Monthly standings for May

 

Here are the level 2 monthly standings for May.

Congrats to Mohaib Idrees and Dr peRFect who was top of the standings by just 2.537 points from Jamie Edmundson. (The Umpire Strikes Back)   If we were to compare it to a hawk eye call, Jamie just missed out by a milimetre!!

Sam G (Bagels&Breadsticks), Dragan (Nadal's forehand) and Kevin G (MTL89) make up the top 5 and all had a great month of results.

Here is a breakdown by game week.

French Open round up

Ladies and gents - your French Open winners are Carlos Alcaraz and Coco Gauff

What a dramatic finale we had to the men's and women's events at the French Open.

The men's final between Alcaraz and Sinner was one for the ages.  5 sets which brought us 5 and half hours of back and forth entertainment.  We could argue about where it sits in the best matches of all time or the best comebacks of all time but I think we can all agree it was a high quality match full of drama.

Alcaraz went into the tournament as the favourite.  Clay is a favoured surface for him having recently won 2 Masters titles on the surface  and the recent head to head record against Sinner was also impressive and included a win in the Italian Open final.

Sinner was looking very impressive though.  He cruised through the French Open without dropping a set, continuing the trend of humbling solid ATP opponents like Lehecka and Rublev.  His first big test came in the semi final with the mighty Novak Djokovic the opposition.  Novak threw everything at Sinner but even he couldn't get a set of him.

Alcaraz meanwhile went through the tournament playing his delightful brand of expansive tennis but at times his form dipped and he did drop some sets along the way.  In his semi final against Musetti he lost the 1st and was pushed hard in the 2nd before injury caused Musetti's level to dip and ultimately he retired.

So, come the final, it was extremely hard to call and many anticipated there would be a 5 set thriller. They got their wish but it could have been so so different.  Leading 2 sets to 1, Sinner found himself with 3 match points on the Alcaraz serve and it seemed like the game was over.  Somehow Alcaraz survived and took the 4th set.   

By the 5th, Alcaraz looked on top, Sinner seemed to be cramping and Alcaraz took the early break.  Remarkably Sinner found some inner reserves to fight back however and threatened again to turn the match around. In the end it took a super tie break to separate them, a tie break in which Alcaraz hit winner after winner and finally conquered the resistance of his Italian opponent.

Its fair to say these two are likely to dominate men's tennis for some time to come!

The women's final lacked the quality of the men's final but it was not short of suspense.  Aryna Sabalenka was playing terrific tennis - and she had to -  in order to overcome a string of tough opponents including Anisimova in Round 4,  Qinwen Zheng in the quarter final and reigning champ Iga Swiatek in the semi final.   It seemed she was on a date with destiny and Aryna definitely believed it.

Her opponent in the final was Coco Gauff who had shown a real upturn in fortunes during the clay court swing but was often still reliant on winning ugly when her game did not reach the levels that she expects of herself.  That was certainly true of her quarter final against Madison Keys which saw both players put in an error strewn performance.

Coco's semi final opponent was the surprise package of the tournament. Frenchwoman Lois Boisson.  A few eyebrows were raised when Lois took out Elise Mertens in the 1st Round but it was her back to back wins over Jessica Pegula and Mirra Andreeva that got the tennis world talking and the French crowds dreaming.  In the end though Coco was too talented and powerful for her opponent but this run will definitely kickstart the career of Boisson.

The crucial moment for the final perhaps came right at the beginning. The windy conditions were clearly going to make life difficult for both players and consideration was apparently given to closing the roof.  In the end though they kept it an outdoor event and it quickly became clear that Coco was coping with the conditions far better than an increasingly frustrated Sabalenka.   Aryna was visibly annoyed that she wasn't able to reproduce the tennis that she had played throughout the fortnight and she will feel this is one that got away but for Gauff it was an intelligent and gutsy performance that secured her a second grand slam.

The battle for FTL supremacy was equally close!   At this time of the season it definitely pays to have built up a significant bank balance and its the only way you would have been able to afford a competitive team for this event.   At the start of the season, we have a budget of 100 million to cover our squad of 16. The  average 8 player starting line up for the French Open would have cost 120 million alone!  And most teams now have a value in excess of 170 million!

