Reigning NCAA singles champion Michael Zheng claimed his maiden Challenger title in Chicago, while Jurij Rodionov returned to the winners’ circle in Bonn after a period of struggle. Kozerki saw a high-quality final between the top two seeds (Kamil Majchrzak and Dino Prizmic) with Lukas Neumayer coming up short for the sixth time in Cordenons against the veteran Dusan Lajovic. Here’s a look back at last week’s action:
Challenger Tour Weekly Recap
Bonn
Timofey Skatov recently fell outside the top 300 with his results during this clay season not comparing to the previous body of work at all. The Kazakh showed some promising signs the week earlier in Hagen already with a match point he had against eventual champion Yannick Hanfmann. Skatov proved that form in Bonn with three straight-set wins before withstanding world #90 Raphael Collingon 7-5 in the third in a fantastic semifinal clash.
Jurij Rodionov reached three hard-court semifinals at the start of the season (Noumea, Thionville, Cherbourg), before struggling to pick up any long-lasting rhythm during the clay swing. In Hagen, the Austrian was shocked by Roland Garros boys’ singles champion Niels McDonald and had to come up against the runner-up of that event, Jamie Mackenzie, in the second round in Bonn. Something finally clicked and Rodionov reached his first final of the year by defeating Joel Schwaerzler in an all-Austrian clash.
Skatov had that marathon win over Collignon in the semifinals, so it wasn’t quite clear what his energy tank would be like on Sunday. In the end it probably wasn’t much of an issue, even if he lost from a set up. The high double fault count was a huge contrast to Rodionov’s very effective serving and the Austrian counter-punched very well to draw out errors on return as well. It led him to his eighth Challenger title (first since February 2024 in Koblenz) and a 5-7 6-2 6-4 win.
Chicago
Yu-Hsiou Hsu reached back-to-back semifinals in Bloomfield Hills and Lexington, but getting blown off the court by eventual champions Mark Lajal and Zachary Svajda. The form of the Taiwanese was quickly going up and we saw the peak of that in Chicago with an upset against Yibing Wu in the quarterfinals. Hsu then needed to avoid falling at the last four stage again and did that with a three-hour win over August Holmgren, despite the Dane serving for the match. He reached his first Challenger final since September last year.
2024-25 NCAA singles champion Michael Zheng already had a couple of Challenger finals in tournaments played right after the end of college seasons (2023 Palmas del Mar, 2025 Little Rock). In the final in June he almost produced a spectacular fightback against Patrick Kypson and kept that momentum up in further pro appearances. Yi Zhou served for the match against him in the second round in Chicago before Zheng came back from a set down to defeat Garrett Johns in the semifinals.
Zheng lost to Hsu in Lexington the week before, but the final on Sunday was a completely different affair. From superb serving and 11 aces to brilliant aggression off the ground, it was like every choice the American was making turned out right. Hsu couldn’t deliver much resistance on the day as Zheng claimed his first Challenger title with a 6-4 6-2 win and is now ranked not too far outside top 300. Both finalists will take some rest before US Open qualifying now with the American receiving a wildcard due to his performance in the USTA-organized play-off in June.
Cordenons
Lukas Neumayer has been knocking on the door for a while now with five Challenger final losses prior to Cordenons. One of them came at this very venue in 2023 (against Matteo Gigante) with the most recent also in Italy in Vicenza in June this year (to Chun-Hsin Tseng). The Austrian isn’t going to give up on his dreams easily and after saving a match point in a rollercoaster against Nicolas Kicker, he made his sixth final at this level by demolishing top seed Carlos Taberner.
Dusan Lajovic has been mostly focused on trying to qualify for ATP Tour events this year with Cordenons being just his seventh Challenger appearance. However, the Serbian lost in the Sassuolo final to Carlos Taberner in his most recent showing at this level in June. As the second seed last week, he was taking no prisoners and made his way to another championship match without dropping more than four games in a set, also getting broken just twice in four matches.
Lajovic was on his way to a flawless week when he broke for 6-2 3-2. Up until that point, you also couldn’t talk about any mental block for Neumayer, he was just getting outplayed. But that’s when the Austrian fought back and as he led 5-3 40-0 on serve in the second set, it unfortunately became clear that he is yet to exorcise his demons. A bunch of errors followed on the four set points with Lajovic claiming his eighth Challenger title 6-2 7-6(3). Both players want to squeeze one more Challenger in before trying to qualify for the US Open.
Kozerki
Kamil Majchrzak produced a career-best Wimbledon fourth-round run at Wimbledon, but struggled to follow it up during the July clay swing. Back on hard courts in preparation for the US Open and as the top seed in his home country, he felt a lot of pressure to perform. That was clear in how frustrated he got against Ilya Ivashka in the opening round or Daniil Glinka in the quarterfinals. But despite slow conditions and heavy balls not suiting him, he was able to fight his way through to the final.
Dino Prizmic had reached four consecutive Challenger finals on clay since May, claiming titles in Zagreb and Bratislava. Back on hard courts for the first time in five months, the Croat didn’t waste much time in getting his groove back. His wins weren’t that quick with longer points and him generally taking his time, but that doesn’t mean they were any less decisive. Prizmic made his fifth consecutive Challenger final without dropping more than four games in a set.
Majchrzak managed to handle his nerves better than most of the week and played the final with a very sound gameplan. He kept the ball low and unpleasant on his backhand, while trying to push Prizmic away from regular baseline patterns and move the match into territories he felt more comfortable in. Despite the slow hard-court conditions and heavy balls he was often complaining about this week, Majchrzak claimed his ninth Challenger title 6-4 6-3. He’ll now take a week off before appearing in Winston-Salem, while Prizmic will head to US Open qualifying after getting some rest himself.
Challenger Tour magic:
Big scramble from Prižmić and Mayot with Dino finding the diving volley finish
📷: @ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/hdiY8SmFD4— Damian Kust (@damiankust) August 9, 2025
Such a casual left-handed overhead from Ivashka
📷: @ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/Vok8rYVM4l— Damian Kust (@damiankust) August 4, 2025
Events held this week:
- Europcar Cancun Country Club (Challenger 125, hard)
- Serve First Open (Sumter, Challenger 125, hard)
- KIA Open (Barranquilla, Challenger 75, hard)
- Internazionali di Tennis Citta di Todi (Challenger 75, clay)
- Hersonissos Challenger 3 (Challenger 50, hard)
- Genesis Traiding Cup (Sofia, Challenger 50, clay)
Top 100 players in action:
- Daniel Altmaier, Arthur Cazaux, Jesper de Jong, Juan Manuel Cerundolo, Tristan Schoolkate (Cancun)
- Zizou Bergs, Kei Nishikori, Mattia Bellucci, Filip Misolic (Sumter + Jacob Fearnley in qualifying)
First-round matches to watch:
Cancun
- (ALT) Yannick Hanfmann vs (ALT) Jan-Lennard Struff
- (6) Alejandro Tabilo vs Francesco Passaro
Sumter
- Hady Habib vs (5) Alexander Shevchenko
- (ALT) James Trotter vs Martin Landaluce
Barranquilla
- (4) Santiago Rodriguez Taverna vs Cannon Kingsley
- Arthur Fery vs (PR) Darian King
Todi
- (SE) Timofey Skatov vs (5) Gonzalo Bueno
- (NG) Maxim Mrva vs (7) Valentin Vacherot
Hersonissos
- (4) Jie Cui vs Maximus Jones
- (6) Dan Added vs Aristothelis Thanos
Sofia
- (1) Nerman Fatic vs Kilian Feldbausch
- (WC) Ivan Ivanov vs (5) Marat Sharipov
Main photo credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports
