2014 Vancouver, Cortina, Segovia and Liberec Challengers Recap
Vancouver Challenger
Top seed Marcos Baghdatis lived up to his seeding and took the title after a 7-6(3) 6-3 victory over fourth seed Farrukh Dustov in the final. In the semi-final he barely managed to get by Ruben Bemelmans, as the latter missed two match points and succumbed in the third set tiebreak. Despite being ranked 105th this result doesn’t bring Baghdatis back into the top 100, as he defended 90 points from his Washington quarter final of last year.
Cortina Challenger
Filip Krajinovic took down the title after a gruelling battle with surprise finalist Federico Gaio, who entered the tournament on a wild card. Krajinovic had to battle extremely hard for the entire tournament, with a 6-4 7-5 victory being his most comfortable win of the week, which saw him play three three set matches, including one against Viktor Troicki in the semi-final.
Segovia Challenger
Adrian Mannarino won a blow-out final against Menendez-Maceiras in which he even dished out a second set bagel: 6-3 6-0. Menendez-Maceiras was on the giving end of a second set bagel in his semi-final match against second seed Kudryavtsev: 7-6(4) 6-0. Mannarino’s biggest sweat surprisingly came in the second round against qualifier Frederico Ferreira Silva, the only match in which he needed three sets to take it down. This result means that Mannarino is back in the top 100, he jumped sixteen spots to #85.
Liberec Challenger
Top favorite Pablo Cuevas didn’t withdraw as I expected, but he wasn’t fit and fell in the second round to Tsung-Hua Yang. Unseeded Andrej Martin became the surprise of the tournament by winning the final against fourth seed Horacio Zeballos: 1-6 6-1 6-4. Earlier in the tournament Martin had already beaten Steve Darcis and second seed Blaz Rola.
—Chris De Waard, Tennis East Coast
Tennis Atlantic 