At the end of the competition we have the two top ranked players facing off in the mens and womens singles for the first time in decades.  And the most common FTL starting line up was Alcaraz captain, with Sinner, Gauff and Sabalenka as key players.

The choice of a good dark horse was also crucial to this week with Rublev, Samsonova and Kasatkina proving to be the most profitable picks.

There were question marks over some of the top names.  How would Novak play having been so poor during the clay season but eventually finding some form in Geneva.  How about Iga, a multiple RG champ but also out of form or Zverev who's season had been one of ups and downs.  In the end they all did pretty well and turned out to be solid picks for those who chose them even if they didn't make the final.  

Perhaps the main casualty from an FTL point of view in the early stages was Casper Ruud who was a surprise 2nd Round casualty to Nuno Borges and another popular pick Jasmine Paolini squandered match point chances in her 4th round tie with Svitolina to deprive us of a highly anticipated quarter final showdown with Iga.   Jack Draper was also a surprise early casualty as he fell victim to an inspired Sasha Bublik

So lets take a look at the final FTL table for the French Open  (Level 2)

Rick and Mamba Mentality led the way for a considerable part of the French Open but ultimately the loss of Jasmine Paolini and Iga's win over Rybakina put the brakes on his chances.

AND it was Gord MacCabe and Gordon Trailers who ultimate triumphed at the French Open edging out Antonella and "Just married...with child" by 24 points.  Congrats to both on a great week.

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

As you would expect both had all four finalists, they both had solid dark horse picks with both having Rublev and Gordon going for the impressive young talent Mboko and Antonella matching her score with Yastremska.  So really there was just one match that was the difference between them.  Gordon had Djokovic and Antonella had Zverev.  The two met in the quarter final and it was Novak who won!  That was it - that was the difference between first and second.  

The only match that prevented Gordon from having all 8 semi finalists was the shock defeat of Andreeva had the hands of Boisson.  Its unlikely we will ever see a better performance at a slam!

Congrats again to Gordon and Antonella on an incredible fortnight!

Game Week 14 results

 Game Week winner

Tournament winners

Well I guess there is only one place to start the roundup of the final clay court week before RG although there were several great stories this week.

Novak had two big targets this year.  To win 100 titles and to make it to 25 slams.   There have been times when many questioned whether either would happen but as we all know, Novak should never be written off.

Taking the wildcard for Geneva turned out to be an inspired decision by him.  He was desparately in need of some confidence boosting wins and needed to work his best way to his best level again.  And he got exactly that in Geneva.  There were challenges on the way, Norrie pushed him hard in the semi final and Hurkacz probably should have won the final from a break up in the final set. But as he has done on so many occasions in his career, Novak dug deep to secure his 100th title.

25 slams seems a far more difficult task given the level of competition there will be at RG but Novak will no doubt build up his level as the tournament progresses and if it does turn out to be a Djokovic v Zverev quarter final, I am sure many will start to believe he can do it from there.

In the WTA event in Strasbourg, it was great to see the return of Elena Rybakina to match winning ways.  She has had a bit of an up and down season and her personal issues are well documented.  But she seemed in good spirits this week and played a great final to see off the dangerous Samsonova.  Elena has been out of the conversation when it comes to winning the slams in women's tennis but this result might change things and she will be relieved she no longer has to play Belinda Bencic in the 1st round of RG after Belinda's withdrawal.

The Hamburg title was won by Flavio Cobolli who defeated Andrey Rublev in the final.  It has been quite an odd season for Cobolli. Rick sums it up perfectly in this tweet.

Rublev will have been disappointed to lose the final but still pleased that this tournament saw a bit of a turnaround in his fortunes.  He'll be going into RG with a bit of confidence now and no doubt he will once again be the most popular dark horse pick on the men's side.   

Meanwhile, one man who may be doubting his level going into RG is Alexander Zverev.  A defeat in Rome to Musetti where he found a number of unconvincing excuses was followed by him taking a wildcard for Hamburg to get some more game time.  A surprising loss to Alexandre Muller will leave many questions unanswered for Zverev. The French Open may be his best chance of winning a slam but on current form, this one might just pass him by once again and he won't be pleased to see his nemesis Cerundolo looming nearby in the draw.

