The first Challenger 175 of the season was held in Phoenix with a high-profile final between Nuno Borges and Matteo Berrettini. Meanwhile, Henri Squire claimed his maiden title at this level in Hamburg and Chun-Hsin Tseng returned to form after about two years of struggling. Here’s a look back at last week’s action:
ATP Challenger Tour Weekly Recap
Phoenix
Borges was the defending champion in Phoenix, having claimed the first-ever Challenger 175 title in March last year. Despite his fantastic run at the Australian Open earlier this year, the Portuguese wasn’t coming into this event in amazing form. The courts in Arizona once again provided him with a lift though as he breezed past his first three opponents and was only challenged by Luca Van Assche in the last four on his way to the final.
Berrettini kept delaying his comeback after an injury-filled 2023 season and it turns out he was right to wait until he was truly 100%. Despite going down a set in the first three matches, the Italian kept pulling out the tough wins, including from 3-5 down in the decider against Arthur Cazaux. Due to rain he had to play twice on Saturday, beating Terence Atmane in almost three hours to then defeat Aleksandar Vukic (he won four tie-breaks that day).
Berrettini went up an early break forcing Borges into some tough spots on the stretch, but the rust wasn’t fully off yet and his game on serve just wasn’t clean enough for that lead to hold. The Portuguese started being pretty dominant and got to serve for the win at 7-5 5-3, but the Wimbledon finalist showed his quality under pressure by saving two match points on his way to a tiebreak. Eventually Borges took his sixth Challenger title 7-5 7-6 with an expertly played breaker from 0-3 down. Both finalists will now play the main draw in Miami.
Santiago
Facundo Bagnis has started the year on a very high note, picking up a Challenger title in Buenos Aires and making the second ATP Tour final of his career in Cordoba (lost to Luciano Darderi). A legend of this event (2013, 2015-16 winner), the Argentinian was blasting through the draw from the get-go and didn’t dropped a set on the way to another final. Only Hugo Dellien and Gustavo Heide were able to take him to one tiebreaker each.
Juan Pablo Varillas came into Santiago with a 1-8 record for the year and had to start winning soon to have a shot at making the Roland Garros main draw. That almost didn’t pan out as he went 3-6 down in the final set tiebreak to Paul Jubb in the opening round, but won the next five points. He then beat Orlando Luz in another deciding tiebreak and went on to save three more match points (again 3-6 to 8-6) against Francesco Passaro. Varillas earned the only clean win of the week in the semifinals over Liam Draxl.
Bagnis initially had a few key break points middle of the opening set, but after that just delivered a pretty lethargic performance. His shot selection was all over the place as he was bailing out of rallies with dropshots or unprepared net approaches. Varillas to his credit really found a lot more confidence in his baseline aggression as the week went on, which allowed him to comfortably claim his sixth Challenger title 6-3 6-2, winning this event for the second time (2021). He headlines the event in Asuncion next, while Bagnis intends to take some rest and travel to either Estoril or Marrakech for ATP 250 qualifying.
Szekesfehervar
Tseng made five Challenger finals (three titles) in about five months between December 2021 and April 2022, but after bouncing off the main tour suffered an extreme slump. Outside the top 300, he had to qualify for the main draw in Szekesfehervar and was saving crucial break points at 3-4 in the third against Arthur Gea. But as it turned out, Tseng would soon find his best run in two years beating Richard Gasquet and winning three more deciding sets on the way to the final.
Titouan Droguet enjoyed a much smoother run, although he also had to take down home crowd favorite Zsombor Piros from a set down in the quarterfinals. Otherwise the Frenchman was confidently dispatching his opponents, including seasoned competitors like Jozef Kovalik or Franco Agamenone. Droguet secured his fourth Challenger final, losing three of them in 2023 (Cherbourg to Giulio Zeppieri, Modena to Emilio Nava, Amersfoort to Maximilian Marterer).
In the final, Droguet was playing with some surprising tactics from the get-go, at one point dropshotting in almost all the extended rallies. Instead of a specific approach for this opponent, it turned out to be something physical and after a brief visit from the trainer, he retired at 1-4 0-30 down. Tseng claimed his fourth Challenger title, second on indoor clay (notable as that’s basically just two venues on the calendar). He is now inside the top 250 with hopes of returning to Slam qualifying soon. Both finalists are scheduled for Murcia where the winner received a special exempt (and is also a former champion from 2022).
Hamburg
Squire lost his previous two Challenger semifinals at 2022 Troisdorf and 2023 Tampere and for a long while already had been floating around a ranking that had him right on the verge of making main draws in most events at this level. The breakthrough was coming and he secured it with some brutal performances the whole week, getting a retirement from his friend Rudolf Molleker in the quarterfinals and beating Alexander Blockx for the second time this season in the final four.
Clement Chidekh is still in incredible form and by the time he made the final, his win/loss record since the start of February had already improved to 19-1. The recent 15K Grenoble and Glasgow Challenger champion had to start from the qualifying draw, but lost just one set in six matches on the way to another championship match. In the quarterfinals, he stopped a breakout run from Ireland’s Michael Agwi, who pushed Dominic Thiem at Davis Cup last month and was debuting at the Challenger level this week.
Squire was broken for the first time this week at 3-all and the early patterns suggested Chidekh might be getting another “absorb, redirect, and make the opponent play” type of win. However, the German found so much control over his aggressive game from that point onwards and was suddenly producing high-quality returns as well. That patch continued as Squire claimed his maiden Challenger title 6-4 6-2 and earned his top 250 debut. He’ll now rest before hitting the clay, while Chidekh is expected to prolong his indoor season through 25K ITF events in France.
Challenger Tour magic:
Berrettini switches to a one-hander for this passing shot!
📷: @ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/GECTXXX00W— Damian Kust (@damiankust) March 17, 2024
“Oh my!” indeed (earphone users, beware). Berrettini has looked sluggish today at times, but this shot…
📷: @ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/Mp2bK24VUI— Damian Kust (@damiankust) March 16, 2024
Events held this week:
- Costa Calida Region de Murcia (Challenger 75, clay)
- Falkensteiner Punta Skala Zadar Open (Challenger 75, clay)
- Paraguay Open Dove Men+Care (Asuncion, Challenger 75, clay)
- Yucatan Open (Merida, Challenger 50, clay)
Dominic Thiem (Zadar) will be the only top 100 player in action with the ATP 1000 in Miami featuring most of the world’s best hundred.
First-round matches to watch:
Murcia
- (WC) Daniel Merida Aguilar vs (7) Andrea Pellegrino
- (6) Pablo Llamas Ruiz vs Jan Choinski
Zadar
- (1) Dominic Thiem vs (WC) Filip Krajinovic
- Alessandro Giannessi vs (2) Corentin Moutet
Asuncion
- (1) Juan Pablo Varillas vs (WC) Juan Carlos Prado Angelo
- Joao Fonseca vs Alvaro Guillen Meza
Merida
- (3) Tristan Boyer vs Alafia Ayeni
- (ALT) Stefan Kozlov vs (2) Federico Gaio
Main photo credit: Mike Frey-USA TODAY Sports
