The second week of Rome brought us the last two Challenger 175 events of the season. Francesco Passaro played out of his mind for the entire fortnight and will jump over 100 ranking spots. Meanwhile, Arthur Fils dominated Bordeaux as the top seed. The other three Challenger Tour events didn’t have that sort of stacked draws, but they all delivered with very entertaining finals. Read back on last week’s action:
ATP Challenger Tour Weekly Recap
Bordeaux
Arthur Fils needed a huge run in Bordeaux as he underperformed at both Madrid and Rome. The Frenchman also decided to pull out of next week’s Lyon ATP 250 (where he won the title last year) to avoid going into Roland Garros with little energy left. That plan could have backfired if he lost early here, but the top seed won a three-setter against Botic van de Zandschulp before taking out Thanasi Kokkinakis and Gregoire Barrere.
Pedro Martinez posted the biggest win of his career over Casper Ruud in Estoril this year, but he actually entered Bordeaux on four losses in a row. It’s not like his form disappeared, though, and he showed it very quickly. He took out a couple of veterans, Stan Wawrinka and Roberto Bautista Agut, before taking out Next Gen talent Juncheng Shang (who secured his Top 100 debut with this run). By the time he made the final, Martinez was on an 8-match win streak at the Challenger level.
The final between the top two seeds sounded great on paper, but Martinez delivered an error-heavy performance with a few horrible games behind his serve. Fils kept up his end of the bargain, and while he wasn’t perfect on the day, he was clearly the better player. The 19-year-old ended up taking his 2nd Challenger title 6-2 6-3 and will now rest up before trying to keep up this momentum at Roland Garros. Martinez intends to appear in the ATP 250 in Lyon next week before heading to Paris.
Turin
Lorenzo Musetti was the runner-up in the previous Italian Challenger 175 event in Cagliari, where he lost to Mariano Navone. The 22-year-old had to retire from his Rome match against Terence Atmane but was back in good shape for Turin. After outclassing David Goffin and Felipe Meligeni Alves, he got into a tight encounter with Luciano Darderi but still managed to prevail in straight sets. All four semifinalists of Turin were Italian, so a home champion was guaranteed by the time we got to the final four.
Francesco Passaro suddenly woke up in Rome, and despite being 2-16 against Top 100 opponents before that event, he went 7-1 in such matches by the time he made the Turin final (in Rome, he went out in the third round after having a match point against Nuno Borges). Turin saw him maintain that ridiculous form with four consecutive Top 100 wins over Daniel Elahi Galan, Emil Ruusuvuori, Brandon Nakashima, and Lorenzo Sonego, despite second-set setbacks in two of these matches.
Passaro kept serving incredibly well in the final and was really bossing Musetti around the court with his power. It wasn’t quite like the Cagliari final recently, where the runner-up went off the boil mentally in the second set, though he kept fighting and causing his opponent issues until the end. But Passaro stood strong, saved a break point in the last game with an underarm serve, and claimed his 2nd Challenger Tour title 6-3 7-5. He’ll jump to 133rd in the ATP Rankings, over 100 spots. It was too late to make Roland Garros qualifying (#2 alternate) and he’ll likely be back in Vicenza after a week of rest. Musetti will also take a break before appearing in the main draw of the French Open.
Oeiras
Elias Ymer was just 4-14 this year going into Oeiras with two wins via retirement, one in Davis Cup, and one double bagel over an unranked opponent. The much-needed bounce-back came with some classy victories over Lloyd Harris and Jan Choinski, with the latter being the only player to take a set off Ymer on the way to the final. The Swede hadn’t gone that far at a Challenger since losing in the Parma final to Borna Coric in June 2022.
Jaime Faria made headlines earlier this year by winning 20 consecutive matches on the ITF Tour and has had a pretty nice transition to the Challenger circuit, coming very close to making the final in Oeiras in April when he was 7-5 4-1 up on Francisco Comesana. As it turned out, he needed to wait only until the next Oeiras event to reach that milestone. The key win this time came over Dennis Novak in the quarterfinals as he came back from 2-6 1-4 down.
