ATP Fantasy Tennis Has Arrived

Yes it’s that time again. The 2008 ATP Fantasy Tennis Season begins on April 21st with the Monte Carlo Masters Series Event.

Don’t you love how much notice they give us each year? We’ve got about a week to set up our team, choose our players, and join a subleague. If you had a team last year, you’ll have the same team name this year.

I’ve posted the 2008 ATP Fantasy Tennis Guide. It has fast facts, strategies and sources for statistics. It’s essentially a snapshot of the rest of the season. I’ve also included it here for your entertainment.

Happy fantasies!

2008 ATP Fantasy Tennis Guide

Join our subleague! It’s called tennisdiary.com. We send weekly email updates to all subleague members before the submission deadline.

Here are a few Fast Facts, some Strategies, and Statistical Information to help you play the ATP fantasy tennis game. I post my picks at Tennis Diary the day before each week’s tournaments start, either Saturday or Sunday.

FAST FACTS

  1. Each team consists of eight players and one doubles team. Each player or doubles team can be chosen no more than five times in a season.
  2. Each week’s team has to be chosen before the first match of the next tournament. The deadlines can be found on the Tournaments Page. You can also see a calendar of deadlines below. The complete rules are here.
  3. Draws for tournaments are posted 24-36 hours before the tournament starts and can be found on the ATP home page. Be sure to check the draws each week to make sure two of your players don’t meet in an early round and knock each other out of the tournament.
  4. Only players ranked in the top 100 as of April 21 are eligible to be picked for a fantasy tennis team. The eligible players are listed on your team page.
  5. Teams are ranked based on the total prize money your players earn.
  6. The season starts on April 21st with Monte Carlo. The season ends on October 27th with the Paris Masters tournament.
  7. Season length: 24 weeks (you’ll pick 24 teams).
    • Total number of tournaments: 42. Keep in mind that this season is much harder than last season because there are 12 more tournaments but you can still only pick from a total of 100 players. Eight of the 12 new tournaments are on clay.
    • Number of slams: 3 (French Open, Wimbledon and US Open).
    • Number of Masters Series tournaments: 7 (Monte Carlo, Rome, Hamburg, Montreal, Cincinnati, Madrid, Paris).
    • Number of tournaments on clay: 16, outdoor hard court: 10, indoor hard court: 6, indoor carpet: 4, grass: 6.

STRATEGIES

Look for the Prize Money

Look at the list of tournaments ranked by prize money below. Remember, your team’s standing is determined by your team’s total prize money.

Since the slams have the highest prize money followed by the Masters Series events and then the lower level tournament, save your top players for the slams and the Masters Series events. You should use Roger Federer in all three slams and two of the seven Masters events since you can only use him five times for example.

Plan Your Entire Season

Plan your picks at the beginning of the season. For instance, the clay court season is very long. There are 16 clay court events so you don’t want to run out of clay court players. Some players perform best on indoor hard court and carpet and you need to save them for the fall indoor season.

To find the best performers on each surface:

  • Tennisinsight.com has a list of the top twenty players on each surface. This site uses a sophisticated model that is constantly updated to determine a player’s rating on each surface.
  • Tennis.matchstat.com has a list of the ten players with the best record on each surface.
  • To check out an individual player’s record on a surface, go to tennis.matchstat.com and enter a player’s name. At the top of his results will be a table showing his performance on different surfaces for the past five years. Look at Sam Querrey for instance. This is not a player you should choose for a clay court tournament.

Tournament surfaces are listed in the prize money list below.

To find the best performers at each tournament:

  • Go to tenninsight.com’s Tournaments page. The page for each tournament lists the best and worst performers at that tournament.
  • Go to tennisform.com and click on the Men’s Tennis pulldown menu. Click on the desired tournament and you’ll see a complete record of every player who has played at that tournament. You can click on any heading in the table to sort by that heading. For instance, if you want to sort the players by name, click on the Name heading.

Pick the Draws

If you’re a fanatic, pick the draws:

  1. Get the draws for each week’s tournaments in the Now Playing section on the ATP home page and print them out.
  2. Get the head to head records for each match in the draw and pick the winners in each round of the tournament.
  3. Choose the top players in each tournament for your team.

STATISTICS

List of tournaments ranked by prize money:

  1. French Open (clay), Wimbledon (grass), U.S. Open (outdoor hard): $1.4 million (est.)
  2. Monte Carlo Masters (clay), Rome Masters (clay), Hamburg Masters (clay), Madrid Masters (indoor hard), Paris Masters (indoor carpet): $553, 846
  3. Montreal Masters (outdoor hard), Cincinnati Masters (outdoor hard): $420,000
  4. Basel (indoor carpet): $223,384
  5. Vienna (indoor hard): $213, 846
  6. Barcelona (clay): $209,692
  7. Stuttgart (clay): $181,538
  8. Kitzbuhel (clay): $180,000
  9. Halle (grass), Stockholm (indoor hard), Lyon (indoor carpet): $177,692
  10. Moscow (indoor carpet), St. Petersburg (indoor carpet): $171,000
  11. Tokyo (outdoor hard): $135,000
  12. Queens (grass): $130,000
  13. Sopot (clay): $104,231
  14. Gstaad (clay): $100,000
  15. New Haven (outdoor hard), Bangkok (indoor hard): $94,000
  16. Munich (clay), Poertschach (clay), Casablanca (clay), s-Hertogenbosch (grass), Nottingham (grass), Bucharest (clay), Metz (indoor hard): $90,923
  17. Beijing (outdoor hard): $85,000
  18. Indianapolis (outdoor hard): $83,500
  19. Bastad (clay), Amersfoort (clay), Umag (clay): $83,461
  20. Washington (outdoor hard): $80,680
  21. Los Angeles (outdoor hard): $79,000
  22. Mumbai (outdoor hard): $68,8000
  23. Newport (grass): $64,000

Calendar of Deadlines

Choose your team every week before the deadlines listed below. ET (US) refers to Eastern Standard Time in the U.S. CET refers to Central European Time. These deadlines change throughout the season so always check the ATP tournaments page each week.

2008-04-21 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-04-28 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-05-05 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-05-12 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-05-18 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-05-25 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-06-09 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-06-15 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-06-23 Last Substitution: 07:00 ET (US) 13:00 CET
2008-07-07 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-07-14 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-07-21 Last Substitution: 10:00 ET (US) 16:00 CET
2008-07-28 Last Substitution: 10:00 ET (US) 16:00 CET
2008-08-04 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-08-11 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-08-17 Last Substitution: 10:00 ET (US) 16:00 CET
2008-08-25 Last Substitution: 10:00 ET (US) 16:00 CET
2008-09-07 Last Substitution: 21:00 ET (US) 2008-09-09 03:00 CET
2008-09-21 Last Substitution: 21:00 ET (US) 2008-09-22 03:00 CET
2008-09-28 Last Substitution: 22:00 ET (US) 2008-09-29 22:00 CET
2008-10-06 Last Substitution: 02:00 ET (US) 08:00 CET
2008-10-13 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET
2008-10-20 Last Substitution: 02:00 ET (US) 08:00 CET
2008-10-27 Last Substitution: 04:00 ET (US) 10:00 CET

Court Speed

Court speed is an important variable in tennis matches. Faster courts favor harder hitters. Slower courts favor clay court specialists.

A player may be the number four seed at the U.S. Open but he is unlikely to reach the semifinals if he is a clay court specialist. Wimbledon is different. The top 32 seeds reflect the rankings but the order of the seeds is adjusted to favor players who excel of fast courts. For that reason, the top seeds at Wimbledon are more likely to reach the later rounds.

Go to tennisinsight.com’s Tournaments page. The page for each tournament will give the speed of the surface at that tournament and its rating in comparison to other tournaments.

Note that this data is not the measured court speed but how fast the court is playing. The number of games played per set is a useful way of gauging court speed because the faster the court, the easier it is to hold serve and the more games will be played.

Useful Websites for Player Records and Statistics

Happy fantasies!