{"id":592067,"date":"2026-04-09T08:07:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T08:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/592067\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T08:07:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T08:07:16","slug":"atp-fantasy-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-tennis-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/592067\/","title":{"rendered":"ATP Fantasy: Everything You Need to Know About the New Tennis Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a new tennis fantasy game on the scene, with the ATP Tour launching its own product in late March ahead of the European clay swing<\/a>. I don\u2019t know about you, but this one has gone a little under the radar. I heard it was coming, but didn\u2019t get around to digging into it until just now.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re the same and haven\u2019t taken the time to understand it, then you\u2019re in luck. Below is a comprehensive guide to ATP Fantasy. I go over everything from the nuts and bolts of how to play the game, through to tips, strategies, the best leagues to join and where I personally think there\u2019s room for improvement.<\/p>\n

How the ATP Fantasy Game Works<\/p>\n

At the very top level, ATP Fantasy is simple. You\u2019re given a budget, then select eight players which collect you points based on how they perform each round.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty of nuance around how players are priced and what kinds of outcomes generate the most points, but the essence is as it always is with any fantasy sport: you\u2019re balancing cost vs potential reward on a player by player basis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Building Your Team<\/p>\n

100-credit budget<\/p>\n

8 players total \u2013 6 starters + 2 alternates<\/p>\n

Player prices based on PIF ATP Live Rankings<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a sample of what those prices look like this week:<\/p>\n

PlayerCreditsCarlos Alcaraz40Jannik Sinner36Alexander Zverev33Novak Djokovic30Alex de Minaur19Casper Ruud13Francisco Cerundolo8Jack Draper6Arthur Fils6Daniel Altmaier3Matteo Arnaldi1<\/p>\n

The above are just an example \u2013 already I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll notice some opportunities and issues in the pricing system. More on that later.<\/p>\n

\"\"Player overview<\/p>\n

Scoring<\/p>\n

Points are awarded for each round reached, and are directly tied to the ATP\u2019s point system. If your player wins a Masters 1000, you\u2019ll get 1000 points; if they reach the final of an ATP 250, you\u2019ll pick up 165 points.<\/p>\n

\"\"How you add players to your Fantasy team<\/p>\n

Outside of these raw results, there are a range of other actions that can earn you points \u2013 or lose you them. Here\u2019s a summary:\u00a0<\/p>\n

ActionPointsAce+2 per aceStraight-sets win+10Upset win+20Double fault-2 per DFBagel (losing a set 6-0)-10Upset loss-20<\/p>\n

Bonus Ball<\/p>\n

Bonus Ball is ATP Fantasy\u2019s version of having a captain. Each week you designate one starter as your Bonus Ball player, and that player earns double points for the tournament week.<\/p>\n

Transfers<\/p>\n

The team you initially select isn\u2019t completely fixed \u2013 there are a range of different transfer options available. Here\u2019s how these work:<\/p>\n

Unlimited switches before the season starts<\/p>\n

2 free switches per tournament week after that<\/p>\n

Unused switches roll over (max 8 banked)<\/p>\n

Additional switches beyond your free allocation cost 50 points each<\/p>\n

Chips<\/p>\n

Where things get a little fun\/strategy\/messy (depending on how you look at it) is with the game\u2019s chips. There are three of these, each which can be used once per swing, but only one can be played per tournament week. Here\u2019s a breakdown:<\/p>\n

ChipEffectAlternatesYour 2 bench players\u2019 points count toward your totalTriple BounceBonus Ball player earns triple points instead of doubleSwing SwitchUnlimited switches for the week, no point penalty<\/p>\n

Season Structure<\/p>\n

The ATP Fantasy season is chopped up into swings. At the start of each of these, chips reset and you\u2019re able to do unlimited switches as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because the game was launched mid-season, there are just four swings as follows:<\/p>\n

SwingDatesClay Season30 March \u2013 7 JuneGrass Season8 June \u2013 12 JulyNorth American Hard Court27 July \u2013 13 SeptemberRace to Nitto ATP Finals23 September \u2013 8 November<\/p>\n

Each swing has its own leaderboard and prizes. In 2027, I assume there will be at least one more swing added to cover the earlier section of the season.<\/p>\n

Leagues, Leaderboards and Prizes<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the point of all this? Well, to beat your friends and win prizes, of course! There are a few different shapes and forms this can take:<\/p>\n

Create private leagues (set a name, invite via code)<\/p>\n

Join existing leagues (enter an invitation code)<\/p>\n

Compete on global monthly, swing, and overall leaderboards<\/p>\n

Season-long prizes include ATP partner merchandise, ATP Store gear, and tickets to selected 2027 tour events. Overall season winner receives two tickets to two sessions of the 2027 Nitto ATP Finals, including flights and accommodation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Is ATP Fantasy Worth Signing Up For?<\/p>\n

