Flashback: 10 years since Zverev's first Challenger title

pA tall, thin teenager by the name of a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alexander-zverev/z355/overview'Alexander Zverev/a stepped onto home soil at the 2014 Braunschweig Challenger. Crushing hefty first serves and blistering the ball with his two-handed backhand, the German earned a career-igniting victory in front of a packed crowd./ppThe 17-year-old with wavy, blonde hair lifted his first ATP Challenger Tour title that July afternoon, 10 years ago Friday./p/brdiv style="position: relative; display: block; max-width: 100%;" div style="padding-top: 56.25%;" iframe src="https://players.brightcove.net/6057277721001/8gZSNwgH_default/index.html?videoId=6356475173112" allowfullscreen="" allow="encrypted-media" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%;"/iframe /div/divp

Then-ranked No. 665 in the PIF ATP Rankings, Zverev had just one ATP Challenger Tour main-draw win under his belt entering Braunschweig. Tennis fans were becoming more familiar with Zverev that year, when in January the teen won the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/australian-open/580/overview'Australian Open/a boysrsquo; singles title./pp

A wild card competing 200 kilometres from his hometown Hamburg, Zverev went on a dream run on the red clay of Braunschweig. A decade later, Zverevrsquo;s first title at that level is still etched in a piece of Challenger history. Zverev is the third-youngest Challenger champion since 2010. Only a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/felix-auger-aliassime/ag37/overview'Felix Auger-Aliassime/a has claimed a title at a younger age in that time period./ppstrongYoungest ATP Challenger Tour champions since 2010/strong/brtable tbody tr tdstrongAge/strong/td tdstrongPlayer/strong/td tdstrongTitle/strong/td /tr tr td16 years, 10 months/td tdspan id="docs-internal-guid-e96768d1-7fff-ad1f-3277-04eed67e4ae5" style="color: #000000;"a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/felix-auger-aliassime/ag37/overview'Felix Auger-Aliassime/a/span/td td2017 Lyon/td /tr tr td17 years, 1 month/td tdspan id="docs-internal-guid-e96768d1-7fff-ad1f-3277-04eed67e4ae5" style="color: #000000;"a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/felix-auger-aliassime/ag37/overview'Felix Auger-Aliassime/a/span/td td2017 Sevillabr / /td /tr tr tdstrong17 years, 2 months/strong/td tdstronga href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alexander-zverev/z355/overview'Alexander Zverev/a/strong/td tdstrong2014 Braunschweig/strong/td /tr tr td17 years, 3 months/td tda href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/carlos-alcaraz/a0e2/overview'Carlos Alcaraz/a/td td2020 Trieste/td /tr /tbody/tablep

Zverev defeated three Top 100 players en route to the Challenger 125 crown, including a final victory against Frenchman a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/paul-henri-mathieu/m850/overview'Paul-Henri Mathieu/a. It was a launching pad for the home hope who has since ascended as high as World No. 2 in the PIF ATP Rankings./pp

The two-time major finalist made quick progress on the ATP Challenger Tour and enjoyed early success on the ATP Tour. Two weeks after winning in Braunschweig, Zverev earned his maiden tour-level match win in Hamburg. He did not stop there. The wild card reached the semi-finals, falling to a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/david-ferrer/f401/overview'David Ferrer/a./pp

Zverev cracked the Top 100 for the first time in May 2015 following a title run at the Heilbronn Challenger. The German played just one more event at that level./ppp

Now with 22 tour-level titles in his trophy cabinet, which includes two a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/nitto-atp-finals/605/overview'Nitto ATP Finals/a and the 2021 Tokyo Olympics gold medal, Zverev has earned more than $43 million in prize money in his standout career that featured one of its first shining moments 10 years ago./pp

This is what the ATP Challenger Tour prides itself in, serving as a building block for young players testing their game against the worldrsquo;s best. And you never know when the player in front of your eyes is headed from outside the Top 500 to a single-digit ranking next to his name./ppstrongDid You Know?/strongbr /

The Braunschweig Challenger is celebrating its 30th anniversary next week. Past winners include a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/gaston-gaudio/g374/overview'Gaston Gaudio/a, current ATP chairman a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andrea-gaudenzi/g254/overview'Andrea Gaudenzi/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/tomas-berdych/ba47/overview'Tomas Berdych/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jan-lennard-struff/sl28/overview'Jan-Lennard Struff/a and Zverev./pp[NEWSLETTER FORM]/p