Faria loosened up with aggressive hitting by the second set of the final, but Ymer was doing a great job cutting out unnecessary errors when it came to the crunch. The Portuguese had issues getting over the finish line but eventually claimed that set in a tie-break, and while he went down 1-4 in the 3rd set, that slightly passive approach of the Swede ended up backfiring in the long run. Faria was the better player when he found his rhythm and took his maiden Challenger title 3-6 7-6 6-4. He breaks the Top 200 and will head to Roland Garros qualifying now, just like Ymer.
Tunis
Oriol Roca Batalla is playing some of the best tennis of his career at 31, but his clay swing actually wasn’t going that well, with just one quarterfinal. The Spaniard won a thriller against Mark Lajal through a deciding set tie-break here and went on to post a great run, defeating Murkel Dellien in the quarterfinals and the in-form Damir Dzumhur in the final four. Roca Batalla made his 4th Challenger final, with three of them coming since August last year.
Valentin Royer has been looking for his breakthrough event on the Challenger Tour for a while and finally found it. A tough draw saw him have to take on Jesper de Jong and home crowd favorite Aziz Dougaz in the first two rounds. He beat both of them in deciding sets, coming back from 2-4 in the 3rd against the Tunisian. Royer also stopped the in-form top seed Valentin Vacherot in the semifinals to make his first Challenger Tour final.
The final was an exciting battle with plenty of cross-court backhand rallies. It was the two-hander of Royer that was allowing him to go down the line much more smoothly and the Frenchman led 5-3 in the first set and 4-2 in the second. But Roca Batalla did what he does best – dug deep and put enough pressure on his opponent to overcome both deficits and take his 2nd Challenger title 7-6 7-5. Both players are now headed to the Roland Garros qualifying competition.
Taipei
Illya Marchenko had lost in the opening round in four consecutive events prior to Taipei but managed to regroup in time to make his finish to the Asian Swing a relative success. After coming back from a set down against Evgeny Donskoy in the second round, he took out the top seed and only Top 100 player in the draw in Max Purcell. Despite losing the opening set with a bagel tu Yu-Hsiou Hsu, he also went a step further to make the final.
Adam Walton has been making finals left and right on the Challenger circuit this year with Taipei already being his 5th (won Burnie, finished runner-up on three occasions). These results have been getting him closer and closer to a Top 100 debut and he finally secured a direct chance by making the Taipei final. The run was as solid as always from Walton with just one win from a set down over James Duckworth in an all-Aussie battle.
Marchenko came out with some great aggressive hitting, but Walton didn’t get discouraged and just kept making things tough for the opponent. That (and some great serving with 17 aces) eventually led to the Aussie going up 5-3 in the 3rd set. Marchenko broke back but was unable to hit through the solid rival in the deciding set tie-break. Walton grabbed his 3rd Challenger title 3-6 6-2 7-6 and secured his Top 100 debut, also ensuring a main draw spot at Wimbledon. He has received the Australian reciprocal wildcard for Roland Garros, while Marchenko hopes to get in for the qualifying there (he’s a few spots off on the alternate list).
Events held this week:
- Macedonian Open (Skopje, Challenger 75, clay)
- Kachreti Challenger (Challenger 50, hard)
- Schwaben Open (Augsburg, Challenger 50, clay)
There will be no Top 100 players in action.
First-round matches to watch:
Skopje
- (1) Chun-Hsin Tseng vs (PR) Nicolas Alvarez Varona
- (ALT) Kamil Majchrzak vs (8) Gauthier Onclin
Kachreti
- Cem Ilkel vs Altug Celikbilek
- Roberto Cid Subervi vs (2) Charles Broom
Augsburg
- Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez vs (5) Adolfo Daniel Vallejo
- (8) Elmer Moller vs Marko Topo