And last but not least, a huge should out to Maya Joint on winning her first WTA title.   Maya is one of the most promising talents in Australian tennis and looks like she has a bright future.  One of our prominent FTLers has even named his team after her!   Maya did not drop a set all week as she chalked up impressive wins over Konjuh, Volynets, Ann Li, Tomljanovic (via retirement) and Cristian in the final.

So lets have a look at the Game Week 14 leaderboard.

Congratulations to Cam Williams who is this week's game week winner.  For those unfamiliar with Cam, be hosts a popular tennis channel on youtube which features live draw analysis, ball by ball commentary and discussion during the top games and just general tennis chat. 

This seems like the perfect time to give him a plug.  Go check him out folks!

Tennis Talk on twitter

Youtube channel

Here is the head to head between Cam and Jamie Edmundson who was the closest challenger this week.

Cam and Jamie had very strong teams in a game week when even playing 8 was a struggle for many after the predictable barrage of withdrawals.

And the Captain and Key players were identical for both teams.  Both put Zverev as Captain which turned out to be ill advised!  However their Key players delivered with Djokovic and Rybakina winning the titles and Rublev finishing runner up in Hamburg.  

Jamie actually had an extra runner up in Hurkacz but poor performances from Bublik and Baez perhaps cost him the game week. Cam meanwhile benefitted hugely from the return to form of BHM and a decent score from Popyrin gave him the vital points he needed to win the game week.

Congrats to Cam and Jamie and everyone else who had a great game week!

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS AND DARK HORSE BREAKDOWN

I have attached the French Open Main Draw (FTL Version) and the Dark Horse Breakdown.  The 2nd round of Qualifying was completed earlier today (Thursday, May 22nd), and will be completed tomorrow.   The Qualifiers and Lucky Losers (there are at least 3 in the Mens event!) will be placed shortly after Qualifying is completed.

Do not forget to select your Dark Horses for both the Mens and Womens events! and just a reminder the French Open starts playing Round 1 matches on Sunday (May 25th)

 

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

Good Luck :)

ROME RESULTS

A huge congratulations goes to the winners of the Rome Masters 1000 -  Jasmine Paolini and Carlos Alcaraz.

 

To say that Jasmine Paolini's victory in her home event was well received is the understatement of the world!!  It was truly a raucous environment as she won the biggest title of her career.  She reached the finals at both the French Open and Wimbledon last year, so its hard to believe, that this win was only her 2nd WTA Tour level victory of her career.   On her way to the finals this week, Jasmine beat Lulu Sun, Jelena Ostapenko, Diana Shnaider and Peyton Stearns.  The analysts deemed her to be a heavy underdog in the final as she was set to play Coco Gauff.  Coco had struggled mightily with both her serve and her forehand in the SF but somehow managed to get past Qinwen in a 3rd set tiebreak.  One thing was for certain though, if Coco played at the same level as she did in the Semi's, you had to like Jasmine's chances in the final.  Sure enough, Coco sprayed balls all over the yard and Jasmine took full advantage.  Thanks to Coco's 55 unforced errors (Jasmine only won 72 points lol), Jasmine won in routine fashion 6-4,6-2. 

 

Interestingly enough the victory by Paolini was a rain delay away from not happening!  In the QF against Diana Shnaider, Paolini was down a set and 4 love!  Safe to say, she was about 5 to 10 minutes away from getting eliminated when the rains came and forced a lengthy delay.  Once they came back, Diana struggled to find the court and Jasmine won the next 6 games to win the 2nd set and Diana never recovered.  

Meanwhile, the craziest thing that happened in the womens event wasn't Jasmine's title run! No, instead it was the ramifications to the French Open Seedings from this weeks results - The 3 time French Open winner - Iga Swiatek - will be the 5 seed!!!!

 

The story of the mens event was simple from day 1 - The Return of Jannik Sinner!  Due to a suspension for something that his team did (I'm still not sure how I feel about him accepting this suspension to be honest), Jannik hadn't played a single match in 4 months (Since he won the AO).    When the draw came out, his chances at a long run seemed rather tricky as it looked like he was going to have to beat 2 really talented players (Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Francisco Cerundolo) just to get to the QF.  Due to the inactivity, you had to expect him to luck rusty, but instead he made the finals rather comfortably as he beat Mariano Navone, Jesper De Jong, Francisco Cerundolo, Casper Ruud, and Tommy Paul.  (he completely dismantled the defending Madrid Champion (Ruud) 6-0,6-1).