Short answer: yes, but with some caveats. ATP Fantasy is very new, and I\u2019ve just signed up myself, so it\u2019ll take a few tournament weeks before things become properly clear. However, early signs point towards there being a few quirks in the game\u2019s scoring system that could lead to teething issues over the coming months.<\/p>\n

That said, it\u2019s free, it\u2019s run by the ATP Tour, and it\u2019s a fun way of engaging with tennis that should only get better and more popular. Now\u2019s a great time to jump on board and fine-tune your skills before ATP Fantasy becomes more mainstream.<\/p>\n

What Works<\/p>\n

I like the scoring. A lot, actually. It mirrors actual ATP ranking points<\/a>, so you don\u2019t need to learn some arbitrary points table. For anyone who follows the tour closely, this will be immediately intuitive.<\/p>\n

The chip reset mechanic is an improvement on the model used in Fantasy Premier League, the world\u2019s most popular fantasy sport and an obvious reference point for ATP Fantasy. I\u2019ve played FPL for years, and one of the most stressful parts is knowing you\u2019ve only got one Triple Captain, one Bench Boost, one Free Hit for the entire campaign. Blow one early and you\u2019re kicking yourself until May.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here, your three chips reset at the start of each swing. That\u2019s four uses of each chip across the year. I\u2019m a fan of that. It rewards active management and gives you room to experiment without the anxiety of a one-shot decision.<\/p>\n

Live ranking-based pricing also creates volatility that FPL managers can only dream about. A player can lose half their credit value after one bad tournament. Jakub Mensik, for instance, would have dropped from 12 credits to 6 after a second-round exit at Miami as defending champion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This means bargains appear if you\u2019re paying attention, and traps too, if you\u2019re not. I find that exciting \u2013 it means the game rewards those who are actually watching the tour week to week.<\/p>\n

Where It Falls Short<\/p>\n

I said I\u2019d circle back to this: the pricing model is the obvious flaw of ATP Fantasy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Player prices are linked to live ATP ranking, which is great, but not to ATP points, which isn\u2019t so great. Those ranked No 1 through 16 have set values, while 16-20, 21-25, 26-30 and so on are bunched into their own pricing groups.<\/p>\n

Bottom line, this leads to a situation where Sinner costs 36 credits and Zverev costs 33. That\u2019s a gap of just three credits for two players separated by over 7,000 ranking points. Why would anyone pick Zverev, when three more gets you Sinner?\u00a0<\/p>\n

This turns the middle tier of premium players (roughly ranks 3 through 10) into dead weight. It\u2019s not necessarily the game\u2019s fault, more just a quirk of Sincaraz domination on the ATP Tour.<\/p>\n

YouTuber Expected Aces<\/a> did an analysis of the Miami Open data that shows why this is an issue for ATP Fantasy. A Sinner-plus-Alcaraz draft padded with cheap fillers nearly matched a perfectly optimised balanced squad. And unless you were bold enough to Bonus Ball Lehecka that week \u2013 which, come on, almost nobody would have been \u2013 the top-heavy approach with Sinner as Bonus Ball outperformed anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The game\u2019s pricing just doesn\u2019t punish you enough for loading up on the big two, which is a problem as it could well lead to some pretty one-dimensional game play if we\u2019re all just picking Sinner and Alcaraz.<\/p>\n

The bonus and penalty structure has some quirks too:<\/p>\n

+10 for a straight-sets win, but no penalty for a straight-sets loss<\/p>\n

-10 for getting bageled, but no reward for bageling someone<\/p>\n

No recognition of return quality or break-point performance\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019d love to see a break-point differential bonus \u2013 +2 for each net service break, say. That would incentive away from just picking big servers, which is what\u2019s currently rewarded through the ace and double fault bonuses.<\/p>\n

The upset mechanic could use some work too. It only triggers when an unseeded player beats a seeded player. Personally, I\u2019d prefer a scaled system where a bigger ranking gap produces a bigger bonus. That would create far more interesting decisions around cheaper picks.<\/p>\n

Finally, there\u2019s no ownership-based pricing in ATP Fantasy. In FPL, knowing that 60% of managers own Erling Haaland shapes how you approach your team \u2013 do you follow the crowd or differentiate? Here, there\u2019s no transfer market metagame at all. Whether that bothers you depends on how deep you want the strategy to go, but it\u2019s a feature that would certainly add a bit of nuance.<\/p>\n

Tips, Tricks and Strategies for ATP Fantasy<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be real: no-one is good at this game yet. That\u2019s what makes playing ATP Fantasy right now fun. Having just signed up and had a poke around, here\u2019s my gut feel on what will work:<\/p>\n

