It was a nice mix of veterans and promising youngsters taking Challenger titles during the second week of the French Open (and across three different surfaces!). Andy Murray is 36 years old, while some of the other champions were Matteo Arnaldi at 22 and Dalibor Svrcina at 20. A player from Murray’s birth year, Mikhail Kukushkin, was really close to securing his first title in five years in Tyler, but just missed out to Nicolas Moreno de Alboran. Read back on last week’s action:
Surbiton
Andy Murray won the Challenger 175 in Aix-en-Provence in May, breaking David Ferrer’s record for the longest gap between titles at this level (almost eighteen years). He already appeared in Surbiton in 2022 and again chose to kick off his grass campaign this way. After losing to Denis Kudla in the semifinals of the previous edition, he advanced to the final this time around, defeating last year’s champion Jordan Thompson in the process.
Jurij Rodionov hadn’t won a match at a grass Challenger before in three attempts, although he did make the semifinals at the ATP 250 event in Stuttgart, so it’s not like he couldn’t play on the surface. And that’s what he proved in Surbiton this week winning eight straight sets to get to the final – five of them 6-4, three 6-2. In these four matches, some against extremely dangerous grass-courters, he wasn’t even broken and only had to save four break points.
All the previous opponents of Rodionov had a very serve-oriented, attacking gameplan, while Murray posed a completely different challenge. With the return skills, defensive scrambling, and natural movement on grass, the Brit was able to turn plenty of points around and it didn’t take him long to break the Austrian for the first time this week. The lengthy rain delay at 6-3 3-1 40-0 had no impact and Murray won his 4th Challenger title 6-3 6-2, becoming the 12th active player with titles at this level on grass, clay, and hard. Rodionov had to withdraw from Stuttgart qualifying due to this run, while the champion got another wildcard into Nottingham.
Heilbronn
Facundo Diaz Acosta won the last two Challengers he played before Heilbronn (Savannah, Oeiras) and wasn’t going to slow down just yet. In the meantime, he also got into his Slam main draw as a lucky loser in Paris, but couldn’t take out Jason Kubler in the opening round. Last week he fell into a bit of trouble against Oscar Otte after not serving out the match at 6-4 5-3, but cleaned up the decider easily. He also got pushed by Maxime Janvier, prevailing in a tense deciding tie-break.
Matteo Arnaldi won the last Challenger he played before Heilbronn (Murcia) and made plenty of inroads at tour-level since. Last week he had a really tough opener against Norbert Gombos but survived it without issues and came back from a set down against Marko Topo. His next fightback turned out to be even more dramatic as Arnaldi came back from 3-5 down in the decider versus Jaume Munar, having to finish the match on the next day after it was suspended at 5-all in the third.
Diaz Acosta had the opener all but secured at 4-1 40-15 on return. However, Arnaldi suddenly cleaned up his act and began overwhelming the Argentinian with his baseline aggression and bigger 1st serve. Now it was Diaz Acosta who couldn’t finish points off anymore and the match took a complete u-turn. Arnaldi won his 4th Challenger title 7-6 6-1 and exacted revenge on his opponent for a defeat in the final of a 25K ITF in Eupen two years earlier. He will now head to Perugia, while Diaz Acosta chose Lyon.
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Prostejov
Dalibor Svrcina usually plays well at home and he found a way to get out of a bit of a slump here. He beat Luciano Darderi from a set down in the opening round before getting a retirement from Elias Ymer. His next two rounds were actually pretty similar to each other with the 20-year-old battling some very powerful players in the fast clay conditions at Prostejov, but coming out on top thanks to his excellent court coverage and some smart junkballing.
Tomas Machac was injured around this time last year and has a lot to gain in the next couple of months ranking-wise. He wasn’t capitalizing on it though and came to Prostejov on a four-match losing streak. The 22-year-old was in absolute beatdown mode throughout the week, dropping just twenty games on the way to the final. He was also broken just four times, securing an all-Czech final at this event for the second year in a row (Vit Kopriva beat Svrcina).
