Prior to this week, 17-year-old Rudolf Molleker had never won a match on the ATP Challenger Tour. But now, the German youngster, appearing in just his third main draw at the Challenger level, has become the youngest finalist of 2018. At 17 years, seven months, he is the talk of the tournament in Heilbronn. Expected to rise almost 100 places into the Top 400 of the ATP Rankings on Monday, Molleker defeated back-to-back seeded opponents to reach the semi-finals at the Heilbronner Neckarcup, where he overcame Argentina's Juan Ignacio Londero from a set down on Saturday. The German upset fourth-seeded countryman Yannick Hanfmann and seventh seed Alexey Vatutin, also in three sets, to make headlines at the ATP Challenger Tour’s...
Watch as 17-year-old German Rudolf Molleker thrills the home crowd at the ATP Challenger Tour event in Heilbronn, claiming a wild point en route to the quarter-finals.
Reilly Opelka knows quite well what the ATP Challenger Tour has to offer during its spring clay-court season. One year ago, the big-hitting American blasted into his first semi-final on the surface in Aix-en-Provence, France. And this week, Opelka finds himself in the last four on the green clay of Sarasota, U.S.A., rallying from a break down twice during the tournament. "I am better on hard, so it is nice to get a win on clay, especially when I have been in a slump the last six or seven weeks," said Opelka. "Tennis is such a confidence game, so it is just about finding that confidence when we hit the clay season. This gives me an opportunity to play tomorrow...
The ATP has announced the 2017 ATP Challenger Tournaments of the Year, with players voting two of their favourite Challenger Tour stops in Germany (Braunschweig and Heilbronn) and one in Canada (Vancouver) from the 155 tournaments in 41 countries staged last year. The Challenger Tournament of the Year awards recognise excellence in standards set across the global Challenger Tour. Braunschweig’s 24-year-old Sparkassen OPEN has won the award every year since 2014 and has long been a player favourite. The NECKARCUP, staged in Heilbronn, Germany, for the last four years, and Vancouver’s Odlum Brown VanOpen, relaunched in 2017, have also been rewarded with the player vote after ambitious improvements each year. ATP Challenger Tour Committee Co-Chairs, Alison Lee, ATP International Executive...
If you listen closely, you can hear the crunch of pristinely trimmed blades as players take to the grass courts of the Aegon Surbiton Trophy in suburban London this week. The grass-court season is here, and the fresh smell of carefully groomed lawns is in the air on the ATP Challenger Tour, with three weeks of tennis set to commence in England. The tournaments in Surbiton, Nottingham and Ilkley provide some of the more quaint and picturesque settings on the circuit, but which Challengers are held in the most scenic, breathtaking locales? We look at the 10 best, presented in alphabetical order by city... Kunming Challenger (Anning, China) One of two events in the Asia-Pacific region that feature on our...