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the draw was Carlos Alcaraz and although he didn't look anywhere near his best for most of the week, it was still plenty good enough for him to get to the final.  Even when he's not playing his best, that level is still crazy high and filled with incredible highlights.  He beat Dusan Lajovic, Laslo Djere, Karen Khachanov, Jack Draper, and Lorenzo Musetti in order to make the final.  The only set he lost on his way to final was to Khachanov.

 

The Final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner is something that fans and analysts have been salivating and begging for for quite some time.  Currently, they have the best rivalry in the mens game and its aided even further by the fact that a couple of their previous matches were played at a sky high level (the 2024 match in Beijing is the best Bo3 match I've seen in at least a decade).

 

It was hard to know what to expect in the final though as Jannik is the #1 player (by a large margin btw, and had lost 1 match TOTAL since August of 2024!!), but Carlos had beaten him in their last 3 matches before the final started.  Alcaraz had also won the French Open in 2024 and has appeared to be the best clay court player in the world over the past couple of years.  Honestly, it felt like a pick-em type of match, and for most of the 1st set, it actually felt like Sinner was the better player.  In fact, he even had a 40-15 break chance at 6-5, and missed a rather routine forehand on Set Point.  Sadly for Jannik, he never got another chance as Carlos played a great tiebreak and won the first set.  Jannik struggled to find the court with his first serve to start the 2nd set (and paid for it), and 15 minutes later, he was down 5 love!  It was a huge win by Carlos this week as he's now up #2 in the world, and will be seeded #2 at the French Open.  How great would it be if we could see a rematch in the final at the French Open?

 

btw it was really interesting to watch how differently Carlos plays against Sinner as compared to how he plays against EVERYONE else!  Carlos plays with a certain level of patience when he plays against Sinner, as he knows that if he opens the court with his forehand, Jannik will just take the ball up the line and the point is over.  He also plays a tonne of loopy forehands as he's trying to get Jannik out of rhythm.  It will be interesting to see if Jannik's team has a change of gameplan to help adjust to this approach.

 

In terms of FTL, the week was fairly tricky for most of us, as the Return of Jannik posed a couple of huge questions that everyone had to answer - What would it cost to trade in Sinner?  Can I afford to not have Sinner this week?  

Interestingly enough, the winner of the week, decided that it wasn't worth it to trade him in!  I'd like to offer a huge kuddos to Tom U (Tennis The Menace) on his first ever FTL Victory!!  He had both winners, another finalist (Gauff), a SF (Musetti) and 2 other QF (Ruud and Mirra).  

 

Considering how tightly packed the Leaderboard was this week, if Sinner does end up being victorious,  Tom wouldn't have won the Week.  I can only imagine how emotional he was as he watched that first set!!! lol

 

 

 

For Option 2, Sam G (Bagels & Breadsticks) found his way to the first place result.  He beat Christie (Controlled Aggression) by 2.05 points!!!  Both managers had both winners and Gauff as a finalist.  Hard to believe but the biggest difference in the week was that Sam selected Emma Raducanu as his Dark Horse!!!  For someone that had barely won a match on the dirt in her entire career, her putting up nearly 50 points was incredibly special and a truly inspired selection!

 

Interesting to see that both Sam and Christie made the same decision as Tom did about not trading in Sinner and were rewarded for their efforts!

 

I'd like to also give a shoutout to Natatatat (Salty and Sweet) who finished 2nd just 3.587 points behind our winner.  Preston (Maya Joint is Lit) was the manager that finished the highest (6th) that selected Jannik Sinner.  If Jannik ends up winning, I think its a pretty safe bet that Preston ends up being victorious.  (makes that routine FH miss on SP even harder to take!!)

 

GAMEWEEK 14 MAIN DRAWS - FTL VERSION

 GENEVA

 HAMBURG

 STRASBOURG

RABAT 

RPG (Random Player Generator)

 

The RPG  (Random Player Generator)

Who do you plan to trade in for game week 14?

Will you be bringing in a big hitter to bolster your RG team?

Will you look for a leftfield pick at the WTA Rabat event?

If you are looking for inspiration, why not pick a number from the random player generator. Comment with  number between 1 and 93 and the RPG will respond with a suggested player for you to trade in!