Real Tennis Fantasy League Round 1 recap
Who made the best possible start to the 2025-26 Real Tennis Fantasy League?
The Real Tennis Fantasy League got underway for 2025-26 with the French Open. It was great to see plenty of new players taking part this year alongside some of the top performers from last year. Here is a recap of the main results from Round 1.
Points awarded
With different bonuses available this season compared to last season, and also now the inclusion of qualifying matches, there is a broader range of points available for each squad. Six squad players received double points under the “2% pick” bonus (awarded where fewer than 2% of all picks went to that player). And there were two big wins of the event, bookending the tournament overall: Clément Depreeuw’s big win in the first round of qualifying,and Steve Virgona’s big win in the final to secure the title.
The full points breakdown is:
Steve Virgona: 54 points+
Nick Howell: 31 points
Robert Shenkman: 22 points
Leon Smart: 9 points
Levi Gale: 20 points
Bertie Vallat: 14 points ^
Darren Long: 16 points ^
Lewis Williams and Vaughan Hamilton: 12 points
Clément Depreeuw: 11 points+
Benedict Yorston: 8 points
William Flynn: 8 points ^
Nicolas Victoir: 6 points^
Jack Josephs: 6 points ^
Henry Henman: 4 points
Max Trueman: 3 points
Baudouin Huynh-Lenhardt: 2 points ^
Nick Jamieson and Paul Bollerman: 1 point
+ inc Big Win bonus
^ 2% picks bonus applied
Tournament Boosts
Another bonus comes from players playing a Tournament Boost, to double their points haul for one round only. Four people opted to use their Tournament Boost for the French Open. They all - unsurprisingly - appear in the top 5 of the overall leaderboard.
The overall leaderboard
The top 6 overall leaderboard looks like this:
Looking ahead
There’s no rest for the wicked. Round 2 this year is the reinstated IRTPA Player’s Championships in Aiken, running from 10-19th October. The draw took place over the weekend (check realtennisnews.com for a full write-up) and there’s plenty of quality players to pick from. The window for squad selections is open and closes on Friday 19th October, time TBC.
And remember:
1) The IRTPA Player Championships does not attract bonus points for doubles play.
2) You can earn Big Win Bonuses for matches in the Satellite Draw.
3) You do not have to fill your squad of three players if you don’t want to.
4) You can choose the same player twice (but not all three times).
5) Leaving all your squad selections blank will mean the auto-pick algorithms will come after you!
6) If you don’t want the auto-picks to choose a squad for you, be sure to “Skip Round”.
Fancy joining in?
Of course! You’d be most welcome. Simply head to rtfantasyleague.com and click the “Sign Up” button on the left panel. You should be able to catch up using the game’s auto-pick functionality that runs at the end of each round.