My Tennis Fantasy: A New Game in Town

Oh yes, dear friends, that's right. Tennis is back after its joke of an off-season and brings with it a new and exciting fantasy tennis site! Check out Fantasy Tennis Tour if you're interested in trying it. The basic idea is that each week of the year, one picks a few players in each ATP tournament, benefiting from the prize money won by each of those players. There are limits on how many times you can pick each player so you can't just pick Federer and Nadal every time they play.

Current Standing: 36th (out of how many, I don't know)
My MVP for the Week: Nikolay Davydenko (Russia) with $92,360 in prize money, losing to Roger Federer (Switzerland) in the final of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in straight sets


Image via Live Tennis Guide

All three of this past week's affairs (Doha, Chennai and Brisbane) are ATP 250-level tournaments, allowing for 3 picks in each. Despite having such a low rating, Doha is one of the big money grabs on the ATP calendar, as much for its seven-figure appearance fees as for its prize money. As such, Davydenko provided my biggest score of the week, despite the fact that Stanislas Wawrinka (Switzerland), another of my picks, actually won the tournament in Chennai.

It's fair to say that Davydenko had a disappointing 2010 season. He came into the year as one of the hottest players on the tour but suffered a nasty wrist injury at Indian Wells, forcing him to miss the clay season entirely. One of the world's best clay courters, he was seen as one of very few who could pose a meaningful threat to Nadal's dominance. (Rafa, of course, ran the table)

But Nikolay served notice that he's back in form with a big-time take down of Rafa in the semis this week. Now, Doha is not Melbourne but any win over the World #1 is a big deal. On to Sydney and Auckland!