Go Top-Heavy<\/p>\n

The pricing compression at the top of the market means picking one of Alcaraz or Sinner \u2013 possibly both \u2013 is mandatory right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dominic Thiem, the former World No. 3 and 2020 US Open champion who the ATP has appointed as the game\u2019s Official Fantasy Coach, said it himself when laying out his Monte-Carlo squad: you basically have to go with one of those two because they\u2019re so likely to go deep.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Until the pricing gets rebalanced, I\u2019m leaning into the big names and filling around them.<\/p>\n

Your Bonus Ball Is Your Highest-Leverage Decision<\/p>\n

Doubling a player\u2019s points means doubling everything \u2013 round progression, ace bonuses, the lot. Most weeks, I\u2019m putting my Bonus Ball on my highest-priced starter at the biggest event on the calendar. If Sinner is playing a Masters 1000, he\u2019s my Bonus Ball. I\u2019d need a very specific reason to do otherwise.<\/p>\n

The cascade is worth understanding too. If your Bonus Ball doesn\u2019t play that week, the designation falls to your second-choice player, then your third. Set your squad order deliberately.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chase Ace Merchants, but Check the Ratio<\/p>\n

At +2 per ace and -2 per double fault, the net value of a player\u2019s serve is their ace-to-DF differential multiplied by two.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thiem specifically flagged Zverev as a pick partly for his ace output, and I agree with the logic. But a player who fires 12 aces and coughs up 8 double faults is only netting you +8 from serving. Look at the ratios rather than raw ace counts.<\/p>\n

Surface context applies here as well. Big servers on fast courts \u2013 grass, indoor hard courts \u2013 generate more aces and therefore more fantasy value than the same players grinding on slow clay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be factoring that in heavily when the tour shifts surface. A guy who\u2019s been an ace machine in the Sunshine Double will likely slow up significantly now we\u2019re on clay.<\/p>\n

Exploit Dual-Event Weeks<\/p>\n

When two tournaments are on at the same time, spread your squad across both. Pick two or three players from each event and you double your chances of having at least one deep run in your roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be doing this during the 250-level weeks especially, when there\u2019s no single headline tournament dominating the schedule. Concentration risk is real in a game like this \u2013 one bad draw can wipe out three of your starters if they\u2019re all at the same event.<\/p>\n

Check Who\u2019s Actually Playing<\/p>\n

This might be an obvious one, but we all know players withdraw at short notice. Before locking your squad each week, check the entry lists \u2013 not just the draw, which comes later, but the provisional entry list. Even better, search for news on X. A player carrying a niggle is a risk, while one who\u2019s skipping the week entirely is a wasted spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Understand the Upset Mechanic<\/p>\n

The +20\/-20 only triggers when a seeded player loses to an unseeded one, or vice versa. This shifts risk calculation in an interesting way. Lower seeds at 250-level events \u2013 where there are just eight seeds and the margins between seeded and unseeded players are slim \u2013 are dangerous. If your player bumps into a hot qualifier and loses, that\u2019s -20 on top of minimal round points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Blow Your Chips Early<\/p>\n

Chips reset each swing, giving you four uses across the season \u2013 but only one chip per tournament week. Here\u2019s how I\u2019m thinking about timing them:<\/p>\n

Triple Bounce \u2013 I\u2019m saving this for the biggest event in each swing. Roland Garros during clay, Wimbledon during grass, the US Open during hard court season. The points ceiling at a Slam is so much higher than at a 500 or 250 that it just makes sense to use this chip here.<\/p>\n

Alternates \u2013 most useful during a dual-event week when even your bench players are likely to be active and collecting points. No point playing this when one of your alternates isn\u2019t entered anywhere.<\/p>\n

Swing Switch \u2013 I\u2019ll keep this up my sleeve and deploy it before a Grand Slam when I know the most about surface form. That way, if I get hit by injuries and withdrawals out of the blue, I can deploy it as an emergency too.<\/p>\n

Follow Thiem, but Think for Yourself<\/p>\n

Thiem will publish selections each week in his role as Official Fantasy Coach. His insight is worth reading \u2013 he understands clay better than almost anyone, and knows how players think about scheduling.<\/p>\n

But if everyone follows Thiem\u2019s picks, squads will cluster. There\u2019s no ownership-based pricing in this game, but in private leagues, differentiation still matters. I\u2019ll be reading Thiem\u2019s column every week, then making my own decisions with this info.<\/p>\n

You can find the new ATP Fantasy game here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a new tennis fantasy game on the scene, with the ATP Tour launching its own product in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-592067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}