It all happened so fast for Ernesto Escobedo, maybe too fast. At the start of 2017, the American was No. 141 in the ATP Rankings.

But after he reached his maiden ATP World Tour semi-final in Houston last April, he rose to No. 73, with his eyes peering toward the Top 50.

Brad Gilbert, a former Top 5 player who coached Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick, predicted Escobedo would qualify for the inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan, where eight of the world’s best 21-and-under players competed last November.

But Escobedo didn’t reach the Top 50 or Milan. High expectations and a lack of focus caused the right-hander to finish outside the Top 100 of the 2017 year-end ATP Rankings.

“I just had a lot of distractions around me, on and off the court, and I didn’t really handle them well, and that was a life lesson for me, to go through that,” Escobedo told ATPWorldTour.com.

Now, however, the 21-year-old considers that lesson learned. He’s back at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship a year after the best run of his career and intent on making a similar push this clay-court season.

“I’m in a much better place right now,” Escobedo said. “I just have to be more patient with myself. It’s a long process, getting back into the Top 100 again, but I’m just focused on having a good week here, having fun.”

Any professional can relate to Escobedo’s struggle. You have a few great days at work, and you think, “Why isn’t every week like that?” Especially when you have as good of a week as Escobedo had last year.

Before 2017 Houston, he had never reached an ATP World Tour quarter-final. But Escobedo beat countryman and 2013 Houston titlist John Isner 7-6(6), 6-7(6), 7-6(5) in three hours and three minutes to make his maiden ATP World Tour semi-final last April.

“Before that I never had any taste of success in my life,” Escobedo said.

Read More: Escobedo Relishing Indian Wells Moment

He thought the results and his bigger dreams – the Top 10 and winning “Big Titles” – would be around the corner. But pressure from himself and others distracted him. Later in Halle, Escobedo also suffered a bone bruise on his right foot that further derailed his 2017. He didn’t reach another quarter-final all of last year.

This year, however, Escobedo’s coach has seen a maturing player. In 2017, Peter Lucassen had to encourage Escobedo to stay on court longer and work on his weapons – his serve and his forehand – or on transitioning from defence to offence.

But this year, it’s Escobedo who’s volunteering to grind, and it has shown in his results. He picked up his first Top 10 win in Acapulco (d. No. 10 Sock) and beat Delray Beach Open champion Frances Tiafoe at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

“Now he’s back with a full 100 per cent mental engagement. He’s excited about practising. He’s excited about getting better. He wants to do some extra stuff, day in and day out,” Lucassen told ATPWorldTour.com.

“He’s understanding what his job is going to be for the next 10 years.”

In other words, Escobedo is again showing the traits of his teenaged years, when Lucassen met him. Lucassen was a collegiate tennis player at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and Escobedo was a 14-year-old living in the area and looking for hitting partners.

A friend of Lucassen’s had told him about Escobedo. Lucassen remembers meeting “a really, really nice and shy kid. He would listen to every word. Really humble. Really hard-working. A really cool kid.”

One key detail has changed since they first met, though. At the time, Lucassen was near the prime of his playing career, having helped the USC Trojans win the 2011 NCAA Team Championship. Escobedo, meanwhile, was a teenager still honing his game.

These days, however, Lucassen hasn’t played a collegiate or professional match for seven years, and Escobedo is improving every day.

“He got way better than me,” Lucassen said before laughing.

It is fair to say that many matches on the ATP World Tour are like wild rides with many momentum shifts and plenty of ups and downs. But before the action got started this week at the Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakech, some of the tournament’s stars got to enjoy a new kind of wild ride.

Radu Albot, Pablo Andujar, Kyle Edmund, Robin Haase, Matwe Middelkoop and Gilles Simon ventured just outside of the city Sunday afternoon into the Palmeraie district, where they rode quad bikes.

“It’s nice to go out of the city and drive around the Palmeraie. It was good fun,” said Edmund, the second seed in Morocco. “When I go to South Africa we do similar things with the family and I always enjoy it a lot. It was nice to do this together with my team.”

It was great fun for all, even if Haase’s quad bike broke down due to technical issues.

“Maybe a player sabotaged my brakes,” joked Haase, who is the only player seeded in both singles (No. 5) and doubles (No. 4 w/ Middelkoop).

After the festivities, all the players and their guests got to partake in the local culture, as they were served traditional Moroccan mint tea and some pancakes after the ride.

For some players, the activity provided valuable bonding experience. Simon, who would go on to save a match point before winning his opening-round match Monday against sixth seed Benoit Paire, got to ride with his son, Timothée, who was born during the 2010 US Open.

“It was fun and my family enjoyed it a lot. My son was on the bike with me and we had good fun,” Simon said, breaking for a laugh. “He’s an excellent driver.”

A decade ago, Gilles Simon won the title in Casablanca to begin the best year of his career, eventually finishing the season at No. 7 in the ATP Rankings and advancing to the semi-finals of the Nitto ATP Finals, where he beat Roger Federer in round-robin play.

Now, the Casablanca tournament is in Marrakech. And Simon got off to a good start there on Monday, saving a match point before upsetting French compatriot Benoit Paire, the sixth seed, 6-2, 6-7(1), 7-6(5) at the Grand Prix Hassan II.

The 33-year-old, who won the Tata Open Maharashtra to open the season, saved match point while serving at 4-5 in the decider and then overcame a 5/1 deficit in the final-set tie-break to extend his FedEx ATP Head2Head series lead to 5-3 against Paire.

“The conditions were not easy today with the cold weather and the wind. It was a difficult match and I didn’t manage to finish it in the second set,” said Simon, who served for the match at 5-3 in the second set. “At 5/1 in the tie-break I thought that the match was almost over, but I managed to come back and win.”

Fortune favoured the brave, as on Paire’s match point, Simon hit a big inside-out forehand and swooped in to take a short reply out of the air, hitting a confident forehand swinging volley into the open court for a winner. And then after overcoming a slow start in the tie-break, the 13-time ATP World Tour titlist seized his first match point with a massive inside-in forehand return that Paire could not handle. 

Simon, who had lost three of his past nine matches after triumphing in Pune, will next face German Maximilian Marterer or Quito champion Roberto Carballes Baena. The Frenchman has won both of his FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings against Marterer, including one earlier this year in Marseille. He has not played Carballed Baena.

Another former Top 10 Frenchman, Richard Gasquet, snapped a four-match losing streak with a 6-1, 7-6(2) victory against Italian Thomas Fabbiano in the only other main-draw match of the day. The fourth seed will next face Spanish veteran Guillermo Garcia-Lopez or compatriot Calvin Hemery, who seeks his second tour-level victory and first of the season. 

Gasquet, who had lost his previous six completed sets (retired down 1-3 v. Herbert at Rotterdam), trailed by a break twice in the second set against the World No. 102, but broke back when Fabbiano served for the second set. And in the second-set tie-break, the Frenchman was simply too consistent from the baseline, closing out his win in one hour, 27 minutes.

Did You Know?
Simon has won at least one ATP World Title in a season nine times during his career.

There were moments when Pablo Andujar could not envision a return to professional tennis, let alone wrapping his arms around a trophy. After three elbow surgeries and years of anguish, the former World No. 32 had his doubts that he would ever step on a court again.

But when the body fails, perseverence prevails. In just his eighth tournament in 18 months, Andujar battled to the title at the inaugural ATP Challenger Tour event in Alicante, Spain. He celebrated his first trophy in nearly four years, since triumphing at the Swiss Open Gstaad in 2014.

After battling to a trio of three-set victories during the week, Andujar needed just one hour and 36 minutes to upset #NextGenATP star Alex de Minaur 7-6(5), 6-1 in Saturday’s final. The Spaniard rallied from an 0-3 deficit in the first set, reeling off 13 of the next 17 games to emerge victorious.

De Minaur, meanwhile, continues his push towards the Top 100 after reaching his third Challenger final. It marked the third consecutive year that the 19-year-old has featured in a title match on the circuit. Having also reached his first ATP World Tour final in Sydney in January, the Aussie-born Alicante resident is the only player to reach finals on both circuits this year.

ICYMI, @AndujarPablo is the champion at the inaugural #ATPChallenger in Alicante. The ?? clinched his first title since 2014 @SwissOpenGstaad. pic.twitter.com/96zPkhtvqU

— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) April 8, 2018

Andujar’s win at the Ferrero Challenger Open, hosted at former World No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero’s academy in the town of Villena, will see him jump more than 200 spots in the ATP Rankings to No. 355. The Spanish veteran spoke to ATPWorldTour.com after the match…

After De Minaur got off to a great start at 3-0 in the first set, you were able to recover nicely. Talk about that and how you got the win.
I think it was a great final. We both played very well throughout the first set. He started very strong without missing much. I tried to match that level he was playing and I was able to get the break back. It was an exchange of blows until the tie-break. I was lucky to take it and the momentum went in my favour. In the second set, I tried to maintain the same level and although he played well, his game dropped a little.

Your opponent in the final is one of the #NextGenATP leaders in the ATP Race To Milan. What makes him so tough to beat?
I was not surprised at his level, because I had seen him play a few times. I know he can play very well and he’s only 19 years old. I’m surprised that he has so many weapons already, and not only with his game, but also mentally. He is a gladiator, a warrior on the court. I agree that he is a player on the rise.

What feelings did you have throughout the week?
It was all very good. I am slowly improving my game and that allowed me to play the best match of the week in the final. I did not expect to take a trophy with me already.

You didn’t expect success to come so soon?
That’s right. In the end, it is true that if you buy the tickets and do everything you can to win the lottery, there could be a week when you win. If feel like that was me. In this case, it makes me especially excited because it was close to home. Juan Carlos Ferrero’s Equelite Academy has been very good to me from the first day. We have known each other for a long time, we have a very good relationship and that makes this title even more special. This helped me to keep my level all week and stay calm.

What do you take from the week in Alicante?
I take great satisfaction. In the end, when you put in the time and effort, everything ends up working out. All the suffering has been rewarded. The previous week I lost in the first round of the Challenger in Marbella, and in just one week everything changed.

What changed in such a short time?
I was training well and doing things the best I could. After all this time away from the game, it was a surprise to win. Look at the weeks I’ve played. I do not have many titles. It’s normal to lose every week. But this time it has been on my side.

This season, you had won your first match at the Rio Open presented by Claro, but again you had another injury.
It was a small setback. Although it was not an elbow injury, I had to go back to do rehab and it was a month and a half without competing. I knew that little by little I would get my level again, although maybe it has come faster than I expected. Now I only ask to stay healthy.

Where do you go from here?
Marrakesh. I will try to play ATP World Tour tournaments with my Protected Ranking and any wild cards. That will allow me to continue training and competing with the best players. That is what I need now.

Stat of the week: Alicante champion @AndujarPablo was competing in just his eighth tournament in 18 months, in his return from a third elbow surgery. Jumps more than 200 spots in the ATP Rankings. pic.twitter.com/IThr4RpATB

— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) April 8, 2018