Emilio Nava not only hasn’t lost in 15 matches, he hasn’t even dropped a set in his last 12. Meanwhile, both Kamil Majchrzak and Marin Cilic were hunting for a last-minute chance to jump into a ranking position guaranteeing Roland Garros main draw. In Monza, Raphael Collignon once more showed that he can be unstoppable on the Challenger Tour. Here’s a look back at last week’s action:
Challenger Tour Weekly Recap
Mexico City
Luka Pavlovic had a couple of strong runs at the high-altitude Challengers in Kigali, picking up eight wins across the two events. It was unclear how he was going to perform in a rather unfamiliar setting so far away from Europe, but the conditions in Mexico City were just as suitable for him. The big serve helped him go 4-0 in tiebreaks as he reached his second Challenger final, dropping just one set along the way (interestingly, it was a second-set bagel to Juan Pablo Varillas).
Felipe Meligeni Alves won the first event of the Mexican swing in Merida, but then suffered early exits in the hard-court tournaments at Morelia and Morelos. Back on clay and in another M-named city, he had his work cut out for him with two match points saved against Beibit Zhukayev in the opening round (both plus one forehand forced errors). Surviving that gave him a real boost and he went all the way to the championship match, snapping the 8-match win streak of Marc-Andrea Huesler in the semifinals.
Meligeni Alves was the first player to make the massive serve of Pavlovic look somewhat ordinary and that really helped him gain the upper hand. Off the ground he had a somewhat significant edge too, the Frenchman struggling to execute attacking combination without that early advantage. Meligeni Alves claimed his fifth Challenger Tour title with a 6-3 6-3 win and is now 100 points away from the Top 100 as both finalists are headed to San Luis Potosi.
Madrid
Cilic took a severe beating at the hands of Ignacio Buse in Menorca, but was pretty tired coming off a Girona title run. He drew the same opponent just a few days later in Madrid and this time took down the Peruvian in straights. The 36-year-old needed to win the title to make Roland Garros main draw and reached the final with a couple of deciding set tiebreak wins against Vilius Gaubas (who triumphed in Menorca) and the in-form Valentin Royer.
Majchrzak reached the semifinals at the ATP 250 in Marrakech the week before Madrid but as he was dropping 25 points, he needed a run to the final to make Roland Garros main draw. He started by beating second seed Hugo Dellien, but the craziest matches came on Saturday (had to play twice due to rain) as Majchrzak took down Pablo Carreno Busta and Norbert Gombos (the latter from 3-5 in the third set), sealing his return to the top 100 just 15 months after being unranked following a suspension.
Majchrzak couldn’t play as aggressively as in some other matches throughout the week, but he was steadier than Cilic and found ways to produce opportunistic offense. The Croat leveled the match a little out of nowhere and after digging himself out of a 0-40 at the start of the third, it seemed like the huge rain delay at 3-2 could help him out. But a few hours later, the dynamics from the beginning of the match returned with Majchrzak claiming his eighth Challenger title 6-3 4-6 6-4. He will now take a week off before playing ATP 1000 Madrid qualifying, while Cilic is supposed to return for Mauthausen after getting even more rest.
Monza
Collignon started his clay season with a loss to eventual champion Vit Kopriva in the opening round in Naples, then lost to Nuno Borges in Marrakech after the Portuguese played an outstanding 7-0 deciding set tiebreak. It wasn’t until Monza that he really picked up his game and reminded the fans why he was such a force on the dirt last year. He held off Jan Choinski from a set down in the quarterfinals before brutally snapping the 7-match win streak of Dalibor Svrcina 6-1 6-1.
Vitaliy Sachko grabbed a special exempt for Monza after finishing runner-up to Dalibor Svrcina in Barletta and started his campaign with a win from a set down against second seed Nishesh Basavareddy. Losing the opening set 3-6 was his theme of the week as it happened in three consecutive matches (including against Jacopo Vasami, who held a match point against him in Monza). But Sachko won all these encounters and then one more three-setter against Luca Van Assche to reach back-to-back finals.
Sachko was a bit worn out from the previous encounters and for Collignon, that was just grist to his mill. Even with massive shots coming his way, the Belgian’s rally tolerance was so high with margin for error despite the pace and heaviness he was playing with. Sachko had a brief fightback from 3-6 3-5 down, but Collignon still claimed his fourth Challenger title (all since August) 6-3 7-5 and moved up to #83 in the ATP Rankings. He’s part of the main draw in Oeiras, while the runner-up will take the week off and probably return for the Challenger Tour in Rome.
Sarasota
Nava won back-to-back titles on clay in South America recently and after getting some much-needed rest, didn’t waste any time taking that form to the Har-Tru swing in the United States. While the favorite in all his matches as the in-form player right now, the 23-year-old faced some tough opposition in Tomas Barrios Vera or Eliot Spizzirri. Both these opponents took him to a tiebreak in one set, but nobody was able to get more as Nava rolled into the final on streaks of 14 matches and 24 sets won in a row.
Liam Draxl reached two indoor finals in Oeiras in January and while he didn’t keep posting such major results, he stayed in good shape and kept producing solid runs as the season went on. The Canadian has some Har-Tru experience, but had never played the United States green clay swing before. Despite that, he made the final and posted an impressive win over Federico Agustin Gomez in the semifinals after briefly going down a set and a break.
Nava started so well but was clearly getting a bit irritated at the start of the second set with Draxl being a pest and even throwing in a successful underarm serve. The Nava of old would have imploded there at 0-3 (two breaks down) in the second set, but not his current version. He dug deep and claimed his fifth Challenger Tour title 6-2 7-6(2), maintaining his streaks of matches (15) and sets (26) won, while also moving into the lead of the USTA Roland Garros Wildcard Challenge with three weeks to go. Both finalists are playing Tallahassee next.
Events held this week:
- Busan Open (Challenger 125, hard)
- Oeiras Open 4 (Challenger 125, clay)
- Banorte Tennis Open (San Luis Potosi, Challenger 75, clay)
- Tallahassee Tennis Challenger (Challenger 75, green clay)
- Cote d’Ivoire Open 1 (Abidjan, Challenger 50, hard)
Top 100 players in action:
- Adam Walton (Busan)
- Francisco Comesana, Roman Safiullin, Raphael Collignon, Thiago Monteiro (Oeiras)
- James Duckworth (San Luis Potosi)
First-round matches to watch:
Busan
- (WC) Soonwoo Kwon vs Antoine Escoffier
- (PR) Jason Kubler vs Rei Sakamoto
- Emil Ruusuvuori vs (WC) Hyeon Chung
Oeiras
- Lukas Klein vs (5) Nishesh Basavareddy
- (3) Raphael Collignon vs Jerome Kym
- Elmer Moller vs (4) Thiago Monteiro
- Alexander Blockx vs (2) Roman Safiullin
San Luis Potosi
- Maxime Cressy vs Tom Paris
- Maxime Janvier vs (4) Juan Pablo Ficovich
Tallahassee
- (1) Eliot Spizzirri vs Murphy Cassone
- Michael Mmoh vs (2) Tomas Barrios Vera
Abidjan
- Lucas Poullain vs (8) Philip Henning
- (WC) Benoit Paire vs Daniil Glinka
Main photo credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
