Game Week 7 results

 

Two tennis players announced themselves at the very top of the game in Indian Wells.  

Mirra Andreeva proved her WTA 1000 in Dubai was no fluke by picking up her 2nd consecutive title at this level beating some of the top players in the world in the process.

It was a first ATP 1000 title for Jack Draper who had a terrific week in Indian Wells and is beginning to look like a player who really can compete at the very top of the game for years to come.

Both players are now firmly established in the top 10 and the question now is whether they can do it at the Grand Slams. For Mirra, who has just turned 18, success at the slams seems inevitable.   Jack has had physical issues at the slams in the past but seems to be managing his schedule better and looks ready for the task at hand - he will definitely be a contender for the Wimbledon title but breaking the dominance of Sinner and Alcaraz at slam level will not be easy.

Remarkably, Mirra's route to the final was almost identical to the path tread by Madison Keys at the Australian Open.  Like Maddie she defeated Rybakina in the last 16, Svitolina in the Quarter Final,  Iga Swiatek in the semi final to reach a final against the same opponent Madison played in Melbourne -  Aryna Sabalenka.

Talking of Madison, the tennis world were keen to see how she would follow up her Australian Open success. She had another excellent week including a demolition of Belinda Bencic for the lost of just two games in the quarter finals.  Her semi final opponent was Sabalenka and it was almost as if Aryna had been waiting patiently for her chance to exact a brutal revenge for the Aussie Open final. Sabalenka defeated Keys 6-0, 6-1. A beat down!

On the men's side, the no 1 seed Zverev continued his poor run of form with an almost predictable defeat to Griekspoor in his opening match. Daniil Medvedev who traditionally does well at the Sunshine Double was looking strong as he progressed through the draw to set up a semi final with Holger Rune but the Dane put in a splendid performance to make the final.

Meanwhile Jack Draper was progressing impressively through the draw comfortably seeing off a trio of Americans in Brooksby, Fritz and Shelton to set up a semi final with Alcaraz.

Mirra Mirra on the Wall

The semi final with Carlos Alcaraz was an odd affair.  Alcaraz was strangely out of sorts and Draper powered to the first set 6-1.  It was almost as if the realisation of what he was about to do suddenly got to Draper as his energy and level fell of a cliff in the 2nd set with Alcaraz inflicting a bagel.  Draper later told an interviewer that he took himself off to the bathroom and looked at himself in a mirror telling himself to not let this opportunity pass him by.  He came out for the third set reinvigorated and took it 6-4 to set up a final with Holger Rune.

The bathroom mirror apparently had a part to play in the women's final as well.  After being swept aside in the first set, Mirra returned from her bathroom break with more focus and intent to turn around her match and defeat Sabalenka 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 playing some breathtaking tennis in the process.  

The men's final was a more straighforward affair as Draper made the most of his opportunity to sweep aside Rune in a surprisingly one sided contest.  6-2, 6-2.

And so to FTL.  Here are the global league standings for the Game Week.

Congratulations to Courtcowboy who topped the Global League Standings for this week with an impressive score of 679 points.   Lets take a look at the top two teams in the global league first.

Courtcowboy and Israel had the two eventual winners (Draper and Andreeva)  as Team Players. Phillipe also had semi finalists Keys and Alcaraz while Israel had Alcaraz, Medvedev and Swiatek. Courtcowboy had the stronger overall team with solid performances from all his players while Israel had a few weak links in Tien and the two dark horses who both lost their opening match,

But its Level 2 where the prizes are at so lets take a look at the two top teams in level 2.

This ended up being a remarkably close contest between Rydal 250 Sponsors Exemption and Surprise Surprise with Rydal just edging the chase by less than 2 points. Both had the WTA finalists in Andreeva and Sabalenka and men's semi finalist Alcaraz.  Rydal had two further semi finalists in Medvedev and Swiatek which compensated for the poor performaces by KP Zverev and TP Tien.  Its tricky to pinpoint the difference in such a close contest. Surprise Surprise had a solid starting 8 but perhaps the disappointing Dark Horse picks were the difference between being runner up and winning the game week.   Nevertheless a great week by both.  Congrats guys.

