{"id":91276,"date":"2025-09-29T19:30:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T23:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=91276"},"modified":"2025-09-29T20:29:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T00:29:19","slug":"challenger-tour-weekly-recap-landaluce-upsets-collignon-in-orleans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/09\/29\/challenger-tour-weekly-recap-landaluce-upsets-collignon-in-orleans\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenger Tour Weekly Recap: Landaluce Upsets Collignon in Orleans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Top-seeded Raphael Collignon was dominating the biggest Challenger of the week in Orleans, before running into a fantastic display from the 2022 US Open junior champion, Martin Landaluce, in the final. Roman Andres Burruchaga and Eliot Spizzirri added to their first titles at this level claimed earlier this season, while Vilius Gaubas defeated Henrique Rocha in a three-hour final in Lisbon. In Las Vegas, Abdullah Shelbayh earned the second-ever Challenger trophy for Jordan. Read up on last week&#8217;s action:<\/p>\n<h4>Orleans<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Raphael Collignon<\/strong> defeated Casper Ruud on the way to the third round at the US Open, before being the crucial actor in Belgium&#8217;s Davis Cup away win over Australia, including a win over Alex de Minaur. Confidence had to be at an all-time high going into the indoor season and he proved it with a brutally efficient run to the final in Orleans. The top seed needed just one tie-break set to dispatch four opponents, despite Justin Engel leading him 5-2 in the opener and having 3 set points.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Martin Landaluce<\/strong> has had a rather disappointing season overall, failing to make progress from where he was at the end of last year. But maybe the Spaniard can finish strong and in Orleans, his game was back to being really intimidating. He dominated matchups against fellow recent Grand Slam junior champions in Dominic Stricker and Nicolai Budkov Kjaer, before losing the only set on the way to the final against Mark Lajal. Landaluce reached his first championship match of the season.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2217824306\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.66667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/2217824306?et=q__oReHhRfxAwQGtq7FVaQ&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=Fz3hA_5tQ0hXPMLVNQjyc0Usz-ZhTSgpc2zl_OExCAw=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Landaluce showed some impressive tenacity to recover from 3-5 in the opening set and even grab a set point in the tie-break, but once Collignon got over the line there, it just seemed like the match was over. The Spanish youngster said no and patiently waited for his opponent&#8217;s serving quality to drop, alongside hitting his own cross-court forehand just as well as he had been the entire week. Landaluce claimed his 3rd Challenger title 6-7(6) 6-2 6-3 and now finds himself just 38 points away from the Top 100 (but has the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2024\/10\/21\/challenger-tour-recap-landaluce-becomes-third-2006-born-champion\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Olbia trophy<\/a> to defend soon). He&#8217;s playing Villena this week, while the runner-up is competing in Mouilleron-le-Captif.<\/p>\n<h4>Jingshan<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Eliot Spizzirri<\/strong> reached four Challenger semifinals in as many weeks in July-August, before trying his luck in a few ATP Tour events. Not much worked out for him there besides an opening-round win at the US Open, but at the lower level it didn&#8217;t take him long to get back to his consistent best. He came back from a set down to defeat Dalibor Svrcina and snapped a 6-match losing streak in Challenger semifinals against Yannick Hanfmann.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alex Bolt<\/strong> had to start from the qualifying in Jingshan, falling victim to the very competitive main draw cut. The Australian dropped a set in his first match against Evan Zhu, before improving his quality of play considerably by the time he got to the main stage of the event. He prevailed in all-Australian classics against James Duckworth and Omar Jasika, before enjoying a productive Saturday with two wins &#8211; against Billy Harris and Mackenzie McDonald &#8211; to reach his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/05\/12\/challenger-tour-weekly-recap-maestrelli-misolic-win-titles\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">second final of the season (Wuxi)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bolt has the more explosive game and besides his lefty serve, the forehand was just piercing through the court in the condition in Jingshan. But all of that didn&#8217;t matter in the final. Spizzirri&#8217;s delivery looked just as effective with plenty of free points coming his way. Alongside his athleticism and consistency, it forced Bolt to execute at a really high standard if he didn&#8217;t want to start spraying. It wasn&#8217;t enough as Spizzirri claimed his 2nd Challenger title 6-4 6-4 and finds himself just 21 points away from Top 100 (but defends Tiburon final next week). He&#8217;ll play ATP 1000 Shanghai qualifying now, Bolt didn&#8217;t make the cut by a few spots.