Kamil Majchrzak and Lucas Pouille were among last week’s winners on the ATP Challenger Tour with the two renowned players getting closer to securing a top 100 return and perhaps the Australian Open main draw. Young stars Nishesh Basavareddy and Elmer Moller claimed their maiden titles, while Buenos Aires provided a fantastic all-Argentinian final. Here’s a look back at last week’s action:
Challenger Tour Weekly Recap
Mouilleron-le-Captif
Quentin Halys has been up and down recently, making the Rennes final (had two match points against Jacob Fearnley), before suffering a shock exit to Eliakim Coulibaly in the opening round in Orleans. This time the Frenchman was in trouble again in the early stages, getting tough wins over Matteo Martineau and Mark Lajal (in the latter match, he at one point lost 27 return points in a row). But eventually, Halys’s level only grew stronger as the week progressed.
Pouille took a week off after finishing runner-up to Gijs Brouwer in Saint-Tropez, coming back really strong for the next event in Mouilleron-le-Captif. On the way to the final the former top 10 player faced four compatriots in a row, dropping opening sets to Calvin Hemery and Manuel Guinard. He made his way back to prevail against both and defeated Harold Mayot in the semifinals with the 22-year-old’s potential top 100 debut still hanging in the balance until the second week of Shanghai.
First set came down to who takes their chances, but by the second Pouille was quickly edging ahead. His return was really tuned in on the day and he was forcing Halys into a few too many longer rallies for his compatriot’s liking. The number of break points created kept increasing and it eventually led to Pouille claiming his third Challenger Tour title 6-4 6-4. It was also the first time he won an event at this level on indoor hard (2019 Bordeaux and 2024 Mauthausen on clay). He finds himself extremely close to a top 100 return and will be hoping to secure an Australian Open main draw spot in the next few weeks. Both finalists will appear in Roanne this week.
Villena
Majchrzak’s great comeback season continued with the Pole making his fourth Challenger final of the season. Since winning Bratislava in June, he lost in semifinals in Poznan, Luedenscheid, and St. Tropez, maintaining a solid level and waiting for his chance. That finally came around in Villena with a gritty win over Jiri Vesely in the second round and then eliminating top-seeded Duje Ajdukovic in the quarterfinals. To make the final, he had to defeat the local hope Martin Landaluce.
Nicolas Moreno de Alboran made some main tour splashes in the first half of the season (especially Marrakech quarterfinal), before returning to a more consistent Challenger schedule since July. That resulted in three semifinal appearances on clay. His first event since a brutal loss to Jaume Munar (had three match points) was Villena and Moreno de Alboran made his first final in 14 months by defeating defending champion Constant Lestienne and Jerome Kym, who was looking unstoppable until their semifinal clash.
It was a very controlled performance from Majchrzak in the final, getting into trouble in only one of his service games. Otherwise he was holding easily and picking his moments to strike well. Moreno de Alboran relatively basic heavy forehand game didn’t have the kind of effect on him that it had on Kym for example. Majchrzak claimed his seventh Challenger Tour title (third of 2024) 6-4 6-2 and after starting the year unranked, he’ll be back in the top 120 when the rankings are next updated. He will take the week off and appear in his second tour-level event of the season at ATP 250 Stockholm, while Moreno de Alboran is due to appear in Valencia.
Buenos Aires
Federico Coria couldn’t be fully satisfied with his post-US Open appearances in Europe, not defending the title in Szczecin and grabbing a couple of early exits. The next stop in his quest to finish top 100 was back in South America, an event where he made the final last year. Coria dropped his opening set of the week to Alvaro Guillen Meza, but kept going to eventually make his first final since February. An intense semifinal clash against Juan Bautista Torres had him save seven set points to win in straights.
Francisco Comesana took a month off after making his second Grand Slam round three run at the US Open, returning for Buenos Aires. As the second seed, the Argentinian earned a couple of wins before getting into a see-sawing battle with Juan Pablo Varillas. Comesana had four match points at 6-2 in the second set tie-break, before having to win it from 3-5 down in the deciding set. By defeating Hugo Dellien, the 23-year-old made his second final of the season (Oeiras in April).
Comesana started out playing with lots of aggression, but it wasn’t really holding up against the skillful defending from Coria. He managed to cut down on some of the errors in the second set though, mixing in the slice and choosing his spots to attack more carefully. The top seed got to serve for the match at 6-1 6-5 and had two match points in the second-set tie-break, but Comesana saved them both and defeated a cramping (yet still fighting hard) Coria 1-6 7-6 6-4 to claim his sixth Challenger title. Both players are now within just one point of each other in the ATP Race, looking to make the Australian Open directly. Both are also scheduled to appear in Villa Maria this week.
Braga
Moller has been pushing for his first Challenger Tour title all year, losing finals in three sets to Timofey Skatov (Augsburg) and Hugo Dellien (Liberec). This time the young Dane kicked off from the qualifying and didn’t drop a set in five matches on the way to another final. Federico Bondioli, Blaz Rola, and Albert Ramos-Vinolas all took him to one tie-break each with the 21-year-old impressing especially in that last win and a heavy defeat of Vit Kopriva in the last eight.
Daniel Elahi Galan is currently fighting to make the Australian Open main draw and his first post US Open appearances didn’t go as planned at all. The Colombian was able to grab just two wins in for events, having to wait until Braga to finally put a run together. Having a couple of matches moved indoors certainly didn’t bother him as Galan made his first final in almost a year, requiring just one tie-break set against Andrea Pellegrino in the semifinals.
The final was once again moved indoors, but this time it was rather unclear who would be more pleased with that. As it turned out, Moller completely dominated the backhand-to-backhand exchanges, finding the redirection down-the-line perfectly almost every time. Things could have gotten a bit tricky in the second set tie-break, but he avoided losing another final from a set up with a great streak of points from 0-3 down and claimed his first Challenger Tour title 6-4 7-6. He is the ninth player from Denmark to triumph at this level. Both players will be in Valencia this week, Moller on a special exempt.
Tiburon
Basavareddy has been putting up great results in all the pro events he’s playing over the summer. The American made the final in Bloomfield Hills in July (lost to Learner Tien) before reaching another one in Columbus the week before in Tiburon (lost to Edas Butvilas). With a 0-3 record in Challenger finals overall, it was all about securing himself more opportunities and that’s what he did with just one set lost in the first four matches here (to Bernard Tomic in the opening round).
Eliot Spizzirri finished the last two college seasons for the University of Texas as the top-ranked player in the system. The American had already made a Challenger Tour semifinal in Winnipeg earlier in the summer, but suffered a few brutal losses just before Tiburon. This run saw him pick up four deciding set wins in a row. Against Ozan Baris and Jeffrey John Wolf, Spizzirri had to come back from 1-3 in the third. Abdullah Shelbayh even got to a match point, while the semifinal stage had him defeating the unsinkable Learner Tien.
While Basavareddy slightly underwhelmed in his previous final performances, he was on song in this one. Every point was played on his terms with dynamic winners left and right against a helpless Spizzirri. Basavareddy claimed his first Challenger Tour title (and indeed a first professional title at any level) 6-1 6-1, delivering one of the most dominant final displays of the season. He has withdrawn from Fairfield next week and will be back in qualifying for the ATP 250 in Antwerp, while the runner-up took a wildcard for this week’s American hard-court Challenger.
Events held this week:
- Copa Faulcombridge by Marcos Automocion (Valencia, Challenger 125, clay)
- Hangzhou Challenger (Challenger 125, hard)
- AAT Challenger Santander Edicion Villa Maria (Challenger 100, clay)
- Open de Roanne Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes (Roanne, Challenger 100, indoor hard)
- Taube – Grossman Pro Tennis Tournament (Fairfield, Challenger 75, hard)
Top 100 players in action:
- James Duckworth, Rinky Hijikata, Arthur Cazaux, Adam Walton (Hangzhou)
- Cameron Norrie, Quentin Halys (Roanne)
- Federico Coria (Villa Maria)
First-round matches to watch:
Valencia
- (5) Albert Ramos-Vinolas vs (SE) Elmer Moller
- (WC) Benoit Paire vs (2) Cristian Garin
Hangzhou
- (1) James Duckworth vs Yasutaka Uchiyama
- (6) Gabriel Diallo vs James McCabe
Villa Maria
- (WC) Juan Bautista Torres vs (5) Jesper de Jong
- (8) Federico Agustin Gomez vs Alvaro Guillen Meza
Roanne
- (4) Duje Ajdukovic vs (ALT) Clement Chidekh
- (WC) Gabriel Debru vs (2) Quentin Halys
Fairfield
- (1) Learner Tien vs Gonzalo Oliveira
- Alexis Galarneau vs (3) J. J. Wolf
Main photo credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
