Filip Misolic had been waiting for his next Challenger title for almost exactly two years, and for Francesco Maestrelli, it was almost three. Alvaro Guillen Meza is more consistent with his winnings at this level, but also picked up his first trophy of the season. Meanwhile, 28-year-old Fajing Sun was the maiden winner in Wuxi and has ensured a Grand Slam qualifying debut at Wimbledon in the process. Read up on last week’s Challenger Tour action:
Challenger Tour Weekly Recap
Wuxi
Fajing Sun had been 0-3 in Challenger quarterfinals before this week and didn’t start the Asian swing well. It was three consecutive losses and some injury issues in the first three weeks (in Gwangju, he had to serve underarm for the entire match). The 28-year-old picked it right up in Wuxi, but had to save a match point in the second round against Antoine Escoffier, forcing an error with his forehand. Sun came back from a set down against Ilia Simakin to reach his first Challenger final.
Alex Bolt picked up one win in Busan at the start of the series of tournaments in Asia, but then lost three consecutive times including opening round of qualifying in Gwangju. But just like Sun, he quickly showed that the game was actually there and posted a key three-set win over Constant Lestienne in the second round. The most impressive match had him snapping the 8-match win streak of recent Busan/Guangzhou champion Terence Atmane 6-3 6-4.
Neither player faced a break point for the first 23 games of the match. That already felt like a win for Sun, who usually wouldn’t be able to match Bolt’s serve. The Chinese took the opening set in the tie-break and finally created the first opportunities on return in a double-fault-heavy game from his opponent. Sun claimed his first Challenger Tour title 7-6(4) 6-4, with both players likely to secure Wimbledon qualifying spots as a result of these runs. Bolt withdrew from Zagreb and will likely play Roland Garros qualifying next, while Sun is signed up for the upcoming events in Tbilisi (M25 and Challenger).
Francavilla al Mare
Valentin Vacherot had a brilliant start to the 2024 season, later getting injured and playing just one event in the second half of the year. That made it difficult for him to repeat these crazy achievements and not fall in the rankings, but now the Monegasque player seems to be heading back in the right direction. After reaching the quarterfinals at Aix-en-Provence, he made his first final of 2025 thanks to comeback wins against Elias Ymer and Mark Lajal.
Francesco Maestrelli reached his maiden Challenger final in Francavilla al Mare in 2022, but he had mainly been struggling this season, with one quarterfinal in Rome a couple of weeks ago. The Italian showed some incredible tenacity during this run, first outlasting the veterans Radu Albot and Benoit Paire from a set down, before coming back from 3-6 1-4 (two breaks) down against Dominic Stricker. Maestrelli saved two match points in the second set tie-break before the Swiss was forced to retire.
Vacherot was the favorite in the final and started strong with a 4-1 lead. However, the crowd helped their player gather some momentum, and Maestrelli soon began luring the errors out of his opponent with some strong turning defense into offense play. As the match went on, the longer rallies would almost always end with an error from Vacherot. Maestrelli never looked back and claimed his 2nd Challenger title 6-4 6-4. He picked up a special exemption for Tunis and will have a shot at making Wimbledon qualifying now, while the runner-up takes the week off before Roland Garros.
Prague
Filip Misolic is enjoying a bounce-back season with the Tenerife-2 final in February and a recent ATP 250 quarterfinal in Bucharest. He’s also been putting in solid work on the Challenger Tour, but couldn’t close out Dalibor Svrcina at the last eight stage in Monza. This time, he defeated Nikoloz Basilashvili for the second time in as many weeks, stopped the run of 2024 Wimbledon boys’ singles runner-up Mees Rottgering, and took down Lukas Klein in the semifinals.
Guy den Ouden reached the Kigali-2 final in March and another couple of ITF finals, slowly but surely improving his ranking. The Dutchman had to come through the qualifying in Prague, but was blasting through the draw. The only opponent to push him close was Alexander Blockx in the quarterfinals, with den Ouden finally cutting down on his error count and outlasting the Belgian physically. The 23-year-old reached his third Challenger final, all since last September.
It was a tale of two parts, with the players reaching 4-all before Misolic stopped losing games. The precision of his heavy topspin forehand was something an erratic den Ouden couldn’t match, often spraying wildly from aggressive positions. Misolic claimed his third Challenger title 6-4 6-0 and will now play in Zagreb, where he won his first trophy at this level back in 2022. Den Ouden will take the week off and then return either for Roland Garros qualifying or in Skopje if he doesn’t make the cut for Paris.
Santos
Alvaro Guillen Meza suffered two opening-round losses after reaching the final in Campinas at the start of this South American Challenger 50 swing. The top seed in Santos, he got involved in a very difficult encounter against Bruno Kuzuhara, surviving from 1-6 0-2 down and briefly going down a break on multiple occasions in the tie-break as well. Due to rain delays, he had to finish his semifinal against Franco Roncadelli indoors on Sunday and could have wrapped it up a bit more efficiently but still won 6-2 7-6.
Matheus Pucinelli de Almeida had been picking up solid Challenger results of late, with the semifinals in Asuncion and then Porto Alegre, the latter of these runs coming just before Santos. He kept it up by defeating his compatriot Eduardo Ribeiro from a set down in the opening round, before withstanding another three-setter against Nicolas Alvarez Varona. Pucinelli de Almeida later beat Nicolas Kicker on Sunday to reach his first Challenger final in almost exactly two years (Coquimbo 2023).
Pucinelli de Almeida led Guillen Meza 3-0 in the head-to-head, including two defeats this season in Concepcion and Porto Alegre. Fatigue-wise, it was a level playing field with both players given sufficient time to rest after their semifinals earlier that day. Pucinelli de Almeida was a bit more beat up, though, but still managed to reach six set points in the second set, given how crazy the finish to the match was. Guillen Meza claimed his third Challenger Tour title 6-3 7-6(12) and will break the Top 200 after Rome. He is supposed to have a very short turnaround to fly to Europe for Zagreb, while Pucinelli de Almeida stays in South America for Bogota.
Events held this week:
- BNP Paribas Primrose Bordeaux (Challenger 175, clay)
- Piemonte Open Intesa Sampaolo (Turin, Challenger 175, clay)
- Oeiras 5 (Challenger 100, clay)
- KIA Tunis Open (Challenger 75, clay)
- Zagreb Open (Challenger 75, clay)
- KIA Open (Bogota, Challenger 50, clay)
Top 100 players in action:
- Brandon Nakashima, Sebastian Baez, Tallon Griekspoor, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, Quentin Halys, Damir Dzumhur, Hugo Gaston, Aleksandar Kovacevic, Rinky Hijikata, Alexander Shevchenko, Nishesh Basavareddy (Bordeaux)
- Flavio Cobolli, Luciano Darder, Tomas Martin Etcheverry, Roberto Carballes Baena, Camilo Ugo Carabelli, Daniel Altmaier, Buyunchaokete, Alexander Bublik, Luca Nardi, Mariano Navone (Turin)
First-round matches to watch:
Bordeaux
- (WC) Stan Wawrinka vs Billy Harris
- (WC) Terence Atmane vs Daniel Elahi Galan
Turin
- (ALT) Matteo Gigante vs (8) Alexander Bublik
- Luca Nardi vs Mariano Navone
Oeiras
- (PR) Yibing Wu vs (5) Tristan Boyer
- Henrique Rocha vs (2) Jaime Faria
Tunis
- (7) Aziz Dougaz vs Bernard Tomic
- Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez vs (4) Coleman Wong
Zagreb
- (3) Luca Van Assche vs Dalibor Svrcina
- (WC) Luka Mikrut vs Emil Ruusuvuori
Bogota
- Zdenek Kolar vs (3) Karue Sell
- (8) Renzo Olivo vs Patrick Kypson
Main Photo Credit: Danielle Parhizkaran – USA TODAY Sports