  

GAME WEEK 5 RESULTS

ATP 

Rio de Janeiro      Sebastian Baez beat Alexandre Muller   6-2, 6-3

Doha                    Andrey Rublev beat Jack Draper   7-5, 5-7, 6-1

WTA

Dubai                    Mirra Andreeva beat Clara Tauson   7-6, 6-1

Rio de Janeiro

All eyes were on Joao Fonseca as the youngster took part in his home event fresh from winning the title in Buenos Aires the previous week.  But these are all new experiences for Fonseca and it was perhaps understandable that the pressure of playing at home got to him as he put in a below par performance in his defeat to Alexandre Muller.   Surprisingly Muller would go on to reach the final.

If there is one man who can be relied upon to rack up a substantial number of points on the South American clay, that man is Sebastian Baez and once again he delivered.  He required three sets to beat Navone and another three sets to beat Comesana who pulled off the shock of the week when he ousted Zverev in the quarter final. 

Baez retained the title he won in 2024 with a straightforward straight sets win against Frenchman Muller.

Doha

Its always great to see Andrey Rublev win a title given the mental torture he seems to have to go through on court and he certainly had to work for the Doha title.  After solid wins over Bublik and Borges he had to come through a couple of epics to see off a couple of form players in  De Minaur and Auger Aliassime.   On the other side of the draw, Draper was pulling off similar heroics coming from a set behind to beat both Berrettini and Lehecka.

It was no surprise then that Rublev and Draper traded the opening two sets in the final but Rublev broke clear in the third set to clinch the title.

WTA Dubai

It almost feels like a changing of the guard in the WTA at the moment.  Once again most of the top seeds were knocked out earlier than expected.  Sabalenka lost in the third round to Clara Tauson.  Swiatek lost in the quarter final to Andreeva and it was ultimately these two young ladies who would go on to reach the final.  Tauson followed up her win over Aryna with wins over the Czech duo of Noskova and Muchova and Andreeva took out Rybakina in the semi final.

After a tough opening set it was evident that Tauson was feeling the effects of a long hard week and Mirra cruised to a 7-6, 6-1 win to clinch her first 1000 title - no doubt the first of many!

Here is the FTL Leaderboard for Game Week 5 (Global League)

Impressive to see 6 teams clear 500 points in this game week.  Congrats to Sonja and her team AceCream who were the Game Week 5 winners with an impressive total of 553.798.  Dom Bond and Match Point Winners finished 2nd  and David Josselsohn (DJ_2025) came 2nd in the level 2 league.

Lets take a look at the head to head between Sonja and David in level 2.

Both Sonja and David had terrific teams for this game week.   Sonja had Dubai winner Andreeva and both Doha finalists in Rublev and Draper.  David had both Dubai finalists - Andreeva and Tauson and a solid DH in Noskova.   The key difference between the two sides was player placement however. Sonja had a terrific captain in Draper while Zverev did not bring home the anticipated result for DJ_2025.  Sonja also had Andreeva in a KP position ahead of Rybakina which proved to be an inspired choice.

Congrats to both on a great week.

INDIAN WELLS DRAWS AND DARK HORSE BREAKDOWN

I have attached The Indian Wells Main Draw (FTL Version) and the Dark Horse Breakdown.  Plz note that the Qualifying for both the mens and womens events are still on-going.  Once they are finalized, I will update.

 

Do not forget to select your Dark Horse for the WTA event in Dubai!

 

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

Good Luck :)

OVERALL LEADERBOARD (After GW6) - NO, NOT AGAIN!!!!

Normally after 5 or 6 weeks, the last thing that most managers look at is the Overall Leaderboard because lets be serious, we're just starting and there's a tonne of time left, BUT I hate to tell everyone this Alexei, Panthers4Life, has taken the lead!!!  

 

For those that don't remember, 3 years ago Alexei took an early lead and did nothing but continue to build on it.  I've never seen a season where everyone felt helpless and were left trying to make crazy decisions to try to pick up ground.   Alexei never looked back as he won the overall by 600+ points and there were only 11 other managers that were within 1000 points!  

 

Could this happen again? If Alexei takes a huge lead like he did before, will managers play it differently and hope that maybe just maybe he'll have a bad week or 2 and will come back to the field?!?!? 

Like I say, it is early, but for those of us that are off to a real poor start, we're wondering if there's a 5 or 600 point bonus that we can claim to put us back into a better position lol. Maybe just maybe the Sunshine Double is where things turn around!!

 

Good Luck Everyone - Don't forget to select your Dark Horses!

 

GAMEWEEK 6 RESULTS

I'd like to offer a huge kuddos to our event winners this week - Tomas Machac, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Laslo Djere, Jessica Pegula and Emma Navarro.

 

Up until the middle of last year, the first thing many of us thought of when we saw or discussed Tomas Machac was how on earth is his career high ranking outside the top 50!?!?!  You watched him play, and it was truly hard to figure.  Since then, he seemed to turn the corner - he made the 4th round at the US Open, and beat both Alcaraz and Djokovic in the past 6-8 months.  The title in Acapulco was his first on the ATP Tour, and with it, helps him achieve a new career high ranking - 20!!!  I'd like to tell you that he had some epic run to the title this week, but thanks to a bad case of food poisoning, our top 4 seeds were all vanquished before the end of the 2nd round!  He ended up with 5 victories over top 100 players (Mensik, Altmaier, Tien, Nakashima and Davidovich Fokina), but it probably ends up being a far tougher task without all of the health issues!

 

Stefanos Tsitsipas' victory in Dubai is its own crazy little story.  Stefanos has been a horrifying watch on anything other than a clay court for a couple of years now.  Even when you see him in his pressers, you can't help but wonder if he needs to take an extended time away from the court.  He's been talking about how his level has been the same over the past few years, but he's not seeing the same results.  Meanwhile, anyone that's watched him play, knows that it couldn't be further from the truth - every opponent has targeted his backhand for quite some time, as you seem to either get a short ball or a mishit shank.  Stefanos started the week with a blacked out racquet and was crushing the ball cleanly off both wings, which left many of us wondering, where on earth did this come from.  Hell, I'm sure his opponents were thinking the same thing!!!  Hell in his victory over Griekspoor, his backhand received a score of 9.6!!!  His victories over some extremely talented players (Sonego, Khachanov, Berrettini, Griekspoor and FAA) are not only important for his ranking (he's now back in the top 10), but his confidence as well.  It will be real interesting to see if this is just a fluke, or if this type of level is something that we could see moving forward!!  He's never fared very well during the Sunshine Double, soo lets see!

 

Laslo Djere is a fun story as well.  He finished the 2025 season ranked outside the top 110, but came into the event in Santiago with some confidence as he played incredibly well in Buenos Aires (losing in 3 sets to the young phenom - Joao Fonseca) just a couple of weeks prior.   On his way to the title, he beat Pedro Martinez, a young up n comer, Jaime Faria, Francisco Cerundolo and the defending champion Sebastian Baez!!  As a result, Laslo finished the South American swing with a 9-1 record and his ranking has jumped more than 40 spots (back inside the top 75!).  Laslo also joins a very select group of Serbs that have won 150 ATP Tour level matches in their career!  Anyone care to tell me who he joined (other than Djokovic lol)?

 

Jessica Pegula hasn't looked quite right all season, but that didn't seem to matter this week lol.   I'm sure that she felt the weight of expectations (her playing didn't allow Keys to play, so I'm sure it was magnified) as she played in front of the home crowd in Austin (and a certain celebrity - ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT), but I'm not sure there was a single opponent that she faced that could make her question herself or make her feel rushed like what happened in her losses (Keys, Alexandrova, Noskova) earlier this year.  She played one poor set all week (against Tomljanovic), but otherwise the rest of her sets and matches were rather straightforward.  Curious to see how she fares in the Sunshine Double this week, especially considering the speed of the courts in Indian Wells is supposed to be increased!

 

Emma Navarro's victory in Merida was nothing short of dominant - she lost a total of 15 games all week!!  I'd like to tell you that she played the who's who on her way to the title, but I can't - She was the sole seed that made the Semi's!  When the draw came out, most of us were expecting a final with her and Paula Badosa, but Paula wrenched her lower back in the QF, and was forced to retire mid-match against Daria Saville.  I'm sure Emma will take some confidence from this result, but I don't know how much confidence you can take when you only beat 1 player ranked inside the top 75 (Avanesyan).  It does help her achieve a career high ranking tho :) - 8th!  I'm real curious to see how she fares in the Sunshine Double.

 

In terms of FTL, there were alot of managers (myself included) that were left scratching our heads and wondering what on earth just happened.  If you didn't have the 2 top seeded American Women, virtually all of your faves either lost early or withdrew due to injury or illness!