<\/p>\n<h4>Lisbon<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Henrique Rocha<\/strong> was on top of the world when he defeated Jakub Mensik to reach the third round at Roland Garros, but the results since had been nowhere near as spectacular. The Portuguese got himself going again at home with the win over <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/09\/22\/challenger-tour-recap-navas-triumphant-return-south-america\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">last week&#8217;s Bad Waltersdorf champion Jan Choinski<\/a> in the second round, before saving a match point (+1 forehand winner) to defeat Stefano Travaglia and make his first final of the year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vilius Gaubas<\/strong> had gone very quiet since his Rome round three run and win over Denis Shapovalov, not making any Challenger semifinals until Lisbon. The Lithuanian succeeded despite a tough draw, overcoming No. 2 seed Carlos Taberner in the opening round and going on a roll. He didn&#8217;t drop a set on the way to the final and snapped Ignacio Buse&#8217;s 10-match win streak in a late-night Saturday semifinal played in heavy rain.<\/p>\n<p>It was a great battle in the final with Rocha making it tough for Gaubas to get to his inside-out forehand. The Lithuanian lost the opening set and seemed weaker physically for a large chunk of the match, but recovered to track down some dropshots even late in the third set. By the end of the three-hour affair, it was actually Rocha who needed attention from the physio. Gaubas claimed his 3rd Challenger title 6-7(3) 6-3 6-4 with both players heading to Braga next.<\/p>\n<h4>Buenos Aires<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Roman Andres Burruchaga<\/strong> was in Bad Waltersdorf quarterfinals the week before Buenos Aires, before heading back home for his first event on the continent since March. Jet lag clearly wasn&#8217;t an issue as the 23-year-old produced a strong run to reach the final without dropping a set. It included wins against veterans Andrea Collarini or Nicolas Kicker, but it was only Genaro Alberto Olivieri who pushed him to a tie-break in one of the sets.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1888262857\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.66667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1888262857?et=WlfgpjPgTj1NOECg2_fNSg&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=f3LlPzVcJopftVOSUpeG2y5Gml-zaultzbRc1LOVFnA=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Alex Barrena<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/09\/22\/challenger-tour-recap-navas-triumphant-return-south-america\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">reached the final in Villa Maria<\/a>, the first tournament of the South American Challenger swing that will last until the end of the season. Emilio Nava proved too strong, but the 22-year-old was by far the second strongest player at that event. Desperate not to slow down, Barrena made it deep again and controlled the deciding sets against Juan Bautista Torres and Guido Ivan Justo. With not a single Challenger semifinal to his name before 2025, he now made it to his fourth final of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Burruchaga started the final playing uncharacteristically rushed and trying to keep the points short. It wasn&#8217;t working out at all with a 0-4 deficit, but the Argentinian soon showed he can switch to his usual grinding playstyle. In the key moments Barrena wasn&#8217;t able to blast through him in all the extended backhand cross-court exchanges, despite feeling so comfortable on the wing himself. Burruchaga claimed his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/02\/03\/challenger-tour-weekly-recap-burruchaga-claims-maiden-title\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">2nd Challenger title <\/a>7-6(4) 6-3 and is now taking a couple of weeks off before returning in Curitiba. Barrena is playing Antofagasta this week.