I woke up to the news that Novak Djokovic has been kicked out of Australia. I can’t pretend to be sad about that. Not only does it remove a major hurdle for Rafa to win his second Australian Open (although I still think that’s unlikely), but it clarifies the men’s draw for fantasy tennis!
Want to play? You have only a few more hours to pick your fantasy team, so put down your dust mop and get busy!
Go to FanSlam.us. After you log in, you’ll see a long list of contests, most of which are marked “private.” Scroll down past all that, and you’ll come to a second grid marked “Fanslam Calendar: Upcoming Tournaments.” The contests you want are the first two listed, marked “Enter Free.”
You can find the rules on the FanSlam site or in last year’s blog post, Fantasy Tennis Is Here.
In the past, I’ve tried to set up a contest within a contest, with limited (actually, zero) success. I’ll keep trying, though, because one of these days someone will surprise me. If you want to compete within the LittleYellowBall community, set up your fantasy team(s) on FanSlam. Then return here and post your team roster(s) in the comment section. (Yes, there is a comment section. Keep scrolling.)
It’s no use coming to me after the tournament ends, claiming you were player “FedererFan1” on FanSlam and, hey look at that, you just happened to finish in first place. If your picks aren’t posted on LittleYellowBall before the first serve is struck (tonight at 7, EST), you’re out of luck.
In the event of more than one person entering this contest with me (as if), the person with the best result wins. There will be only one winner for each draw.
Here are my picks for the men:

- Nadal
- Auger-Aliassime
- Bautista Agut
- Taylor Fritz
- Alcaraz Garcia
- De Minaur
- James Duckworth
- Andy Murray (a bargain at $5,000!)
And for the women:

- Kontaveit
- Badosa
- Halep
- Gauff
- Anisimova
- Cornet
- Keys
- Kvitova
Winner gets a can of tennis balls—which, of course, will be Triniti balls.
Have fun!!