It was an extremely busy week on the ATP Challenger Tour, with six events taking place across all three surfaces. Zachary Svajda and Jack Pinnington Jones became the last grass-court champions of the season, with 19-year-old Matej Dodig joining the latter as a maiden champion on the clay in Trieste. Meanwhile, Elmer Moller saved five match points to triumph in Iasi, and Liam Draxl finally won a final in 2025. Read up on last week’s action:
Challenger Tour Weekly Recap
Braunschweig
Mariano Navone‘s ranking fell to about 90th in the world after he failed to defend his titles in Rio de Janeiro and Bucharest last year. Still, the level of the Argentinian remained high. With chances to gain back in the latter half of 2025, he returned to clay with a great mindset and made the Braunschweig final despite a very tricky draw. Especially impressive were the wins over Botic van de Zandschulp and the one from a set down over Filip Misolic, who has been in tremendous form recently.
Juan Manuel Cerundolo has been consistently picking up wins on clay this year and eying a return to the Top 100. The Argentinian lost from match point up against Federico Cina in the Modena quarterfinals the week before Braunschweig, going on an even better run in Germany. What got him into the final was a series of similar wins against Raphael Collignon and Alex Molcan, as Cerundolo quickly restored control after slow starts and never looked any closer to losing again.
From the start, Navone just looked a bit more comfortable in the matchup, moving the ball around the court with great precision and looking for very tight angles to keep Cerundolo on the back foot. It forced his compatriot to seek alternative solutions outside their comfort zone. Despite a rather brief fightback, it was Navone who claimed his seventh Challenger title 6-3 7-5 with the last few games being played during a light drizzle. Both finalists will be competing on the ATP Tour this week: Cerundolo in Gstaad and Navone in Bastad.
Newport
Adrian Mannarino seemed ready to say goodbye to his tennis career in the first five months of the year, but finding himself on grass again has made him look like a different player. The veteran reached the third round at Wimbledon, coming from qualifying, and took this form to the States as well. His grass-court record in 2025 went up to 14-5 by the time he reached the Newport final with only one three-setter along the way against fellow slice legend Bernard Tomic.
Zachary Svajda lost in the second round of Wimbledon qualifying to former quarterfinalist Marton Fucsovics, but just like Mannarino, he enjoyed a true revival of his game on grass. It was no surprise that he kept playing well on the surface in Newport as the 22-year-old eliminated top seed Brandon Holt in the second round (winning 24 points to 3 in the second set!). Svajda went on to reach his first Challenger final since January 2024 in Indian Wells.
The two players love the grass, but they aren’t known for using it to attack, so the match ended up being a bit of an off-pace chess contest. Svajda felt pretty comfortable at it, picking perfect spots to accelerate with his backhand down the line and surviving the cat-and-mouse points against Mannarino. The outcome was more or less sealed from the moment the American broke to take the first set. Svajda claimed his fifth Challenger title (first since 2023) 7-5 6-3 and will now take the week off, while the runner-up is featured in the ATP 250 Los Cabos main draw.
Iasi
While Titouan Droguet couldn’t quite make it into the main draw at Wimbledon (lost in the final qualifying round to Valentin Royer), his form of late has been extremely good. With the final in Tunis and the title in Royan over the last two months, the Frenchman was arriving in Iasi with plenty of confidence. Defending champion Hugo Dellien had him on the ropes at 6-4 5-2 in the second round, but Droguet survived and soon reached another final.
Elmer Moller was coming into Iasi on a small losing streak, and while nobody was expecting much from him in the Wimbledon main draw, he also suffered a couple of shock exits in Challengers on clay in June. But the Dane was too good for that dry spell to last forever. He came back from a set down to beat Daniel Rincon and last week’s Brasov champion Francesco Maestrelli, before defeating Stan Wawrinka in a battle of perhaps the two most powerful backhands on tour.
Moller’s forehand was spraying a lot in the opening set, but he found more success when applying a counter-punching role as Droguet’s game suddenly wasn’t all that clean either. The Frenchman showed some guts when trailing in the third, and the ending was just wild. Moller saved 5 match points at 4-5 in the decider to claim his third Challenger Tour title 3-6 6-1 7-6(2). While he’s not known for serving +1 firepower, these aggressive plays were suddenly doing so much damage, match points down. He is now just 13 points outside the Top 100 and will be competing at the ATP 250 in Bastad this week, while Droguet plays in Bunschoten.
Trieste
This had been a pretty disappointing season for 19-year-old Matej Dodig, with only two Challenger quarterfinals to his name and a negative win/loss record. However, the promising Croat didn’t say the last word and suddenly locked in during the tournament in Trieste. After dropping a set to Carlo Alberto Caniato in the qualifying, he went on a tear with five straight wins to make his first Challenger final. The list of players he beat included Dalibor Svrcina, Jurij Rodionov, and Sumit Nagal.