 

The only good thing about this type of week is that IF you somehow came through the week unscaved, you were able to gain massive amounts of ground on everyone else.  This is a ridiculous example, but here's how the winner fared against myself lol (keep in mind, I normally finish the season ranked inside the top 10) - he beat me by nearly 370 points!!!  If you can't laugh, I don't know what else to tell you!

 Lets give a massive kuddos to our GW Victor - Israel, as he accumulated an incredible 461.96 points!!  He had the winner of Austin (Pegula) as his Captain, the winner of Acapulco (Machac) as his KP and the finalist in Dubai FAA).  Its a little bit better than my 6 Round 1 losses and my Round 2 withdrawal LMFAO.

 

I'd also like to give a kuddos to our Option 2 winner (Coco Jumbo) who managed to be within 5 points of our victor!  

 

 

Game Week 6 Draws

 Less than half an hour to lockout folks.

Here are the draws for this game week.

Please note that Draper is out of Dubai and Fritz and Musetti are out of Acapulco.

Neither of the Kudermetova sisters are playing this week.

Game Week 4 results

 

Four tournaments in Game Week 4

The main event was the WTA 1000 tournament in Doha.

As usual Sabalenka and Swiatek went in as the big favourites to reach the final and this was reflected in most team selections.  However, every player has their kryptonite and for Aryna and Iga they were lurking dangerously in the draw.

Sabalenka had to face her nemesis in Round 2 - a buoyant Alexandrova fresh from winning a title in Linz.   In a tight match, Alexandrova once again proved to be the thorn in Aryna's side securing her fourth win over the Belarussian.

The eternal curse of Iga is a certain Jelena Ostapenko who seems to revel in that particular match up. This time they faced off in the semi final and was an incredibly one sided affair.  Quite simply - Jelena destroyed her and will leave Iga going back to the drawing board in an a bid to figure out this particular puzzle.  The head to head is no 5-0 Penko.

Meanwhile Amanda Anisimova was having a terrific week dropping only one set to Martha Kostyuk en route to setting up a final with the enigmatic Ostapenko.

Amanda prevailed 6-4, 6-3 to take her biggest title to date. Her tennis career has been a difficult journey so far so this was a sweet moment for a player who has so much potential,.

The ATP Tournament in Buenos Aires was notable for two players at opposite ends of their career, Diego Schwartzman managed one final victory against Nicolas Jarry before drawing the curtain on his remarkable career in front of his adoring Argentian fans.   However it was a neighbour who stole the show. Joao Fonseca downed four Argentians on route to the title with the young Brazilian winning 6-4, 7-6 final against Cerundolo.

There was also a home winner in Marseille with Ugo Humbert retaining the title he won last year defeating the big hitting Serb Hamed Medjedovic in the final.

And in Delray Beach, it was a Serb who was victorious with Miomir Kecmanovic winning the final against Davidovich Fokina.

Here is the global league table for the game week

It was an incredible week for Oliver Rojas and his team "just go with the flow!"  They ended the game week head and shoulders above all the opposition.  

Here is his  game week winning team:

Oliver had Doha winner Anisimova as well as semi finalists Swiatek and Alexandrova.  He also had decent returns from Djere, Jabeur and Bergs which ultimately gave him a remarkable total of 564.57 points which was well clear of 2nd place.  

The Level 2 Game Week prize goes to Greg Gaynor and Hail to the Victors.  

Here is the head to head between the to two teams.

Greg had an inspired selection with Miomic Kecmanovic as a team player but also benefitted from a stroke of luck as the withdrawal of Tommy Paul opened up a chance for his ER to come in - a certain Joao Fonseca.   As we know the rest is history.  San Diego Allstars unfortunately had two withdrawals and no ERs to come in as replacements so to manage a 2nd place with just 6 starting players was a damn good effort!

The first week of FTL Cup fixtures was also completed in this game week.  As you would expect, the fact that the likes of Medvedev, Sabalenka, Fritz and Zverev all crashed out early, caused a little bit of havoc in the opening fixtures. 

FTL Cup returns in Game Week 6 and Game Week 7,  In game week 6 the two winners will face of against each other and by extension the two losers play each other!  

All tables and fixtures can be viewed here: 

FTL Cup standings and fixtures