Tennis Atlantic

2016 Sarasota, Gwangju and Barletta Challenger Recaps
Chris De Waard, Tennis Atlantic

Sarasota

Top seed Denis Kudla was upset by his countryman Noah Rubin in the first round, losing a marathon three-set match after missing a match point, 7-5 2-6 7-6(8). Rubin followed up with a win over Gonzalo Lama in the second round, after which he was convincingly beaten Guilherme Clezar, 6-3 6-0. Fifth seed Tim Smyczek lost to Frances Tiafoe in the first round, 6-4 6-3, although that wasn’t really an upset. Third seed Gerald Melzer was the only seed in the top half to move past the first round, eventually beating Clezar in the semi-final after the Brazilian was forced to retire down in the third set at 6-7(4) 6-4 3-2, because of a quad strain.

In the bottom half, second seed Diego Schwartzman couldn’t break his patch of bad form in recent times, losing to Henri Laaksonen in the second round, 6-4 6-7(5) 6-4. Laaksonen lost to Mischa Zverev in the quarterfinal, 2-6 6-3 7-5, after which the older brother of Alexander also dispatched sixth seed Bjorn Fratangelo in the semi-final, 6-2 6-4. Zverev continued his great run in the final against Melzer, Jurgen’s younger brother, beating the Austrian 6-4 7-6(2) in this battle of lesser-known brothers. It meant the fifth career title for Zverev, rising thirty-one spots to #131 in the rankings. Melzer rose ten spots to #112, a career high ranking.

Gwangju

Judging by top seed Ricardas Berankis’ scorelines in this tournament, you would think he played a Futures event. The skill gap between the world #80 and his opponents, all ranked outside of the top 150, was simply too high. Little can be said. Berankis dropped only fourteen games on his way to the semi-final and not a lot was added to that count when he faced two seeded players in Di Wu (#4) and Grega Zemlja (#6, beat #2 seed Tatsuma Ito 6-4 6-3 in the semi-final), respectively beating them 6-4 6-1 and 6-3 6-2 to win his sixth title. He rose eighteen ranking spots, landing at a career high #62. Zemlja rose twenty-eight spots to #161.

Barletta

The top two seeds were far from upholding their seeding in this event. Rogerio Dutra Silva, the top seed, lost 7-6(5) 6-4 to Jurgen Zopp in the quarterfinal, while second seed Roberto Carballes Baena lost 5-7 6-4 6-4 to Alessandro Giannessi in the second round. Zopp lost his semi-final to eighth seed Elias Ymer, who turned twenty last week, 6-2 6-4. Third seed Adam Pavlasek recovered well from his tough victory over Marton Fucsovics in the second round, 5-7 6-4 6-3, beating qualifiers Lorenzo Sonego and Enrique Lopez-Perez respectively 6-2 6-0 and 6-1 6-3 to reach the final. There Ymer was too strong, however, with the Swede winning 7-5 6-4 to take down his second title. He rose nineteen spots to a career high ranking of #123, while Pavlasek rose twelve spots to #108, a career high ranking as well.