Thiago Agustin Tirante lost a tight battle to eventual champion Stefano Travaglia in Modena the week before Trieste. The Argentinian wasn’t even broken in that match and was clearly looking for revenge. From the very first round, he started unleashing his powerful forehand onto the opposition and didn’t give anybody a chance to breathe. It wasn’t until the semifinals that somebody earned more than four games in the whole match with Facundo Diaz Acosta losing 4-6 4-6.
Tirante had an electric start with forehand winners left and right, but his game collapsed when he didn’t break again at 3-1. Dodig’s ability to absorb pace was becoming a problem when the Argentinian began spraying his forehand. The more established player had a couple of opportunities to break back late in the second set, but it was Dodig who claimed his first Challenger title 6-3 6-4. He will break the Top 250 and play Bunschoten this week, with Tirante competing in San Marino.
Winnipeg
After picking up some of his first big-time clay/grass experiences in the last few months, Alexander Blockx returned to hard courts in Winnipeg as the top seed. He defeated last week’s Cary champion, Rei Sakamoto, in a showdown of 2023 and 2024 Australian Open boys’ singles champions before having to play both his quarterfinal and semifinal matches on the same day due to weather delays. Blockx pushed through to reach his first outdoor Challenger final.
Liam Draxl had already owned the most Challenger final appearances out of any player this year (5), but lost all of them, including in Cary the week before Winnipeg. The Canadian is just a grinding machine, and he kept going to earn another chance just seven days later. Also playing two matches on Saturday, he didn’t struggle against either Rio Noguchi or Yi Zhou and secured a second final meeting against Blockx this season (Oeiras-3).
Draxl lost the opening set 1-6, and it looked like he might underwhelm in a final again. However, he slowly started gaining momentum and began establishing a physical advantage, with the windy conditions also not helping Blockx to push his way past the Canadian’s gritty defense. The youngster just couldn’t produce a long-term answer to this playstyle, and it was Draxl who claimed his second Challenger title, 1-6, 6-3, 6-4. Both finalists are playing in Granby next, and if they continue to win, they could meet in the semifinals of that event.
Nottingham
Texas Christian University’s Jack Pinnington Jones has had a breakthrough campaign on grass, earning his first Challenger final in Ilkley (lost to Tristan Schoolkate) before picking up a main draw win at Wimbledon. That instantly made him one of the favorites for Nottingham, despite having to take on last year’s Wimbledon junior champion Nicolai Budkov Kjaer in the opening round. Pinnington Jones maintained his form in spite of a couple of difficult matches to make another Challenger final.
The career of former World No. 14 Kyle Edmund has been a lot more challenging since he missed the entire 2021 campaign due to left knee surgery. Nottingham was even his first Challenger main draw appearance of the year, with the Brit struggling to make a major impact at this level since. But suddenly the 30-year-old went on a great run to reach his first Challenger final since the 2019 Indian Wells and didn’t drop a set in four matches.
Pinnington Jones took the opening set by scrambling well to turn points around, often incorporating the slice to keep the rally going. Edmund had issues hitting through him but finally landed some good openings in the second set, missing 4 chances to go up 5-1 and then one more to lead 5-3. His opponent wasn’t going to pass on this gift, and it was Pinnington Jones who claimed his first Challenger title 6-4, 7-6(1). He breaks the Top 200 and will now take two weeks off before returning in Liberec, while Edmund is switching to hard courts after a week of rest at an M25 event in Porto.
Events held this week:
- Internazionali di Tennis San Marino Open (Challenger 125, clay)
- Dutch Open Tournament (Bunschoten, Challenger 75, clay)
- Les Championnats Banque Nationale de Granby (Challenger 75, hard)
- Open Ciudad de Pozoblanco (Challenger 50, hard)
With three ATP 250 events organized in the same week, there will be no Top 100 players in action.
First-round matches to watch:
San Marino
- Daniel Rincon vs Justin Engel
- Vitaliy Sachko vs (6) Federico Agustin Gomez
Bunschoten
- (WC) Mees Rottgering vs (3) Benjamin Hassan
- (ALT) Matheus Pucinelli de Almeida vs (2) Guy den Ouden
Granby
- (1) Eliot Spizzirri vs Paul Jubb
- (4) Yosuke Watanuki vs Karue Sell
Pozoblanco
- (WC) Rafael Jodar vs Nicolas Alvarez Varona
- (7) Khumoyun Sultanov vs Saba Purtseladze
Main Photo Credit: Clayton Freeman/Florida Times-Union
