Gasquet becomes third-oldest Challenger champion in history
pA trio of veteran players lifted trophies on the ATP Challenger Tour this past week, including Frenchman a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/richard-gasquet/g628/overview'Richard Gasquet/a, who became the third-oldest champion at that level. Fellow tour-veteran a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/damir-dzumhur/d923/overview'Damir Dzumhur/a claimed a season-leading fifth Challenger title while a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/roberto-carballes-baena/cf59/overview'Roberto Carballes Baena/a won in Seville for the third consecutive year./p
pGasquet, 38, triumphed on home soil at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/cassis/9120/2024/results'Cassis Open Provence by Cabesto/a, where he rallied past Austrian a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jurij-rodionov/r09x/overview'Jurij Rodionov/a 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 in the final. Due to rain, the championship match was forced to finish Monday with Gasquet leading 3-2, 40/0 in the final set. The former World No. 8 in the PIF ATP Rankings wasted no time upon resumption to earn his 10th Challenger title and first since 2017./p
pldquo;Irsquo;m very proud. Winning a tournament is always special," Gasquet said. "I came after a bad a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/us-open/560/overview'US Open/a, so I tried my best to survive the first two rounds and then I started to play well. It feels great to win another tournament. It gives me a lot of confidence for the rest of the season.rdquo;/p
pstrongOldest champions on the ATP Challenger Tour since 1978/strong/p
table
tbody
tr
tdstrongPlayer/strong/td
tdstrongAge/strong/td
tdstrongTitle/strong/td
/tr
tr
tda href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/ivo-karlovic/k336/overview'Ivo Karlovic/a/td
td39 years, seven months/td
td2018 Calgary/td
/tr
tr
tda href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/fernando-verdasco/v306/overview'Fernando Verdasco/a/td
td38 years, three months/td
td2022 Monterrey/td
/tr
tr
tdstronga href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/richard-gasquet/g628/overview'Richard Gasquet/a/strong/td
tdstrong38 years, two months/strong/td
tdstrong2024 Cassis/strong/td
/tr
/tbody
/table
pDzumhur strengthened his claim as the ATP Challenger Tourrsquo;s season leader in singles trophies (five) by successfully defending his title at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/istanbul/7083/2024/results'Istanbul Challenger TED Open/a. The 32-year-old, who returned to the Top 100 in August for the first time since 2020, downed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/hamad-medjedovic/m0jf/overview'Hamad Medjedovic/a 6-4, 6-2 in the title match./p
p
pThe Istanbul Challenger is the longest-running hard-court tournament on the ATP Challenger Tour. In its 37 years of existence, only two players have successfully repeated as champion: a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/malek-jaziri/j267/overview'Malek Jaziri/a (2016-17) and Dzumhur. The Bosnian is just the second player since 2021 to win five Challenger titles in a season. a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/mariano-navone/n0bs/overview'Mariano Navone/a also lifted five trophies last year./p
pimg src="/-/media/images/news/2024/09/09/13/45/istanbulch-2024.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/damir-dzumhur/d923/overview'Damir Dzumhur/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/hamad-medjedovic/m0jf/overview'Hamad Medjedovic/a compete in front of a full crowd in Istanbul." /br /
emsupa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/damir-dzumhur/d923/overview'Damir Dzumhur/a (far end) and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/hamad-medjedovic/m0jf/overview'Hamad Medjedovic/a compete in front of a full crowd Sunday. Credit: a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/istanbul/7083/2024/results'Istanbul Challenger TED Open/a/sup/em/p
pHome favourite Carballes Baena became the first player in 10 years to three-peat at a Challenger tournament. The 31-year-old dropped just one set en route to the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/seville/784/2024/results'LXI Copa Sevilla/a crown and cruised past third seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/daniel-altmaier/ae14/overview'Daniel Altmaier/a 6-3, 7-5 in the final./p
pThe Spaniard is just the seventh player to win three consecutive years at one Challenger event. a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andreas-haider-maurer/h804/overview'Andreas Haider-Maurer/a last accomplished the feat by triumphing in Brasov, Romania from 2012-14. Carballes Baena is the second to record a hat-trick in Seville, joining a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/daniel-gimeno-traver/g676/overview'Daniel Gimeno-Traver/a (2011-13)./p
pIn other Challenger action, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/francesco-passaro/p0ct/overview'Francesco Passaro/a survived a marathon week to be crowned champion at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/genoa/1763/2024/results'AON Open Challenger/a, which was a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.atptour.com/en/news/genoa-challenger-2024-feature-20th-anniversary" target="_blank"celebrating its 20th anniversary/a. The 23-year-old Italian gave the home crowd plenty to cheer about as he saved two match points in the opening round and another pair in the quarter-finals. Passaro overcame Spaniard a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jaume-munar/mu94/overview'Jaume Munar/a 7-5, 6-3 in the final./p
pimg src="/-/media/images/news/2024/09/09/13/51/passaro-genoach-2024.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Francisco Passaro wins the 20th anniversary edition of the Genoa Challenger." /br /
emsupa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/francesco-passaro/p0ct/overview'Francesco Passaro/a wins the 20th anniversary edition of the Genoa Challenger. Credit: a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/genoa/1763/2024/results'AON Open Challenger/a/sup/em/p
pJapanrsquo;s a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/sho-shimabukuro/sy67/overview'Sho Shimabukuro/a collected his third Challenger title by winning the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/shanghai/6313/2024/results'Road to the Rolex Shanghai Masters/a. The 27-year-old was dominant all week, racing past a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/yu-hsiou-hsu/h09f/overview'Yu Hsiou Hsu/a 6-4, 6-4 in the final, during which Shimabukuro dropped just two points behind his first serve, according to Infosys ATP Stats./p
pldquo;Irsquo;m very happy, first Challenger title this year,rdquo; Shimabukuro said. ldquo;My first time in Shanghai, my first time playing a Challenger in China. I enjoyed it and I will keep going.rdquo;/p
pimg src="/-/media/images/news/2024/09/09/13/52/shimabukuro-shanghaich-2024.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/sho-shimabukuro/sy67/overview'Sho Shimabukuro/a triumphs at the Shanghai Challenger." /br /
emsupa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/sho-shimabukuro/sy67/overview'Sho Shimabukuro/a in action at the Shanghai Challenger. Credit: a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/shanghai/6313/2024/results'Road to the Rolex Shanghai Masters/a/sup/em/p
pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jan-choinski/ch12/overview'Jan Choinski/a, who fell to Seville champion Carballes Baena in a five-set a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/us-open/560/overview'US Open/a first-round clash, also returned to the winnersrsquo; circle at the NO Open powered by EVN. The 28-year-old beat a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lukas-neumayer/n0cs/overview'Lukas Neumayer/a 6-4, 6-1 in the final. Choinski is a three-time Challenger champion, having won a title each season since 2022./p
pFollowing his title run, Choinski is up 100 places to No. 176 in the PIF ATP Rankings./pblockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED ????brbrChoinski is the champion in Tulln after a straight sets victory over Neumayer!a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ATPChallenger?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#ATPChallenger/a | a href="https://twitter.com/the_LTA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@the_LTA/a a href="https://t.co/8e6cqyqU5R"pic.twitter.com/8e6cqyqU5R/a/pmdash; ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) a href="https://twitter.com/ATPChallenger/status/1832750644899324214?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"September 8, 2024/a/blockquote script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script
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