<\/p>\n<h4>Las Vegas<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Abdullah Shelbayh<\/strong> was on a 13-match losing streak at one point this year, but has now managed to put it behind him and start performing a lot better. The Jordanian hadn&#8217;t made<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/10\/03\/challenger-tour-weekly-recap-first-ever-title-for-jordan\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"> a Challenger final in exactly 24 months<\/a> and needed to start picking up points with the ranking now dropping outside Top 400. In Las Vegas, the key win saw him come back from a set down against No. 1 seed Jurij Rodionov before defeating Benjamin Hassan in the semifinals.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alex Rybakov<\/strong> had been a consistent threat on the ITF Tour this year with a 1-4 record in finals, but had never reached a Challenger semifinal before Las Vegas. He clutched out the two-set win against James Trotter in the second round (3 set points saved) and took his opening to break into the final four at this level for the first time. He didn&#8217;t stop there and pushed past Andre Ilagan to secure the all-lefty final showdown against Shelbayh.<\/p>\n<p>Rybakov couldn&#8217;t compete with Shelbayh early on, struggling on return and not being able to keep the error count reasonably low in the rallies. But by the second set, it became clear that he wasn&#8217;t the only nervous player on the court and the Jordanian&#8217;s shot selection began crumbling. It was much more dramatic from there but the outcome was unlikely to change and Shelbayh claimed his 2nd Challenger title 6-2 6-4. The 21-year-old is on the verge of returning to the Top 300 as both finalists are headed to Tiburon next (the champion receiving a special exempt to join the main draw).<\/p>\n<h4>Events held this week:<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Villena Open (Challenger 100, clay)<\/li>\n<li>Challenger Dove Men+Care Antofagasta (Challenger 75, clay)<\/li>\n<li>Braga Open (Challenger 75, clay)<\/li>\n<li>Open de Vendee (Mouilleron-le-Captif, Challenger 75, indoor hard)<\/li>\n<li>Tiburon Challenger (Challenger 75, hard)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Top 100 players in action:<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Jan-Lennard Struff (Villena)<\/li>\n<li>Emilio Nava (Antofagasta)<\/li>\n<li>Raphael Collignon (Mouilleron-le-Captif)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>First-round matches to watch:<\/h4>\n<p>Villena<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>(1) Jan-Lennard Struff vs Edas Butvilas<\/li>\n<li>Tom Gentzsch vs (2) Nicolas Jarry<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Antofagasta<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>(1) Emilio Nava vs Matheus Pucinelli de Almeida<\/li>\n<li>(WC) Facundo Bagnis vs (5) Francesco Maestrelli<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Braga<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Stefano Travaglia vs (5) Jaime Faria<\/li>\n<li>(6) Dusan Lajovic vs Daniel Rincon<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mouilleron-le-Captif<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dominic Stricker vs (PR) Emil Ruusuvuori<\/li>\n<li>Clement Chidekh vs (2) Hugo Gaston<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Tiburon<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>(1) Jurij Rodionov vs (SE) Abdullah Shelbayh<\/li>\n<li>(7) Michael Zheng vs (ALT) Oliver Tarvet<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Danielle Parhizkaran-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Top-seeded Raphael Collignon was dominating the biggest Challenger of the week in Orleans, before running into a fantastic display from the 2022 US Open junior champion, Martin Landaluce, in the final. Roman Andres Burruchaga and Eliot Spizzirri added to their first titles at this level claimed earlier this season, while Vilius Gaubas defeated Henrique Rocha [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2968,"featured_media":75965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8552,2],"tags":[42697,18927,42928,4439,16781,9067,1690,8560,18998,18733,43351,16995,16888,18299,9065,18766,41735,42020],"class_list":["post-91276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp-challenger-tour","category-featured","tag-2025-atp-challenger-tour","tag-abdullah-shelbayh","tag-alex-barrena","tag-alex-bolt","tag-alex-rybakov","tag-buenos-aires-challenger","tag-challenger-tour","tag-challenger-tour-recap","tag-eliot-spizzirri","tag-henrique-rocha","tag-jingshan-challenger","tag-las-vegas-challenger","tag-lisbon-challenger","tag-martin-landaluce","tag-orleans-challenger","tag-raphael-collignon","tag-roman-andres-burruchaga","tag-vilius-gaubas"],"modified_by":"Steen Kirby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2968"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91276"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91387,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91276\/revisions\/91387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}