2015 Noumea and Happy Valley Challenger Recaps
Chris De Waard, Tennis Atlantic
Noumea
Jarmere Jenkins started off the tournament by upsetting second seed Kenny De Schepper in the first round with a solid 6-4 6-4 victory. Unfortunately for him he was unable to build on that win, losing to Chase Buchanan in the next round. The player who profited most from De Schepper bombing out was #7 seed Adrian Menendez-Maceiras, who easily beat Buchanan 6-1 6-2 in the quarterfinal before winning a marathon semi-final against #4 seed Jimmy Wang, 5-7 6-4 7-6(2).
In the top half #3 seed Horacio Zeballos lost 6-2 6-3 in the second round, but it wasn’t an upset. Steve Darcis, despite not even being seeded, was a firm favorite and he didn’t disappoint. The only weapon that Zeballos managed to pull off was the most casual racquet toss of the week.
Prior to the tournament I predicted Darcis to beat top seed Adrian Mannarino, which he did relatively comfortably in the semi-final, 6-4 7-5. The final was an even more one-sided affair, with Darcis prevailing 6-3 6-2 over Menendez-Maceiras. Funny enough the result made them end up next to each other on the ranking, with Darcis rising twenty-seven spots to #131 and Menendez-Maceiras landing at #130, an improvement of sixteen.
Happy Valley
Will 2015 become the year of Ryan Harrison, I asked in my preview. He certainly went off to an excellent start here, taking out top seed Blaz Rola in the second round in an interestingly scored match, 1-6 6-1 7-5. In the second section home player Alex Bolt was sweeping up the competition. Bolt, playing on a wild card, took out #8 seed Marton Fucsovics in the second round, 3-6 7-6(5) 6-1, after which he went on to take out #4 seed Paul-Henri Mathieu in the quarterfinal, 7-5 7-5. There he was stopped by Harrison, who faced no problems in a 6-3 6-3 victory.
In the bottom half, self-proclaimed future top 10 player Marcos Baghdatis was the big favorite to reach the final and he didn’t disappoint. He dropped a set in the quarterfinal against #5 seed Alexander Nedovyesov, 3-6 6-2 6-2, and dismissed qualifier Andrew Harris in the semi-final, 6-4 6-4. He went into the final against Harrison as the favorite, but Harrison quickly took control of the match and won 7-6(6) 6-4. This marked his best result since Atlanta in 2013, when he reached the semi-final. Perhaps this is the first step towards finally fulfilling his potential. It is going to be a long road, however, as he only sits at #160 on the ranking. Baghdatis creeps a little bit closer towards his top 50 goal for this year, rising five spots to #77.
