Three Top-100 Players Claim Challenger Titles
David Goffin, Gregoire Barrere, and Federico Coria were all crowned champions during this week’s strong competition on the ATP Challenger Tour. From the indoor hard courts of Western Europe to the clay courts of Chile, all three Challenger winners on Sunday were players from the Top 100 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.
In Belgium, home favourite Goffin dropped just one set all week to capture the BW Open. The former World No. 50 made the best possible use of a wild card after suffering an illness in Melbourne that forced him to miss the season’s first Slam. In the championship match, the top seed converted six of 13 break points to down World No. 69 Mikael Ymer 6-4, 6-1.
“Winning in Belgium is so nice for me,” Goffin said. “I know that I’ve won big tournaments but winning at home is so special… This final had a great level, similar to an ATP 250.”
Goffin and Ymer’s clash marked the first Challenger final with two Top-70 players since Phoenix 2019, when the-then No. 43 Matteo Berrettini defeated No. 57 Mikhail Kukushkin.
Goffin’s last Challenger title before rising to a career-high No. 7 in 2017 came three years prior in Mons (2014). The 32-year-old has won the past eight Challenger finals in which he’s competed in.
In Quimper, France, second seed Barrere captured his sixth Challenger title by taking down countryman Arthur Fils 6-1, 6-4 in the final.
Barrere, 28, has earned all of his Challenger titles on home soil. The Charenton-Le-Pont native has enjoyed great success in Quimper, where he has made four Challenger finals and collected a pair of titles.
Gregoire Barrere is crowned champion at the Challenger 125 event in Quimper. Credit: Nicolas Averty
After rallying from a set down in his opening match, Barrere didn’t give up a set the rest of the week to claim the Open Quimper Bretagne Occidentale. The title lifts the Frenchman to a career-high 76 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.
The 18-year-old Fils was riding a nine-match winning streak heading into Sunday’s final. The #NextGenATP star, who is the youngest Frenchman in the Top 200, captured his maiden Challenger crown two weeks ago in Oeiras, Portugal.
At the Challenger Dove Men+Care Concepcion in Chile, top seed Federico Coria captured his fifth Challenger title. In the final, the Argentine defeated Kazakhstan’s Timofey Skatov 6-4, 6-3.
“I’m very happy,” Coria said. “Concepcion will always remain in my memory because it is one of the five titles I’ve won. It is a very important tournament and I’m grateful to the city and to ‘el Pulga’ [Horacio de La Peña] for organising such a great tournament.”
Federico Coria in action at the 2023 Concepcion Challenger. Credit: Challenger Dove Men+Care Concepcion
Following a record-setting 23 Challenger titles in 2022, players from Argentina are off to fast start to surpass their own milestone, claiming four titles in as many weeks. Coria joins Andrea Collarini and Juan Manuel Cerundolo as Argentine Challenger champions this year. Cerundolo, 21, won two titles in Tigre to open the season.
This past season, Coria reached a career-high 52 after a semi-final appearance at the ATP 250 event in Marrakech (l. Goffin). The 30-year-old was a five-time Challenger semi-finalist in 2022 and won the Milan Challenger without dropping a set.