The second tennis Grand Slam of 2026 is coming up, as main-draw play at the French Open will begin May 24 on the majestic red clay of Roland Garros. With the 2026 NFL season months away, the 2025-26 NBA and NHL regular seasons in the books, and MLB action still in the early stages of building up to pennant races, this is the perfect time to try out the growing fantasy sport of tennis. Two exciting new season-long fantasy tennis platforms have emerged in 2026: ATP Tour Fantasy and the Drop Shot.
Where to Play Season-Long Fantasy Tennis
Play Fantasy Tennis on ATP Tour Fantasy (Fantasy.ATPTour.com)
Tennis has long been one of the world's most popular sports to play, watch or bet on, but there was no comprehensive fantasy tennis option, outside of the Daily Fantasy games offered by DraftKings and FanDuel. That all changed this year with the launches of ATP Tour Fantasy and the Drop Shot. Both of these platforms offer free and unique season-long fantasy tennis experiences and products.
ATP Tour Fantasy has free salary cap contests with prizes for the top performing fantasy teams in the form of official ATP Tour merchandise and tickets. This fantasy game is run by the official men's tennis tour and covers the entire spectrum of ATP Tour events, including results from the smaller ATP 250 and ATP 500 events in addition to Grand Slams, Masters 1000s and the ATP Finals.
Play Fantasy Tennis on The Drop Shot (DropShotFT.com)
The Drop Shot is for tennis fans looking for the full fantasy experience, including snake drafts, waivers, and varied teams of ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) and WTA (Women's Tennis Association) players. This platform allows fantasy managers to draft their team, customize scoring settings, follow live scores and stats, and evaluate in-depth player performance all in one place. In addition to the currently available free fantasy leagues and best balls, the Drop Shot is expected to add paid leagues, salary cap contests, rotisserie and dynasty formats this year.
Both ATP Tour fantasy and the Drop Shot are free to play, and both platforms offer private leagues to compete with friends, as well as public leagues where you can face off with experts, win prizes, climb leaderboards and showcase your fantasy tennis knowledge to the world.
Below is a comparison of notable features from ATP Tour Fantasy and the Drop Shot:
| Features | ATP Tour Fantasy Tennis | The Drop Shot |
|---|---|---|
| Free to Play | Yes | Yes |
| Draft ATP Players (men) | Yes | Yes |
| Draft WTA Players (women) | No | Yes |
| Snake Drafts | No | Yes |
| Lineup Management | Yes | Yes |
| League Types | Public and private contests | Public and private drafts |
| Prizes | Win tickets and official merchandise | Win tickets and merchandise in free leagues. Paid prize leagues coming soon |
| Live Scores and Stats | Elsewhere on ATPTour.com | Integrated, real-time scoring updates on your fantasy team dashboard |
| Tournament Selection | ATP Grand Slams, Masters 1000s, ATP 500s, ATP 250s, ATP Finals | ATP and WTA Grand Slams, Masters 1000s, WTA 1000s, ATP Finals and WTA Finals. ATP and WTA 500s coming soon |
Why Play Fantasy Tennis
Unmatched Scheduling Flexibility and Convenience
With strategic team building and straightforward scoring similar to fantasy football, bracketology like march madness and an international flair like fantasy baseball or hockey, fantasy tennis is a mix of America's favorite fantasy games. The annual tennis season has four Grand Slam events, with its own version of the Super Bowl, World Series, Stanley Cup and NBA Finals, both in men's tennis and women's tennis. This is the perfect time to start a fantasy tennis league, with three Grand Slams coming up in less than four months. The French Open begins May 24, Wimbledon begins June 29, and the US Open begins August 31.
Unlike the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, which are restricted to their league seasons during a specific time of year, the ATP and WTA tours play during the entire calendar year. The full fantasy tennis season spans from the Australian Open in January until the WTA Finals and ATP Finals in November, but you can join the fun at any point of the year, whether you choose to play on the ATP Tour website, the Drop Shot, or both.
If you play the standard Grand Slam-only or shared Masters/WTA 1000 formats on the Drop Shot, or the North American Hard Court Swing on ATP Fantasy, the last scoring tournament is the U.S. Open, which ends the same day as the first regular-season NFL Sunday. That convenient schedule makes fantasy tennis the perfect complementary hobby to fantasy football.
Fantasy tennis fanatics can continue to play throughout the fall and winter, participating in the Race to the Nitto ATP Finals on ATP Tour Fantasy and/or their choice of WTA 1000, ATP Masters 1000, and the ATP Finals or WTA Finals on the Drop Shot.
Empowering Female and International Athletes
The sport of tennis attracts top athletes from all around the world. Eight different countries are currently represented in the top 10 of the ATP rankings, and the WTA top 10 also has players representing eight countries, even with three Americans in the WTA's top six.
The Drop Shot offers the first mainstream fantasy format where female athletes score just as many fantasy points as male athletes. Unlike other major American fantasy sports platforms, the Drop Shot allows you to draft a fantasy team of both male and female athletes. In standard Drop Shot fantasy tennis leagues, five of the top eight fantasy point scorers in Grand Slams last year were women.
Strategy and Community
Fantasy tennis offers a unique layer of strategy and team management due to the different surfaces played on throughout the ATP and WTA Tour seasons. Players with different skill sets can often outperform or underperform their ranking depending on whether a tournament is played on hard court (such as the U.S. Open and Australian Open), clay (French Open) or grass (Wimbledon).
Tennis is an individual sport on the court but offers a tight-knit and supportive community and team atmospheres off the court. Fantasy tennis is no different in that regard as an inclusive and growing game. ATP Tour Fantasy and the Drop Shot provide the tools and data for users who are new to fantasy or tennis so fantasy managers can familiarize themselves with the sport's top stars and sleepers.
At the Drop Shot, all the information you need to build a winning fantasy tennis team and watch them succeed is at your fingertips. Available features include live scoring, updating rankings, tournament schedules, past tournament performance and head-to-head performance against other players. The Drop Shot's live scoreboard includes live stats, such as aces, double faults and break points converted. Brackets become available prior to the start of every tournament so you can find favorable draws and identify potential sleepers or Cinderella stories.
Fantasy Tennis Rosters and Scoring
On ATP Tour Fantasy, you pick an 8-player roster of ATP players while staying under a 100-credit salary cap and start six at each tournament. You can make two free player switches between tournament weeks while staying under the salary cap. Players score points based on which round they advance to in a tournament, with bonuses for aces, straight-sets wins and upset wins, as well as penalties for double faults, losing sets 6-0 and upset losses.
The Drop Shot offers flexible scoring and scheduling settings that can be controlled by league commissioners, and league sizes can be anywhere from 4-12 teams. The following roster and scoring rules apply under the standard Drop Shot scoring format:
Team managers pick a 10-player roster of ATP and WTA players in a snake draft and start eight at each tournament. Roster changes are made using waivers, but lineups and rosters are locked during tournaments. Players score points based on which round they reach in a tournament, with bonuses for upset wins, as well as head-to-head wins against against players on other fantasy teams. Bonus points are awarded to the fantasy teams with the most aces, fewest double points and the most breaks of serve generated at each tournament.
