Vilius Gaubas became the 3rd-ever Challenger Tour champion from Lithuania after Ricardas Berankis (15 titles) and Laurynas Grigelis (1), while Hugo Dellien keeps impressing with back-to-back titles (and three trophies in about a month). Facundo Mena proved his altitude clay expertise in Bogota with Jacob Fearnely continuing his brilliant introduction to the professional tennis scene in Lincoln. Read up on last week’s action:
Bogota
Facundo Mena is one of the players who always perform well at altitude. In his resurgent season with two ITF titles and two Challenger finals (Santa Fe, Ibague), the Argentinian returned from Europe for this event and was always going to be a tricky customer. The second round looked shaky though as he briefly went down a break in the decider to Tomas Farjat, but he followed it up with better performances against Facundo Bagnis and Karue Sell.
Mateus Alves had been 0-4 in Challenger Tour quarterfinals before Bogota. The Brazilian was able to take out Benjamin Lock, who eliminated the top-seeded Thiago Agustin Tirante in the opening round, before reaching that milestone semifinal thanks to a huge comeback against Bernard Tomic. The 23-year-old went down 0-4 in the deciding set, only to take the match 3-6 6-2 7-6. To face Mena on Sunday, he had to defeat another altitude specialist in Nicolas Mejia.
Mena’s love for altitude conditions was extremely apparent in the final as well. He was unbreakable and kept producing effective, simple patterns on his delivery. He also hunted weaker 2nd serves to get the breaks and while he ended up blinking while serving for the match at 6-4 5-4, the 31-year-old recovered quickly to take his 3rd Challenger title 6-4 7-5. Both finalists are headed to Santo Domingo next with Alves picking up a special exempt to join the main draw (was the No. 1 alternate anyway).
Bonn
Hugo Dellien has been on fire since winning the Challenger in Iasi at the beginning of July and after claiming the title in Liberec the week before Bonn, he showed no signs of slowing down. He only granted his first three opponents a total of nine games before facing Martin Landaluce in the semifinals. The Spanish youngster came closer but also couldn’t take down Dellien (5-7 3-6), who secured his second chance to win Challengers in back-to-back weeks (in 2022 he won Santiago and lost in the Concepcion final).
Maximilian Marterer had been struggling while trying to compete on the ATP Tour most of the season but hadn’t fallen off in the rankings almost one bit with his strong second half of 2023 keeping him up. But now is when the German will need to find his game again. The run in Bonn couldn’t have come at a better time and included good wins over the likes of Benjamin Hassan or Henri Squire, along with a surprisingly tough battle against Hady Habib.
Marterer gave Dellien his toughest challenge of the week in the opening set, often taking the racket out of the Bolivian’s hands and playing his brand of very aggressive serve +1 forehand tennis. The first set tie-break turned out crucial though as Dellien drew out some key errors and found the confidence to start moving the ball around the court with his forehand getting plenty of bounce on the courts in Bonn. The Bolivian claimed his 13th Challenger title 7-6 6-0 and is just about 30 points away from a Top 100 return. Both players will now take a week of rest before appearing at US Open qualifying.
Cordenons
Vilius Gaubas had already made two Challenger finals earlier this season, both on Italian soil (lost to Alejandro Moro Canas in Rome and Federico Arnaboldi in Verona). The 19-year-old found himself in a pretty open section of the draw in Cordenons and took that chance expertly. He didn’t drop a set on the way to the final and was only pushed by Andrew Paulson with the Czech going up 4-1 before retiring right after the opening set due to back issues.
Carlos Taberner had been playing a very heavy Challenger schedule this year, but only progressed to the quarterfinals on three occasions (Barcelona, Augsburg, Tampere). The former Top 100 player wasn’t satisfied with this and finally got something going in Cordenons. After beating Riccardo Bonadio in the Italian’s last professional match in the quarterfinals, he took down the up-and-coming Alexander Blockx to reach his first final in almost exactly 12 months.
Taberner was smartly keeping the ball deep in the backhand corner of Gaubas and the Lithuanian youngster wasn’t feeling comfortable in the role of the attacker. But even though he lost the opening set, you could feel he was right in this if he got it sorted out. Despite some nerves near the finish line, Gaubas won this clay battle 2-6 6-2 6-4 to claim his 1st Challenger title. He’ll break the Top 200 and will take some rest now before US Open qualifying. Taberner will continue his journey in Todi.
Lincoln
Jacob Fearnley has been firing ever since wrapping up his college career at Texas Christian University. The Brit was a shock champion at the Challenger in Nottingham and later followed it up with a main draw win at Wimbledon and a semifinal run in Chicago. Back in action in Lincoln, he took out top-seeded Christopher Eubanks in the second round before surviving a crazy match against Bu Yunchaokete in the semifinals – he won 0-6 6-0 7-6 despite the Chinese serving for the match at 6-5 in the decider.
Coleman Wong lost three Challenger finals over the past year or so and was falling into some losing streaks around this summer. A semifinal in Lexington the week before Lincoln was already a signal that the 20-year-old was heading in the right direction though. He was able to avenge that loss by defeating Li Tu and posted comeback wins over strong college players in Jack Pinnington Jones and Nishesh Basavareddy to make another final at this level.
Wong might have been a little subpar in at least two of his previous three finals, but in Lincoln there really wasn’t all that much he could do. Fearnley was scrambling around the court so well and also firing back with that wrist-heavy Jack Sock-ish forehand. The combination of the weapons and athleticism was just too much for Wong as the Brit took his 2nd Challenger title 6-4 6-2. He will now rest a week before competing in US Open qualifying, while the runner-up took a special exempt into Cary.
Events held this week:
- RD Open (Santo Domingo, Challenger 125, clay)
- Atlantic Tire Championships (Cary, Challenger 100, hard)
- Kozerki Open (Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Challenger 75, hard)
- Internazionali di Tennis Citta di Todi (Challenger 75, clay)
Top 100 players in action:
- Federico Coria, Camilo Ugo Carabelli, Damir Dzumhur (Santo Domingo)
- Roman Safiullin, Alexandre Muller, Adam Walton, David Goffin, Aslan Karatsev (Cary)
First-round matches to watch:
Santo Domingo
- (1) Federico Coria vs Facundo Mena
- (5) Chun-Hsin Tseng vs Mateus Alves
Cary
- (7) Luca Van Assche vs Benjamin Bonzi
- Hamad Medjedovic vs Leandro Riedi
Kozerki
- (1) Vit Kopriva vs (WC) Martyn Pawelski
- Benoit Paire vs (5) Timofey Skatov
Todi
- (1) Stefano Travaglia vs (ALT) Juan Bautista Torres
- (6) Andrea Collarini vs Matej Dodig
Main Photo Credit: Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports
