Dalibor Svrcina and Thiago Agustin Tirante delivered quite the camp classic in the Cancun final, leading to Svrcina breaking the Top 100. Last year’s US Open junior champion, Rafael Jodar, was the maiden winner for the week, while Mattia Bellucci overcame a 0-5 Challenger record in 2025 to triumph in Sumter. Bernard Tomic had to pull out from the Barranquilla final to make it to New York for US Open qualifying, while Timofey Skatov followed up his Bonn final with a Todi title. Read up on last week’s action.
Challenger Tour Weekly Recap
Cancun
Dalibor Svrcina‘s Top 100 lost a lot of steam after some spectacular results earlier in the season, but Cancun turned out to grant him a second win. The Czech found himself in a pretty favorable part of the draw, still having to pull off a great win over Jesper de Jong. Svrcina didn’t drop a set on the way to the final and was crushing all the other opponents, losing 7 of 15 games in the first four matches against the aforementioned de Jong.
Thiago Agustin Tirante caught some very good form in the quicker clay Challengers at the start of July (Trieste final, San Marino semifinals) and kept it up on hard courts as well by qualifying for the ATP 1000 in Cincinnati. He continued to play perhaps his best tennis on this surface ever as he ripped through four opponents in a row to reach the Cancun final. The list of victims included No. 1 seed Arthur Cazaux or 3-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka.
Svrcina had patches of playing his most aggressive hard-court tennis ever, but the nerves fully kicked in when he got to a 6-4 4-0 lead. Tirante fought back, and while he quickly fell a double break down again in the third set, he restored that lead. But the Czech kept fighting and after way over three hours of chaos, he claimed his 5th Challenger title 6-4 5-7 6-4 and secured his Top 100 debut, also denying one for Emilio Nava in the process. Both finalists will now have only a day off before competing in the US Open qualifying.
Sumter
Mattia Bellucci‘s year has been a bit funky with a 16-24 record coming into Sumter (including a shocking 0-5 in Challengers), but also big runs on the ATP Tour with Rotterdam semifinals or Wimbledon third round. The Italian finally made a splash at the lower level as well, snapping the 12-match win streak of Lukas Klein in the quarterfinals. Jaime Faria arrived in their final four clash extremely tired after his marathon with Mark Lajal, and Bellucci swiftly made the Sumter final without dropping a set.
Alexander Shevchenko was bumped to a bye in the opening round after a late withdrawal despite being the No. 5 seed and took advantage of the opening in his 7th Challenger appearance of the season. The key match came in the quarterfinals with the Kazakh outlasting Nikoloz Basilashvili in brutal, extremely hot conditions despite his opponent serving for the match at 6-3 5-3. Shevchenko then took out Shintaro Mochizuki to make his first final at any level since ATP 250 Metz in 2023.
Shevchenko was going all-out on his groundstrokes in the opening set, playing with a lot more aggression than usual. It led to some brilliant rallies in the tight tie-break, with Bellucci having to tap into his craftiness. As it turned out, getting through there was the key, with Shevchenko breaking down physically in the second set. He eventually retired at 6-7(5) 1-3 30-40 with Bellucci claiming his fourth Challenger Tour title. The runner-up will now rest before the US Open, while the champion is supposed to compete in Winston-Salem.
Barranquilla
Injuries are still not letting Arthur Fery fully spread his wings, but the Brit’s win/loss record for the season is quite impressive despite all the events he’ll pulled out of (22-6 before Barranquilla). Usually known as a bit of an indoor specialist, the 23-year-old had reached one Challenger final in Mouilleron-le-Captif in 2023. This time outdoors, he spent surprisingly little energy on the way to the Barranquilla championship match without dropping a set, including a win over No. 1 seed Juan Pablo Ficovich.
Bernard Tomic was recently up a set on Zachary Svajda in the Lexington final, but couldn’t take it home and grab his first Challenger title since Mallorca 2018. The Australian’s fitness was once more going to be tested in Barranquilla, as while he got a walkover in the second round, the next two days had him spend over five and a half hours on court in comeback wins against Nicolas Mejia and Johan Alexander Rodriguez.
No point was played on Saturday, with the final eventually postponed until Sunday due to rain. But the forecast for that day also looked terrible, and Bernard Tomic eventually gave a walkover to Arthur Fery, who claimed his 1st Challenger title. That decision from Tomic seemed prompted by having to get to New York for US Open qualifying on Monday, which would have been very difficult with a Sunday finish in Barranquilla. Fery returns to the Top 250 and will take a couple of weeks off before playing in Cassis.
