Most of the attention last week on the Challenger Tour was focused on the last pair of Challenger 175 events with Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard serving his way to the title in Bordeaux, while Alexander Bublik made every opponent uncomfortable in Turin. Meanwhile, Cristian Garin and Zsombor Piros were able to extend their winning streaks and Dino Prizmic reminded us why he was regarded as such an incredible prospect. Here’s a look back at last week’s action:
ATP Challenger Tour Weekly Recap
Bordeaux
Nikoloz Basilashvili seemed to be eyeing a return to the top 100 with some good runs earlier in the season, but a series of disappointing results on clay (1-5 before Bordeaux) was putting him further and further away from that goal. Who could have guessed it was time for the Georgian to pull off something incredible. He posted his first top 50 win in two years by defeating Brandon Nakashima in the quarterfinals on perhaps his best serving day ever before snapping Tallon Griekspoor’s 32-match win streak at the Challenger level.
Mpetshi Perricard arrived in Bordeaux on a six-match losing streak, looking to play his first Challenger Tour event since this very event in 2024. Back then he earned a couple of wins before losing to Gregoire Barrere in the quarterfinals. This time as one of the top four seeds and with a bye in the opening round, the 21-year-old quickly turned his form around with three straight-set wins to reach the final. Of the six sets he played in the first three matches, five ended with a 7-5 or 7-6 scoreline.
A sloppy 0-3 start is not what you want to do against Mpetshi Perricard and the Frenchman made Basilashvili pay. But Basilashvili worked his way back into the contest impressively and kept himself more composed in the final moments of the second set. But despite six break points at 3-all in the third set, it was all Mpetshi Perricard from there as the giant was content with falling behind the baseline and trying to grind Basilashvili down. The Frenchman claimed his fifth Challenger title (first on clay) 6-3 6-7(5) 7-5 and will now compete in Hamburg, while the runner-up has to try qualifying for Roland Garros.
Turin
Bu Yunchaokete had been struggling on the ATP Tour this year with a 5-14 main draw record. The Chinese hadn’t competed in a Challenger yet in 2025 with the decision to sign up for Turin proving to be extremely profitable. He faced a series of three Italian opponents to kick off the event, including former world #9 Fabio Fognini or defending champion Francisco Passaro (who retired at 5-5 with a right gluteus issue). Bu didn’t look back and posted a surprisingly quick win over Camilo Ugo Carabelli to reach his first clay-court final.
Bublik had a disastrous start to the year, but making the final at the Challenger 175 in Phoenix put him back on track. He’s been much stronger since especially with the run in Madrid of late and now chose to show up at another event of this category. The Kazakh was quick to forget about a 0-6 opening set against Federico Arnaboldi, before impressing in wins over clay-court specialists Tomas Martin Etcheverry and Daniel Altmaier.
Bublik began the final by firing rockets from his backhand corner and doing his best to keep Bu off-rhythm. The Chinese took an off-court medical time out at 1-2 and was clearly hindered by a lower back muscle issue picked up at the beginning of the match. He fought hard to keep himself in the running for the title and pulled off a few games with superb serving. But it was never going to be enough and Bublik picked up his seventh Challenger Tour title (first since 2019) 6-3 6-3. Both players are in the draw at the ATP 500 in Hamburg this week.
Oeiras
Mitchell Krueger’s career resurgence continues to gather momentum, , but he is not usually at his best on the European red clay so opening-round losses in Madrid and Rome qualifying didn’t come as a huge surprise. However, you wouldn’t say that based on the quality produced by Krueger last week. In Oeiras, he dropped just one set on the way to his first European clay Challenger final, impressing especially in dominant wins over Thiago Monteiro, Yibing Wu, or Hady Habib.
Garin claimed his first Challenger Tour title since 2018 in Mauthausen two weeks before Oeiras and after resting for a week, the former world #17 was looking for a nice follow-up. From the get-go, it was pretty clear that he’s still firing on all cylinders with the quarterfinal against Gastao Elias proving to be his first difficult match. But it was the next round against familiar foe Roman Andres Burruchaga that took it to the next level – Garin came back from a set and a break down, just like in their recent Mauthausen semifinal.
Garin is the more natural clay-courter of the two and fared better in any cat-and-mouse play, but it wasn’t easy for him to turn it into a winning advantage. He upped the pace in the opening set tie-break with Krueger fighting back not long after. But it was a couple of moments of magic from Garin, like a forehand cross-court pass despite getting wrong-footed, that helped him dominate the decider and clinch his sixth Challenger title 7-6(3) 4-6 6-2. With 10 wins in a row, the Chilean moves back into the top 125 of the ATP Rankings. Both finalists will now try their luck in Roland Garros qualifying.
