Otto Virtanen started the grass court swing with a bang by claiming the title in Birmingham, extending his record in Challenger Tour finals to 7-0. Meanwhile, Yibing Wu and Yi Zhou met in the second all-Chinese Challenger Tour final in history, whereas Hugo Dellien forced Chun-Hsin Tseng to end up as the losing finalist in Prostejov for the second year straight. Read up on last week’s action:
Challenger Tour Weekly Recap
Birmingham
Otto Virtanen‘s breakthrough came during the grass swing in 2022, but since then, his efforts on the surface have mostly been unremarkable (although he did save eight match points in Wimbledon qualifying last year and almost beat Tommy Paul). The Finn’s game suits the surface so well, though, with the big serve and flat strokes barely bouncing off the court. Despite entering Birmingham with an 8-16 record for the year, he reached the final after a deciding tie-break win over Brandon Holt.
Colton Smith just finished a successful college season for the University of Arizona, meaning he could go back to dedicating even more time to appearances on the pro scene. Despite never playing a single grass court match before, the American’s game was a natural fit for the surface. He was taken to three sets by Yasutaka Uchiyama or surface specialist Lloyd Harris, but always stayed ahead and took apart Rinky Hijikata in the semifinals.
Virtanen had only been broken once in four matches going into the final and put a lot of pressure on Smith early on. The American had to go for some lower-margin options with his opponent just rushing through his service games and pushing the flat groundstrokes with decent consistency. While Smith eventually led 3-0 in the second set, Virtanen extended his perfect record in Challenger finals to 7-0 by winning 6-4 6-4. He’s close to returning to the Top 100 and has a wildcard for ATP 250 ‘s-Hertogenbosch this week. Meanwhile, the runner-up grabbed a special exempt for Ilkley.
Heilbronn
Ignacio Buse had been threatening to make a Challenger final most of this season, coming a win away in Santiago, Menorca, and Aix-en-Provence. He also held a match point in the quarterfinals against Lukas Neumayer in Vicenza the week before Heilbronn. The Peruvian youngster wasn’t going to give up that easily and posted some excellent wins, including a 3-setter against Francesco Passaro, to reach the second Challenger final of his career (2024 Como).
Guy den Ouden was suffering from a muscular issue during his Roland Garros qualifying loss to Lukas Klein, but it quickly turned out he had enough time to recover for Heilbronn. The recent Prague runner-up had to be on top of his game right away with an opening-round matchup against Elmer Moller. Getting that upset fueled him with confidence for the rest of the week, especially for a heavy workload on Saturday, with two wins he needed to pick up against Emilio Nava and Marko Topo.
Den Ouden’s forehand was once again the biggest weapon on the court, and for a while, it looked like it might help him dominate another match. But Buse found some good balance in his counter-punching, turning defense into offense or grinding out the errors. After a few rain delays, the Peruvian was able to lock up his 1st Challenger title 7-5 7-5 and is now on the verge of breaking the Top 150. He will now take a week off before returning to Sassuolo, while it’s unclear if den Ouden will be able to fit anything into his schedule before Wimbledon qualifying.
Prostejov
Hugo Dellien was two sets to love up on Gael Monfils at the French Open, suffering a brutal defeat at the hands of the legendary veteran. However, that didn’t bother him very much, as the Bolivian was full of confidence in Prostejov, although not from the very first match. Closing out Maxim Mrva in the second round was a massive challenge for him, with many blown leads. Still, after that obstacle, Dellien delivered an absolute masterclass against Vitaliy Sachko in the semifinals.
Chun-Hsin Tseng was the champion in Vicenza and the finalist in Prostejov last year, now trying to go one step further in 2025. After defending his title in Italy, the 23-year-old didn’t waste much time transitioning to the other event and was helped out by the quick conditions at both tournaments. Tseng didn’t drop a set on the way to a second championship match in Prostejov, defeating No. 2 seed and World No. 61 Alejandro Tabilo in the semifinals.
Dellien dominated the opening set, utilizing the indoor conditions (the retractable roof was closed for the final) to play aggressively behind his serve. Tseng gave him a better challenge in set two, but the Bolivian kept hitting the forehand with confidence and eventually claimed his 14th Challenger title 6-3 6-4. He moves up to No. 82 in the ATP Rankings as both finalists will keep playing on clay with Perugia next on their schedules.
Tyler
Yi Zhou came into Tyler on a 7-match losing streak and 4-11 this season, failing to make any progress in a season where he surely expected it. However, the former top junior has plenty of ability and only needed a slight surge of good energy to start producing his best tennis. He took down Yuta Shimizu in the second round before avenging last week’s Little Rock loss against Rio Noguchi. Zhou made his first Challenger final when Patrick Kypson withdrew due to heat illness.
Yibing Wu hasn’t been able to compete much this season, appearing only in Miami and then returning for the end of the clay season (Oeiras and Roland Garros qualifying). The Chinese often struggles with his fitness, but hopefully, these issues are more or less behind him. Even when out of match rhythm, he always brings a strong level, and despite starting in the qualifying draw in Tyler, he went on a huge run to lock up a second all-Chinese final in Challenger history (Zhizhen Zhang defeated Zhe Li in Shenzhen 2019).
It was a great shot-making duel between the two Chinese talents, and things weren’t always going smoothly for the favorite. Zhou kept fighting even when 1-4 down in the third, but the break he restored was quickly regained by his opponent. Wu went down on the floor in joy as he claimed his 6th Challenger title 6-4 3-6 6-3. Both finalists will stay in the United States and feature in upcoming M25 events – Zhou right away in Wichita, while Wu will take a week off before appearing in Tulsa.
Challenger Tour magic:
Watanuki decides to pat the net after the magic it did to his volley here 🙂 Won the match two points later
📷: @ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/fseexBgOfC— Damian Kust (@damiankust) June 3, 2025
Svajda denying the laws of physics with this slice pass, but Majchrzak’s response two points later wasn’t bad either
📷: @ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/xa5hnkPPdi— Damian Kust (@damiankust) June 3, 2025
Events held this week:
- Lexus Ilkley Open (Challenger 125, grass)
- Internazionali di Tennis Citta di Perugia / G.I.M.A. Tennis Cup (Challenger 125, clay)
- Bratislava Open (Challenger 100, clay)
- Open Sopra Steria (Lyon, Challenger 100, clay)
- AAT Challenger Santander edicion Santa Fe (Challenger 50, clay)
Top 100 players in action:
- Kamil Majchrzak (Ilkley)
- Chun-Hsin Tseng, Luca Nardi (Perugia)
- Vit Kopriva (Bratislava)
- Pablo Carreno Busta (Lyon)
First-round matches to watch:
Ilkley
- (WC) Henry Searle vs Coleman Wong
- Jenson Brooksby vs Yosuke Watanuki
Perugia
- (6/WC) Stan Wawrinka vs Radu Albot
- Federico Arnaboldi vs (2) Chun-Hsin Tseng
Bratislava
- Dino Prizmic vs Jurij Rodionov
- Alexey Vatutin vs (2) Tomas Barrios Vera
Lyon
- (1) Pablo Carreno Busta vs Titouan Droguet
- (8) Marco Trungelliti vs Alejando Moro Canas
Santa Fe
- Gonzalo Bueno vs (5) Juan Bautista Torres
- (3) Andrea Collarini vs Nicolas Kicker
Main Photo Credit: Clayton Freeman/Florida Times-Union
