Friday, February 13, 2015

Racket Rally Fantasy Insider: Rio, Marseille, Delray Beach

This is the third installment of the new series, which features fantasy tips and rankings for Racket RallyYou can find a more detailed explanation of the series here.

Tip of the Week: Start investing in the WTA

Now is the time to go out and get a few women's players, but not just any women's player. Go specifically for the players playing in Monterrey or Kuala Lumpur. The men's tour will be playing Davis Cup that week, which means that all points will come from the women's tour except from Challenger Tour points earned in Quimper, which is just a 90-point tournament in France.

Make sure you check the list of players in those tournaments and start buying them this week.

Top Prospects vs. Drop Prospects

This week's top/drop prospects is going to be abbreviated, since we are still in the February grind, but there will be another full-length Fantasy Insider piece in a couple weeks ahead of Indian Wells.

Top Prospects: This week's top prospects are both attractive additions for similar reasons. Both are massively under-priced, because as they fight to get their ranking back to where it was a couple years ago, and both players are in action the next two weeks before Indian Wells.

The first is Vera Zvonareva, who has protected points, but can still be bought for as little as $290. Her price will go up only slightly next week, so you could wait a week to get her, but might as well get her now at a lower price before she goes to Dubai, where she could earn 60 points per share with just one win. She will then play in Monterrey, being unseeded, but with a decent draw could earn a couple wins and get MVP if she makes a big run.

The other is Benoit Paire, who has received a wild card in Marseille and then will play Quimper. He is still in the draw in Bergamo, so his price could go up a lot next week if he keeps winning. He currently can be bought for as little as $366 per share. Just a couple years ago, he had been ranked as high as 24 and is only 25-years old now. This would be a great long-term addition to your line-up, so buy as many of him as you can afford.

Drop Prospects: If you are still holding onto Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, or Rafael Nadal, I would drop all three of them. However, this week's drop prospect is Belinda Bencic. She is playing Dubai this week, so keeping her one more week won't hurt, but you should be dropping her sooner rather than later, and a lot of people have her on their roster.

Most people bought her ahead of the Australian Open, when she costed $1,391 per share. She hasn't won a match since then and her price has dropped to $1,280, meaning a lot of people are overpaying for her. Drop her now and maybe buy her back after the first week of April at a much lower price, when he points from Charleston fall off her ranking. After Charleston, she has very little to defend until the US Open.

*All photos are from the racketrally.com site and are credited there. 

1 comment: