Three maiden winners were crowned on the ATP Challenger Tour last week. Daniel Rincon isn’t really a surprise as a recent junior Slam champion, while Federico Arnaboldi made an incredible step up this month. Meanwhile, Antoine Escoffier wasn’t far off a certain record related to age when grabbing your first title. Jerome Kym and Gabriel Diallo also produced extremely impressive runs to titles – but one included seven match points saved and the other had the winner avoid getting broken the entire week. Read back on last week’s action:
Zug
Roman Andres Burruchaga arrived in Zug on a four-match losing streak, disappointing especially during the Romanian Brasov/Iasi double when he went out in the opening round twice. But it’s not the first time the Argentinian shows that even though his game isn’t suited to faster clay conditions on paper, he can still outgrind his opponents at events like that. In the opening round, he saved six match points to come back from 2-5 in the 3rd against Dylan Dietrich, suddenly turning the screw and playing much better for the rest of the week.
Jerome Kym didn’t seem to be in contention for a US Open qualifying spot starting the week at World No. 278, but the Swiss is on fire right now and nothing is impossible for him. He defeated Kamil Majchrzak in the second round (avenging his Bratislava semifinal loss) and prevailed over Marko Topo in an incredible three-set battle that included seven match point saves (5 in the 2nd set tie-break, 2 in the 3rd set tie-break). The 21-year-old then followed it up by beating Joris De Loore.
Despite a long week behind him, Kym lost nothing of his firepower and just kept producing some overwhelming aggressive shotmaking. Burruchaga tried his best to stay close and even edged ahead for a moment in the second set, but the Swiss just wasn’t going to be denied. Kym grabbed his 2nd Challenger title 6-4 6-4, jumping almost 100 ranking spots and securing his Top 200 debut. Next up for him is the Challenger in Liberec, while Burruchaga is appearing in Luedenscheid.
Verona
Vilius Gaubas seemed quite far off a potential US Open qualifying spot at the beginning of the week, but the Lithuanian was able to put himself in contention and very likely secure it by making the final. After avenging a recent defeat to Enrico Dalla Valle, he went on a run of dispatching veterans in tight battles. Richard Gasquet came the closest with two match points in the final set tie-break, but Gaubas survived to go on to beat Hugo Dellien and Nikoloz Basilashvili.
Federico Arnaboldi had his breakthrough when he made the final in Modena and while he lost round one in Trieste after that, the defeat came at the hands of eventual runner-up Tomas Barrios Vera. The Italian was right back at it in Verona and only dropped one set on the way to the final (in six matches as he started from the qualifying draw). Most of the time he was even barely dropping games and while Ugo Blanchest pushed him to a decider, that encounter ended with a bagel.
Arnaboldi continued his streak of dominant displays. He had the ability to stick with Gaubas in the longer exchanges, but also the far superior firepower on his forehand to wrap up points or produce a sharper angle to open up the court. The Italian picked up his maiden Challenger title 6-2 6-2 to complete an incredible July which really took his career to a whole new level. It likely won’t be enough to make US Open qualifying, but it puts him right on the verge of the Top 250. He grabbed a special exempt into San Marino, where Gaubas will also feature.
Tampere
Calvin Hemery won his only Challenger title in Tampere in 2017 and didn’t play that event again until 2024. A wild opening round with Mathys Erhard saw him have to fight back from 2-5 down in the deciding set, but the Frenchman picked himself up to secure another chance at a second title at this level. Since winning Tampere seven years ago he lost six consecutive Challenger finals, three of them across the past 13 months (Troyes and Seville in 2023, Blois in 2024).
2021 US Open boys’ singles champion Daniel Rincon was in big danger of missing qualifying for the 2024 senior event in New York, but pretty much secured his spot with a couple of great weeks in Amersfoort and Tampere. After last week’s semifinal loss to Alexey Zakharov, he was 0-6 at that stage of Challenger events. Just seven days later he put an end to that stat by defeating Gabi Adrian Boitan to make his maiden final at this level.
That Hemery final record isn’t completely out of nowhere and it took him a full set to get himself going on Sunday. He did start keeping it extremely close not long after though and was fully there beside Rincon until the second set tie-break. But he had no margin of error and couple of mistakes led to him falling behind with the Spaniard securing his first Challenger title 6-1 7-6, further making sure that he won’t miss US Open qualifying. He will rest a week before returning in Cordenons now, while Hemery is headed to Luedenscheid right away.
Chicago
Gabriel Diallo had lost in the opening round of his last five Challenger events (not including qualifying). The Canadian is usually at his sharpest in North American hard courts events though and he turned things around swiftly here. He dominated the highly-anticipated blockbuster with Joao Fonseca in the second round before giving no chance to in-form players such as Mitchell Krueger and Jacob Fearnley Diallo made his first Challenger final since Bratislava in October last year.
Bu Yunchaokete was already the player who came the closest to breaking Learner Tien’s win streak in Bloomfield Hills (led 6-0 4-2 before collapsing) and managed to put an end to that run in the semifinals in Chicago. By doing that, the Granby champion from the week before Chicago produced a pretty nice streak of his own. On the way to another final, he only dropped one set to Hugo Grenier in the quarterfinals and faced Diallo with nine wins in a row.
And in the final, the Canadian continued his flawless week. He won about 90% of his first serve points again and only faced one break point, getting the total number for the week up to four (all saved). Bu kept things tight in the second set, but Diallo was able to run away with the tie-break from literally the very first point and claim his 3rd Challenger title 6-3 7-6. He had to pull out of Washington ATP 500 qualifying but instead grabbed a special exempt for Lexington, where the Chicago runner-up will also make an appearance.
Segovia
Antoine Escoffier missed his second chance at a Challenger title by losing to August Holmgren in Pozoblanco the week before Segovia. Who knew that another opportunity would present itself only a week later. He beat Iliyan Radulov in the opening round, this time in straights unlike in their previous match five days earlier, before grabbing two more wins to make the final without dropping a set. Once again, he was in that position where he would become the second-oldest Challenger first-time champion if he claimed the title.
Alex Martinez has just wrapped up his college career for the University of Oklahoma and had picked up one ITF semifinal in the pro events he played since. Segovia was his Challenger debut, but the 23-year-old managed to qualify and win three consecutive matches in deciding sets (including finding himself 0-3 and 2-4 down in the third set of two separate matches). Up until the semifinal he hadn’t produced a marquee win, but he took care of that when he beat Nicolas Alvarez Varona.
Escoffier played an extremely clean first set, but the nerves soon began creeping into his game. The execution on the attack was spotty at best in the second set and he didn’t find it easy to get over the line in the decider either. In the final he game had to dig himself out of a 0-4o hole and Martinez missed a routine smash break point up. Escoffier eventually claimed his 1st Challenger title 6-3 2-6 6-3, becoming the second-oldest Challenger first-time champion after Joseph Sirianni (32 years 10 months, the Frenchman did it at 32 years and 5 months). Both finalists will be in Porto this week, Martinez grabbing a special exempt.
Challenger Tour magic:
Unreal match point in Zug as 19yo Mika Brunold takes out #85 Botic van de Zandschulp 7-6 3-6 7-6 (from 0-4 down in the 3rd).
📷: @ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/nYvCFHT8BQ— Damian Kust (@damiankust) July 23, 2024
Learner his name? Tien with the tweener in Chicago
📷: @ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/3VMVzUuF0b— Damian Kust (@damiankust) July 27, 2024
Events held this week:
- Porto Open (Challenger 125, hard)
- San Marino Tennis Open (Challenger 125, clay)
- Platzmann Open (Luedenscheid, Challenger 100, clay)
- Lexington Challenger (Challenger 75, hard)
- Svijany Open by Moneta Money Bank (Liberec, Challenger 75, clay)
Top 100 players in action:
- Fabio Fognini, Francisco Comesana (San Marino)
- Botic van de Zandschulp (Luedenscheid)
First-round matches to watch:
Porto
- (1) Lukas Klein vs Egor Gerasimov
- Zsombor Piros vs (5) Jaime Faria
San Marino
- (6) Gustavo Heide vs Filip Misolic
- (SE) Federico Arnaboldi vs (2) Francisco Comesana
Luedenscheid
- (1) Botic van de Zandschulp vs Rudolf Molleker
- (WC) Diego Dedura-Palomero vs (ALT) Raphael Collignon
Lexington
- (1) Bu Yunchaokete vs Arthur Gea
- Kaichi Uchida vs (6) Joao Fonseca
Liberec
- (1) Hugo Dellien vs Dalibor Svrcina
- Carlos Taberner vs (2) Nicolas Moreno de Alboran
Main Photo Credit: Clayton Freeman/Florida Times-Union]
