The ATP Challenger Tour was host to only one tournament this past week, which was located in Quimper, France. The Open BNP Paribas had competitive fields in both the singles draw and the doubles draw. Fans came out in droves to see the action, as most challenger tournaments located in France do not fail to disappoint. Action began on February 29th and ended on March 6th.
Quimper Singles
Eighteen-year-old Andrey Rublev impressed many this week at the Open BNP Paribas, as he won the title with a hard fought 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-4 victory over veteran Paul Henri-Mathieu. The victory was the Russian's first Challenger title. He follows in the footsteps of his fellow Russian Karen Khachanov, who claimed his first challenger title last September in Istanbul.
The 18-year-old looked down and out against the top seed and home favorite. Mathieu would edge out a tight first set after being a break down. The world number 69 looked in control as he was dictating points from start to finish, but his younger opponent looked determined to keep things close. The set went to a tiebreak with the Frenchman racing out to a 4-0 start, before Rublev hit a big winner. The top seed managed to hold on, barely gutting out an 8-6 score line in the tiebreaker to take the set. Things finally turned around at 3-2 with the 18-year-old down a set and a break, where he converted on his 7th break point opportunity. From that point on, Rublev won ten of the last 15 games to win the match in two hours and 24 minutes.
The title skyrockets the young Russian to a career high of number 161 in the world. He becomes the 11th teenager in the top 200 and the third teenager to win a challenger title this year, including Taylor Fritz and Blake Mott. After Mikhail Youzhny's three wins in three weeks of Challenger play in January, the teenager makes it 4-0 for Russians in ATP Challenger Tour finals this year. In defeat, Mathieu still rises seven spots to 62nd. The top seed was looking to find form at the Challenger level and produced good play on the week.
Here are highlights from the final in Quimper:
Rublev Pleased With His Performance
"It's such a great feeling," Rublev expressed after the match. "I'm so happy to win it and I'm going to try to work harder to play better and better."
The Russian continued, "Today was a tough match against such a great player. I was just trying to do my best. The surface here is really fast, so when I had chances I was trying to go for it."
Quimper Doubles
A big surprise to the delight of the home fans came in the Quimper doubles draw. Wildcards Tristan Lamasine and Albano Olivetti took out two seeded teams on the way to a 6-2, 4-6, 10-7 victory over third seeded Nikola Mektic and Antonio Sancic to grab the title. It was not an easy road for the French duo. They nearly lost in the first round to Aldin Setkic and Adam Pavlasek, but held on the super tiebreak to win 10-8. In the semifinals, the duo scraped by 12-10 in a super tiebreak against another French team comprised of David Guez and Maxime Teixeira.
Up Next
The Challenger tour features an action packed lineup this week. Tournaments are being played in four different parts of the globe, which shows how international the sport has become. Puebla, Santiago, Zhuhai, and Jonkoping are the places on the calendar this week. Qualifying and first round matches have already gotten underway and action will continue through the end of the week.
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