Svrcina’s defense was a factor again in the final, but he was also taking matters into his own hands a lot. Machac received a visit from the physio at 2-3 down in the opening set and was apparently struggling with some conditioning issue. He fought until the end but was no match on the day for his younger compatriot. Svrcina won his 2nd Challenger title 6-4 6-2. He now has four finals at this level to his name, all in the Czech Republic – two in Prague, two in Prostejov. Both finalists are playing in Bratislava next.
Tyler
Nicolas Moreno de Alboran lost a thriller to Beibit Zhukayev in Little Rock the week before, but hit the courts in Tyler in some great disposition. The only player to trouble him on the way to the final was Tennys Sandgren, who eventually went down to him in a physical third set. By crushing Peter Gojowczyk in the semifinals, Moreno de Alboran secured his second final of the year, having blown match points against Max Purcell in Chennai in February.
Mikhail Kukushkin was also eliminated by Zhukayev in Little Rock but a round later, already showing some signs of good form. The Kazakh hadn’t won a Challenger title in over five years, despite being one of the most accomplished active players on that circuit. The veteran kept having to go three sets this week but managed to pull off the wins against Marc Polmans, Yuta Shimizu, and Alexis Galarneau (the last one from 2-4 down in the third).
The conditions in Tyler were excellent for Kukushkin’s flat-hitting technique – quick and low-bouncing. The Kazakh put himself in a great position to win the match after saving a set point in the opener, but missed a backhand open-court sitter at 7-6 5-4 40-40 that would have granted him a championship point. He then lost the tie-break 0-7 and from that point onwards, it was becoming increasingly clear that Kukushkin had a lot less left in the tank. Moreno de Alboran took his 2nd Challenger title 6-7 7-6 6-4. Both finalists are heading over to Palmas del Mar.
Challenger Tour magic:
I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS SHOT @ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/F7Hek4eQ6R
— US Open Week 🇺🇲 (@Tennis4everrr) June 6, 2023
Incredible effort from Pedro Sakamoto in Prostejov qualies, saving eight match points across five games to defeat Lorenzo Giustino 4-6 7-6 7-6. All the MPs are in the video, a couple of great volleys in there.
📷: @ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/PPmcNRWF8h— Damian Kust (@damiankust) June 4, 2023
Events held this week:
- Rothesay Open (Nottingham, Challenger 125, grass)
- Internazionali di Tennis Citta di Perugia (Challenger 125, clay)
- Bratislava Open (Challenger 100, clay)
- Open Sopra Steria (Lyon, Challenger 100, clay)
- Caribbean Open (Palmas del Mar, Challenger 75, hard)
Top 100 players in action:
- Dan Evans, Constant Lestienne, Nuno Borges, Aleksandar Vukic, Thanasi Kokkinakis, Dominik Koepfer (Nottingham)
- Pedro Cachin, Albert Ramos-Vinolas, Jaume Munar, Alexandre Muller (Perugia)
- Roberto Carballes Baena, Alex Molcan, Alexander Shevchenko, Federico Coria (Bratislava)
- Quentin Halys (Lyon)
First-round matches to watch:
Nottingham
- Denis Kudla vs (8) Dominic Stricker
- (3) Nuno Borges vs (PR) Hyeon Chung
Perugia
- Giulio Zeppieri vs (6) Matteo Arnaldi
- (4/WC) Dominic Thiem vs Flavio Cobolli
Bratislava
- Dalibor Svrcina vs (6) Norbert Gombos
- Jakub Mensik vs (2) Alexander Shevchenko
Lyon
- (1) Quentin Halys vs Pablo Llamas Ruiz
- (WC) Gabriel Debru vs (2) Pedro Martinez
Palmas del Mar
- (WC) Kei Nishikori vs Christian Langmo
- Patrick Kypson vs (8) Alexis Galarneau
Kei Nishikori is playing for the first time since the 2021 Indian Wells tournament (the edition that was held in October). His most recent Challenger appearance was in February 2018 when he lost in the opening round at Newport Beach, but won Dallas the week after.
Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports
