vs Roger That

Tacuara v Rafa_08

Kalin-in-a Favor ☎️ vs blank

CocoJumbo vs AceCream

Advantage Infinity vs Serve Squad

DJ_2025 vs  I've got Mpetshi Perricarditis

Grigor Winitrov vs Year of The Sinner

PREPARE FOR CZECH MATE vs NEW CAL ACES 🎾🏝️

Ultimate Zverev Hater vs The Champs

Panthers4Life vs  AUDIBLE OBSCENITY

CooCoo 4 Coco Gauffs vs gregsj

Dr. peRFect vs  Natere Super Team 2025

San Diego All-Stars vs Just married...with child

FedGoFan vs 🎾 Chip and Charge 🎾

Top of the Popyrins vs SETS IN THE CITY

Surprise Surprise vs What Would Paul Do?

Tennis The Menace vs  Scorpion Warriors

Stripes VIII vs TEAM GRABOVSKI

Ospreys vs Persepolis

Lucky Losers 🇦🇺 vs Nadal's Forehand

Wasaga Beach Warriors vs The Patrick Rafters

Mirzini Sinovi vs jbatta44

Russian Warship Go Fuck Yourself! vs Hail To The Victors

Bigtomday vs The Umpire Strikes Back

Game Week 11 Draws - FTL Version

 BARCELONA MAIN DRAW

 

ROUEN MAIN DRAW

 

 STUTTGART MAIN DRAW

 

 MUNICH MAIN DRAW

 

 

 

Monthly Standings for March

 

Here are the monthly standings for March in level 2.

And here is a break down between the three game weeks. 

Congrats to Gord MacCabe  on winning the monthly title.  Unlike the other contenders he had no top 3 finishes in the game weeks this month but this was a reward for consistency across all game week. Gordon performed this best in the tricky week 9 with an 11th placed finish.

Game Week 9 results

 A busy game for FTLers which gave us the chance to test our squad depth at some lower tier events.

The only 500 level event this week was in Charleston which boasted a strong WTA lineup.  Jess Pegula's consistency over the last 2 months and her never say die attitude make her a must have for FTL teams.  A title in Austin and a final in Miami, she could be forgiven for feeling a bit jaded going into this event but once again she showed her dogged determination to - come back against reigning champ Collins after being blasted away in the 1st set -  to come through in three sets against  Alexandrova, a player who has had the better of her in the past -  and to run off a string of 6 games from 1-5 down in the 2nd set against Kenin to clinch the title. 

A popular trade in this week was Camilla Osorio and with good reason.  She just loves playing in front of her home fans in Colombia and had already won this title twice.  She very nearly came unstuck in her 2nd Round match against Emina Bektas but she dug deep to turn the match around and after that it was plain sailing against another Bogota champ Tatjana Maria in the quarters, Riera in the semi finals and surprise package Katerzyna Kawa in the final.

Jenson Brooksby's return to tennis has been well documented.  He served a lengthy ban from the game after failing to attend mandatory drug testing and his return was further complicated by injury. He has also spoken about his struggles with autism. When he emerged on the scene it was clear he had the talent and battling qualities to do well in the game and they were on display in Houston last week. Remarkably the quarter final lineup in Houston was an all American affair and Brooksby went on to beat Kovacevic, Tommy Paul and Frances Tiafoe to land a very well deserved title.

Flavio Cobolli took the first title of his career in Bucharest.  It has been a rough start to the season for Flavio and he was certainly not one of the favourites to win this title but he gradually found his rhythm as the tournament progressed.  In the final he faced Sebastian Baez (who continues to do well at lower tier clay events and had despatched reigning champ Fucsovics in the semi finals.) Coboli prevailed surprisingly easily 6-4, 6-2 in the final and is bound to take confidence for the rest of the clay swing.

And the ATP Tour also made a stop off in Africa this week at the Grand Prix Hassan in Marrakech.  And once again it was an Italian name on the trophy at the end of the week. Luciana Darderi defeated Tallon Griekspoor in 2 tie breaks to secure his 2nd ATP Title. Darderi dropped just one set all week (to Hugo Gaston.)

Here are the standings in the Global Leaderboard.

It was a remarkably tight contest this week with the top 5 teams separated by just 10 points.  Congrats to Tom Vaughan and his team "I like this Alex Bolt"  for managing to finish top of the tree.  Lets take a look at his lineup

Tom's captain Madison Keys didn't deliver but his KPs certainly did with both Jessica Pegula and Camila Osorio winning their respective events.  Tom also had a finalist in Frances Tiafoe but perhaps his key differential was Bucharest winner Flavio Cobolli.

The level 2 contest could not have been closer.  Anton's Amazing Team (Anton Gaydorov)  and Pimdebeer (Tom Grizzell)  were separated by the sum total of 0.43 points!!   Here is the head to head but its hardly worth disecting the differences when they finished so close.

Anton's key pick this week was undoubtedly putting Colombian Queen Camila Orosio as his Captain.  He also had Charleston winning Pegula and two runners up in Baez and Griekspoor.   Tom also had two winners in Cobolli and Pegula and the same two runners up.  Like i said, nothing between them, well exepct those 0.43 points which makes all the difference as its Anton who wins the weekly prize!  

Congrats Anton and Tom on a great week!

  

MONTECARLO DRAW (FTL VERSION) AND DARK HORSE BREAKDOWN

I have attached the MonteCarlo Main Draw (FTL Version) and the Dark Horse Breakdown.  The Qualifying hasn't started yet, and as a result the Qualifiers have yet to be placed.

 

Please note that the Qualifying should be completed before the start of the upcoming lockout.

 

Do not forget to select your Dark Horse.

 

If you want a copy, click on the link, MONTECARLO DRAWS Once you do so, click on FILE, and scroll to MAKE A COPY, and call it whatever you want

Good Luck :)

MIAMI RESULTS

I'd like to throw out a massive kuddos to our event winners this week - Aryna Sabalenka and Jakub Mensik.

 

I'd love to tell you that their victories were the main stories of the week, but it couldn't be further from the truth.  There were 2 stories that were far more prevalent.

 

1.  Alexandra Eala

2.  The state of the mens top 10

 

First things first.  Aryna may have been dominant, but Alexandra Eala was THE STORY of the womens event.   She's received nothing but hate over the past few years about her continuously receiving undeserving MDWC's in incredibly high level events, and its hard to pretend that the hate didn't feel warranted - It was hard to remember her ever being competitive in one of those matches.  Meanwhile, all she did this week was beat 3 Grand Slam Champions (Jelena Ostapenko, Madison Keys, and Iga Swiatek) and make the SEMIFINAL!!  She may have lost the Semi to Jessica Pegula, but it wasn't for lack of effort, nor was it for the match being noncompetitive!  In fact, she had the first set on her racquet and felt like the better player for most of the 3rd against Jess.  Most analysts believed that her match with Jessica was the match of the tournament.  

For those that have never seen Eala play, she's nothing like you would expect.  Alexandra is a lefty and is diminutive in stature, but is incredibly aggressive.  Her serve needs some serious work, but she takes the ball early, and has zero issue changing the direction of the ball and putting her opponent under pressure.  It was shocking to see how many 50-50 rally balls that she was involved with against Pegula and Swiatek, where it felt like she was the one that was in control.  When she beat Swiatek in straight sets, Swiatek didn't have her best day, but she wasn't horrible and although she served over 65% first serve, she still only managed to hold serve twice in the entire match thanks to Eala's incredibly aggressive play.

Meanwhile, the top of the mens game is a tough tough watch.  Jannik Sinner has played in 1 event all season (the Aussie Open) and STILL leads the ATP Race!  Shaky play and early exits is how you would describe the top of the mens tour right now.  In Miami this type of form continued as Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Jack Draper and Andrey Rublev lost their first match of the week.  Somehow it didn't get much better either as Stefanos Tsitsipas, Casper Ruud, Alexander Zverev, and Alex De Minaur all lost early as well! Taylor Fritz lost in the Semi's to the eventual winner (which he's now done 3 times in his past 4 events!) but hasn't looked anywhere close to a top 4 player like his ranking would suggest!, and Novak Djokovic lost in the Finals but never beat a single player that wasn't either one of his pigeons or would be described as someone that belongs on the same court as him.  Honestly, it was rather shocking to see Novak not take advantage of a player looking for his first title of his career in such a huge match!

 

Now lets discuss Aryna Sabalenka.  Her victory this week was the definition of dominance!   She beat 3 top 10 players (Jessica Pegula, Jasmine Paolini, Qinwen Zheng) and the defending Champion (Danielle Collins) and never lost a set all week.  The only question coming into the final was if she was going to lose in the final for the 3rd time this season (Madison Keys at the AO and Mirra Andreeva at the IW), but Aryna was truly amazing in the final against Jess.  Its hard to pretend that Jessica hadn't played 3+ more hours of tennis than Aryna had before the final started, so she was truly on her last legs, but considering Aryna's level, I don't think it mattered.  Jessica has now lost to Aryna in 3 massive Hard Court finals (Cincinnati, US Open and Miami) in the past 6 months!  Safe to say that Jessica is going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure out a different game plan for the next time they face off!  Meanwhile, Aryna's dominance this week helped increase the gap in her ranking to 3000+ points ahead of Iga Swiatek!  Iga's got 4000+ points to defend from not until the French Open, so this gap could actually increase!

 

Somehow lost in the shuffle this season even after his win is Jakub Mensik.   Many an analyst have been incredibly high on him for the past year, but Joao Fonseca's crazy peak level has put some serious shade on his hype train!  Hell both players were involved in the nextgen finals in December and Fonseca came out on the right side of a 5 set war between the 2!  To make matters worse, he really struggled to win tiebreaks that week (losing 7 of them!) and lost all 3 of his matches (pretty damn good list of players btw - Arthur Fils, Learner Tien)  Coming into this week, his hype continued to dwindle as he's struggled for the vast majority of the season - he'd only made the R16 once all year!  But when you are 19 and you have all the talent in the world, all it takes is 1 good week to remind everyone that the sky is the ceiling!  All he did this week was beat 3 top 10 players (Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz, Jack Draper) and get revenge over Arthur Fils on the way to his first title of his career!!  On the way to the title he showed that he wasn't scared of the tiebreak lol, as he won all 7 of them that he played!!!  Whats crazy about this result is that when the match was over, the discussion wasn't about how good Jakub was, but instead did Djoker really just lose this match?  Last year, Jakub looked like he had top 10 potential and after this win, his ranking is now inside the top 25, so I think its a safe bet that this won't be the last time we hear from him this year.  I'm curious to see how he fares on the dirt!

 

In terms of FTL, I'd like to give massive kuddos to our winner - Michael Blomer (ThunderTurkeys). He amassed an incredible 625.95 points

 

Michael won the week by a little over 8 points, which takes some doing when your Womens Dark Horse loses in Round 1!  He had both Womens Finalists and had Fritz make the Semi's to makeup for that issue.  His selection of Grigor Dimitrov as his Dark Horse helped make up for the Round 1 loss by his KP (Carlos Alcaraz).  As a result of this week, he's now taken over the lead for March.  Can he close the job done and close the door?  (its less than 4 points, so it won't be easy)

 

Vlad (Rafa) finished a close second and I'm sure he's just wondering what could/should have been as he had bad losses by Alexander Zverev, and Stefanos Tsitsipas

 

I'd like to give a shoutout for the rest of our Top 5 for the week.

 

3rd.  Taylor - Stripes VIII

4th.   Ceprin - АльфА

5th.  Mike Hunt - No AO No Problem