Tunis
Piros recently dominated the Challenger in Ostrava without dropping a set before dropping out of Prague due to fatigue. It was a delight to see the Hungarian maintain that form a week later in Tunis. By the time he reached the final he was not only on a 10-match winning streak, but had also claimed his last 20 sets played. All that he did without even getting to a tie-break with Hynek Barton being the only opponent who took five games in a set off him in the first four matches in Tunisia.
Titouan Droguet tried his luck in a few ATP Tour qualifying events this year, but with just one Challenger Tour quarterfinal this season (Quimper) his form wasn’t looking that good anyway. Making things happen in Tunis didn’t come easy either with the Frenchman going down 2-6 1-3 to his countryman Erhard. But often just that one win can help unblock you mentally and while aided by Federico Coria’s retirement, Droguet defeated Yuta Shimizu and Chris Rodesch to reach his first final since last May.
Piros was simply refusing to lose that streak of sets won in a row, despite Droguet putting himself in the perfect position to end it. The Frenchman went up 5-4 40-0 on serve and had five set points in that game, only for his opponent to pull out one counter-punching gem after another. Things remained close later on but the mental edge was becoming clear as Piros claimed his seventh Challenger title 7-5 7-6(3), setting up three match points with a jaw-dropping forehand pass on the run. He is expected to play in Skopje next while Droguet tries to qualify for Roland Garros.
Zagreb
Prizmic missed over a month of action recently, but taking that break proved to be fruitful as he returned in style in Zagreb. The Croat took down two-time 2025 Challenger Tour champion Kyrian Jacquet and then lost just five games against the powerful game of Jerome Kym. Reaching the final turned out to be tougher than expected with Marco Trungelliti fighting back from 3-6 1-4 double break down and even getting to serve for the match, but the 19-year-old somehow survived that encounter.
Luca Van Assche lost his next four matches after reaching the semifinals in Monza a month before Zagreb, but was right back on it with a quick defeat of Dalibor Svrcina in the opening round. The Frenchman recently fell outside the top 200 with that number not reflecting his quality of play last week at all. He snapped the 7-match winning streak of Prague champion Filip Misolic and while he needed to finish that match on Friday morning, fatigue wasn’t an issue when he took apart Luka Pavlovic later that day.
Prizmic usually struggles with fellow ball machine players, but here you could see he had a nice attacking mindset. However, we didn’t really get to see how this final would have transpired. Van Assche started struggling with a leg issue and after a medical time-out at 2-5, he had to call it quits after dropping the opening set. Prizmic claimed his second Challenger title 6-2 RET and moves up the rankings, but will need to achieve something in Skopje next week to make Wimbledon qualifying. Van Assche can still hope to play Roland Garros qualifying if the injury isn’t too serious.
Bogota
Patrick Kypson had been struggling with his health for a better part of the year now, recently missing three months of action before returning in April. The American isn’t new to playing in South America, having won his maiden Challenger title in Medellin in 2023. At another altitude event in Colombia, he took out a few specialists of these conditions like Renzo Olivo or Elmar Ejupovic. The toughest match saw him come three points away from defeat against Hernan Casavona in a 3-6 7-6 7-5 semifinal win.
Pedro Sakamoto reached one ITF final earlier this season, but was struggling to piece a run together at the Challenger level. The 31-year-old had also lost in the opening round of the previous two events in Brazil. Moving to the high altitude conditions in Bogota helped with Sakamoto posting three wins from a set down in a row. Two of them he had to complete on Friday, advancing to his first Challenger final (was 0-4 in semifinals) after defeating his 19-year-old compatriot Pedro Rodrigues.
Perhaps Sakamoto was tired after about five hours on the court on Friday, but the final was still a masterclass from Kypson. His forehand aggression was high percentage and you couldn’t touch him on serve with the only slight dip coming right after the rain delay at 6-1 3-2. But once he got out of that one tricky game, he claimed his fourth Challenger Tour title 6-1 6-3 and will move back inside the top 400. Both players will now take some rest and likely return for the hard-court Challenger in Little Rock during the first week of the French Open main draw.
Challenger Tour magic:
Piros is refusing to lose that set streak – gets to 21 after saving 5 set points in this game (Droguet led 5-4 40-0), including this one with both players barely on their feet after finishing the rally
📷: @ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/U4ftxraTJq— Damian Kust (@damiankust) May 17, 2025
Events held this week:
- Macedonian Open (Skopje, Challenger 75, clay)
- Mziuri Cup (Tbilisi, Challenger 50, hard)
Hugo Dellien (Skopje) will be the only top 100 player in action.
First-round matches to watch:
Skopje
- (WC) Dino Prizmic vs (7) Max Houkes
- (NG) Joel Schwaerzler vs Gonzalo Bueno
Tbilisi
- (1) Johannus Monday vs Philip Henning
- Petr Bar Biryukov vs (8) Federico Cina
Main photo credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports
