ATP Fantasy Tennis Season fast facts

I turned on the telly this evening to watch the Billie Jean King documentary on HBO only to realize that I pay Adelphia $81.58 every month and, unbelievably, that ridiculous amount of money does not include HBO. So, while I figure that out, let me start in on the ATP Fantasy Tennis Season.

I’m a little late, the league is ready to start its third week already, but no matter, here are some fast facts and statistics to help in choosing your weekly team. I will be posting my picks for each tournament on Sunday. Meanwhile, if you’d like to join our subleague, tennisdiary.com, feel free.

Each team consists of eight players and each player can be chosen no more than five times in the season. If you chose eight different players every week, you’d use 200 players in a season. The minimum number of players you could use in a season is 40.

Teams are ranked based on the total prize money your players earn.

Each week’s team has to be chosen before the first match of the next tournament and draws for the next tournament are posted 24-36 hours before the tournament starts.

Season start date: April 17, 2006. Season end date: November 5, 2006.
The season ends with the Paris Masters tournament. The season does not include the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai – that would be difficult to include in the season because there are only 8 players in the tournament.

Season length: 25 weeks

Number of tournaments: 44

Number of slams in the season: 3 (French Open, Wimbledon and US Open)

Number of Masters Series tournaments in the season (the league started on April 17 so Indian Wells and Miami have already been played): 7

Here is the list of the tournaments and the prize money:

Tournaments ranked by prize money to the winner:

1. US Open – TBA ($1.2 million in 2005)
2. Wimbledon – $1.17 million ($53,600 less for the female champion!)
3. French Open – $1.13 million
4. Rome, HamburgToronto Masters, Cincinnati Masters, : $400,000
5. Madrid Masters, Paris Masters: $378,000
6. Monte Carlo Masters: $340,000
7. Moscow, St. Petersburg: $142,000
8. Barcelona: $130,200
9. Basel: $120,750
10. Tokyo: $118,000
11. Halle: $112,941
12. Kitzbuhel: $110,600
13. Vienna: $108,600
14. Stuttgart: $100,000
15. Stockholm, Lyon: $96,000
16. Queens: $94,706
17. New Haven: $84,000
18. Bangkok: $76,500
19. Estoril: $74,300
20. Indianapolis, Washington: $74,250
21. Los Angeles, Beijing: $69,200
22. Sopot: $59,200
23. Gstaad: $58,700
24. Ho Chi Minh City, Newport (how often do they appear next to each other in a sentence?): $52,000
25. Poertschach: $51,882
26. Umag: $46,700
27. Casablanca, Munich, s-Hertogenbosch, Nottingham, Baastad, Amersfoot, Bucharest, Palermo, Metz (the cheapos): $44,100

Happy fantasies.