Todi
Timofey Skatov made his first Challenger final in about a year when he lost to Jurij Rodionov in Bonn the week before Todi, which made it unclear if he would be able to find any energy to keep going. As it turned out, the Kazakh showed plenty of fight to get through the first three matches in deciding sets, before playing his best match of the week to dispatch Valentin Vacherot. The confidence was high, and after no finals for a year, Skatov made two back-to-back.
Stefano Travaglia had that massive run to the title in Modena at the beginning of July, but his results since have not shown any long-term improvement. The Italian seemed vulnerable to an off-day and was finally able to avoid that in Todi, coming back from a set down against Tiago Pereira and defeating a streak of dangerous youngsters – Jacopo Vasami, Lukas Neumayer, and Juan Carlos Prado Angelo in relatively dominant fashion.
With Skatov’s gas tank running dangerously close to empty, blowing a 5-3 40-0 lead on serve in the opening set seemed like it might just be too much. Even though he got the job done in the tie-break, he clearly needed a breather and was close to falling apart physically. But Travaglia’s momentum was not the same after the set break, and Skatov came back with some confident forehand hitting to claim his 3rd Challenger final 7-6(4) 0-6 6-2. He will jump over 100 ranking spots on Monday and choose to withdraw from Augsburg, while the runner-up has a tight travel plan to get to New York for US Open qualifying.
Hersonissos
Rafael Jodar won the 2024 US Open boys’ singles title before choosing to compete in college tennis for the University of Virginia. Touring Challengers over the summer, the 18-year-old had already picked up semifinal appearances in Morelos and Milan before his appearance in Hersonissos. A key three-set win over No. 1 seed George Loffhagen in the second round was the springboard for Jodar to eventually reach his first Challenger final.
Dan Added had not won a Challenger main draw match this year, but as usual was doing well on the ITF circuit with three titles and a final at M25 Monastir just before Hersonissos. The Challenger 50 level exists for players like that to have a chance at bridging the gap, and Added used it very well to not drop a set on the way to the final, including wins over talented Greeks Aristothelis Thanos and Ioannis Xilas. The Frenchman made his second final at this level (St. Brieuc 2023, lost to Ricardas Berankis).
When Jodar went 1-4 down, at 18 years of age, there was serious danger of him just not withstanding the pressure of playing his first Challenger final. But the Spaniard had a good reaction to the slow start, making Added overplay for a bit before dominating the rest of the match. Jodar claimed his first Challenger Tour title 6-4 6-2 after winning 9 games in a row and will debut in the Top 400. Both finalists are staying in Hersonissos for one more week.
Sofia
After struggling with injuries last year, Zdenek Kolar fell off in the rankings and had to rebuild through capturing three titles on the ITF circuit (1 in 2024, 2 this season). The form was improving, but in Challengers, he had only grabbed one quarterfinal all year in Bogota. Finally, in Sofia, he went on a dominant run, starting from a win over one of the Bulgarian heroes of last junior Wimbledon, Alexander Vasilev, before taking out No. 1 seed Nerman Fatic via retirement to reach his first Challenger final since April 2023.
Murkel Dellien came into Sofia on a five-match losing streak, but some of that was just the result of nightmare draws, including eventual champions Lukas Klein (San Marino) and Dusan Lajovic (Cordenons). The Bolivian was quick to find his footing in Bulgaria, dishing out three bagels on the way to his first final of the season. Only Dali Blanch took him to a deciding set in the semifinals, but Dellien dominated the decider.
Kolar’s forehand in these 500m altitude conditions had a sting to it we hadn’t seen in a while. Dellien looked pretty frustrated with his performance on the day (or some bad bounces), but then again, it was mostly the Czech pulling the strings and finding great angles off his leading wing. Kolar claimed his 5th Challenger title 6-2 6-2 and will play Augsburg next, while Dellien sticks around in Sofia for the second event hosted at this venue.
Events held this week:
- Genesis Traiding Cup (Sofia, Challenger 75, clay)
- Schwaben Open (Augsburg, Challenger 50, clay)
- Hersonissos Challenger 4 (Challenger 50, hard)
There will be no Top 100 players in action during US Open qualifying week.
First-round matches to watch:
Sofia
- (1) Federico Coria vs Sumit Nagal
- (8) Duje Ajdukovic vs (NG) Joel Schwaerzler
Augsburg
- (1) Juan Carlos Prado Angelo vs Gilles-Arnaud Bailly
- (8) Alexander Ritschard vs Rudolf Molleker
Hersonissos
- (1) Moez Echargui vs (CO) Jay Dylan Friend
- Henry Searle vs (ALT) Arthur Reymond
Main Photo Credit: Geoff Burke – USA TODAY Sports
