Having won opening-round matches at the past two majors, Brandon Holt could be forgiven for wanting to spend less time on the ATP Challenger Tour and steel his focus on tour-level events.

But at No. 199 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, the 24-year-old American realises that he still has dues to pay before earning the right to play at the top echelon of the sport on a consistent basis. In fact, the son of former WTA World No. 1 Tracy Austin is thankful to be playing tennis at all.

A career-threatening hand injury in 2021 nearly forced Holt to hang up his racquets and put his Real Estate Development degree to use. But now that he’s 100 per cent healthy, Holt is aiming towards more success on the Challenger Tour.

“In 2021, I went to an ITF tournament in Tunisia and instantly started feeling pain in my hand,” Holt said. “I came home and went to the doctor and was told it was this, then it was that. It ended up being a tumour in my bone [osteoid osteoma] that was growing. They had to do surgery on it. It was like touch and go, they didn’t really know if I’d be able to play again.

“If they did one wrong technique, they would basically burn the tendon, 50/50 chance they’d burn the tendon and never be able to play again. Then they opted to do a different [procedure], where they basically cut one-fourth of the bone out and repacked it in.

“There was a while where I’d walk out of a doctor’s office thinking I would never play again. That was a tough time because I was like ‘My whole life I’ve dreamed of playing this sport and worked so hard for it and just because I have this thing in my hand means I can never play again.’”

Holt has been enjoying a rapid rise up the Pepperstone ATP Rankings the past six months, which included two victories at the hard-court majors. At the Australian Open, the American advanced through qualifying and played back-to-back five setters before falling in the second round (l. Bautista Agut). The strong start to the year was a welcome sight to Holt, who was World No. 531 a year ago before embarking on his career-best season.

In 2022, the California native made his first professional breakthrough at his home Slam, the US Open, where as a qualifier he defeated 10th seed Taylor Fritz. A few weeks before his Grand Slam upset, Holt was battling in qualifying at the Challenger Tour event in Chicago, Illinois and couldn’t have dreamed of a Top-15 win on Grandstand.

His Flushing Meadows debut, which came 41 years after his mother’s second major title, quickly grabbed tennis fans’ attention.

Growing up in a tennis family can lead to high expectations and immense pressure. But Holt said his childhood was a blessing and he’s thankful that his family helped him see tennis as a hobby first before it became his full-time occupation.

“I think my parents did a really good job of raising my brothers [Dylan and Sean] and I to be really well-rounded people,” Holt said. “My parents weren’t the tennis parents that are too much. Growing up, there were a lot of times where we were like, ‘Look at that guy, he’s crazy!’ It was never that way with my family. My grandparents would bring me to every single match, they never missed a match. My whole family is really close.

“My parents did a good job of letting me play all the sports and focus on school. Tennis was never the priority growing up. It was never play tennis and everything else is secondary.”

Holt’s family recalls him dragging a racquet everywhere at a young age. He would walk around the house swinging at anything, such as a chair or someone’s ankle. While Holt claims he used to make his coaches mad by constantly trying to attempt Gael Monfils’ incredible shotmaking rather than focusing on the assigned drills, it all turned out okay for the American. He went on to play college tennis at the University of Southern California, where he was a four-time ITA All-American before turning pro in 2020.

“Going to college allowed me to get a lot stronger because you have a lot of time in the weight room,” Holt said. “It’s kind of hard when you’re on Tour to get a good training block, so college is like four years of consistently working out. Also, there [are] coaches that have a four year plan with your game. They’re like, ‘This is the player we think you can become.’ Then they have years to progress you to that point. You show up every day and they have one goal to get better and closer to that goal. They have a tailored plan for every player and I think that’s huge.”

Still early in his young career, it’s only a matter of time before Holt is lifting his hands around his maiden Challenger Tour trophy and making more noise at the Grand Slams.

Argentine journalist Sebastian Torok was presented at the Argentina Open with the 2022 Ron Bookman Excellence Award by tournament director and former Argentinian player Martin Jaite.

The LA NACION journalist also received the 2023 Sports Excellence Award which was introduced four years ago by ATP 250 event held in Buenos Aires.

Torok has been a journalist for the Argentine newspaper LA NACION since 2000. He has covered football, rugby, boxing and handball but specialises in tennis, reporting on Argentina’s Davis Cup Finals title run in 2016.

The Argentine has received international recognition at the AIPS Sport Media Awards for various investigations and one of his career highlights as a journalist was interviewing Roger Federer in Basel in 2019.

Ten years after winning their second team title in Buenos Aires, Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini returned to the winners’ circle in Argentina’s capital city Sunday.

The six-time tour-level titlists cruised to a 6-2, 6-4 final victory against Nicolas Barrientos and Ariel Behar at the 2023 Argentina Open. Bolelli and Fognini didn’t drop a set all week en route to their first title of the season. In the championship match, the third seeds saved all six break points faced and won 13 of 16 points off their second serve to collect the trophy.

Their title run in Buenos Aires comes after an 0-2 start to the season, including a disappointing first-round exit in Melbourne, where they were seeded ninth. The Italians won their maiden Grand Slam trophy at the Australian Open in 2015.

This past season, Bolelli and Fognini won two team titles: Rio de Janeiro and Umag. Five of their six titles have come on clay.

Barrientos and Behar were competing in their first ATP Tour final, with their best previous result a quarter-final run last week in Cordoba.

For the second straight year, South Florida residents Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer have made themselves at home at the Delray Beach Open. The El Salvadoran-Dutch duo became the third team to repeat as champions at the ATP 250 with a 6-3, 6-4 win against Rinky Hijikata and Reese Stalder in Sunday’s final.

“It’s really special for us,” Rojer said after the pair won its sixth title in the past 13 months. “Playing here is a treat. We really enjoy it. We spend most of our time practising in the area. We’re happy to be back. We had a lot of success here last year, decided to come back and defended our title so we’re super happy about that. We’re just going to enjoy it for a few days.”

After making their team debut in Delray Beach in 2021, the pair reunited in 2022 and won five titles, including the Roland Garros crown. The team is now on a seven-match winning streak in Delray Beach after twice winning the title as the top seeds.

“We’re super happy that we were able to do it again,” said the 32-year-old Arevalo. “There were other options that we could play but we stayed loyal to the Delray Beach Open and to the people here, to the crowd, this amazing crowd that we have here. We’re extremely happy that we were able to play the tournament and ended up winning the tournament as well.”

The champions lost just one set this week, in the semi-finals against Robert Galloway and John-Patrick Smith. In the final, Arevalo/Rojer saved all three break points they faced while breaking their opponents’ serve once in each set. They lost only three points on first serve (29/32) in their one-hour, 14-minute victory.

“Our chemistry is our weapon and we try to make sure its on point for every match,” said Rojer, 41, who claimed his 35th tour-level doubles trophy. “We had it going this week. Today we played a couple of guys that maybe were not as experienced in a lot of finals, although Rinky had that massive Australian Open final that he just played.

“But we wanted to impose with our presence and intensity and energy and see if we could get to them a little bit.”

Hijikata/Stalder were making their ATP Tour team debut. The 21-year-old Hijikata won the Australian Open doubles title alongside fellow Aussie Jason Kubler last month and moved up three places in the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Live Rankings to No. 32 this week. Stalder, 26, was playing his first tour-level event.

Taylor Fritz was on course for an eight-set sweep en route to the Delray Beach Open title. Instead, the American needed to dig deep in a final set after missing out on a championship point against Miomir Kecmanovic in Sunday’s final.

The top seed and World No. 7 was up to the challenge in a 6-0, 5-7, 6-2 win for his fifth ATP Tour title and first of 2023. Four of those trophies have come in the past 12 months, beginning with Fritz’s Indian Wells triumph last March, as documented on Netflix’s Break Point.

“My first time back here in quite a while and the event was amazing,” said Fritz, who was competing at the ATP 250 for the sixth time, with his previous appearance coming in 2020. “The fans especially, the turnout was incredible and it makes me really proud to be an American playing at a home event, with how many people were in the stands.”

“This year was incredible after losing in the first and second round [almost] every single year I’d been here. I couldn’t be happier with coming back and having this result.”

Fritz was dominant on serve in the final, losing just two points on his first delivery (35/37) and allowing just one break point, which Kecmanovic converted late in the second set. He was aggressive off both baseline wings and finished with 43 total winners to go along with his 10 aces.

After racing through the first seven games of the match, Fritz was on the brink of victory with a pair of break points at 4-3 and a match point at 5-4 in the second set. But Kecmanovic broke from 40/15 in the 11th game of the set to force a decider, handing the American his first lost set of the week.

With the support of the Delray Beach crowd, Fritz settled the nerves with a love hold to open the final set, then regained control of the contest with a break to lead 3-1. His fifth break of the match closed out the win just shy of the two-hour mark.

Now 5-5 in tour-level finals, Fritz has won his past four title matches (Indian Wells, Eastbourne, Tokyo, Delray Beach). He is the first Top 10 champion in the 31-year history of the Delray Beach event.

Kecmanovic, who earned his 100th tour-level win by beating Radu Albot on Saturday, was playing in his third ATP Tour final, with all three coming on different surfaces. He earned a personal-best 38 wins in 2022 and is set to return to the Top 30 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings on Monday after reaching his first final of 2023.

The Delray Beach Open set a new attendance record this week, with an American in the final for the eighth time in the past nine editions of the event.

Carlos Alcaraz went more than three months without a competitive match as he recovered from abdominal and hamstring injuries. This week at the Argentina Open, it looked like the Spaniard had never left.

In his tournament debut, the World No. 2 overwhelmed second seed Cameron Norrie 6-3, 7-5 on Sunday to claim his seventh ATP Tour title and his first since last year’s US Open. Alcaraz lost just one set in his four victories at the Buenos Aires ATP 250, in his first match back against Laslo Djere. By improving to 7-2 in tour-level finals, Alcaraz moved within 590 points of No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings.

“I felt very comfortable playing the final,” Alcaraz said post-match. “I knew that it was going to be really difficult. I started really focussed on what I had to do at the beginning, my game, my level.  This is the level that I have to play in finals.”

The 19-year-old used a seven-game surge to take command of the final against Norrie, turning an early 2-3 deficit in to a 6-3, 3-0 lead as his relentless pressure reaped rewards. Alcaraz did not face a break point until he failed to serve out the match in a nervy 5-3 game.

Down 0/15 while serving at 5-5, the Spaniard bravely roped a forehand swinging volley to reassert himself. The next game was the longest of the match, as Alcaraz battled through two deuces before sealing victory with a forehand drop shot — a tactic he turned to time and again throughout the week.

After winning his first tour-level title in 2021 (Umag) and five more last season, Alcaraz is quickly off the mark in 2023. He became the first Spaniard to win the Buenos Aires trophy since Rafael Nadal in 2015 and tied Gustavo Kuerten as the highest-ranked winner in tournament history at No. 2 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. Alcaraz is also the first teenager to win the event, with Casper Ruud the youngest previous winner at age 21 in 2020.

Norrie fell to 4-9 in tour-level finals with the defeat, but his three victories on the week drew him level with Stefanos Tsitsipas for the most tour-level wins this season with 13. The 27-year-old was seeking to match his biggest career win by measure of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, after his victory against then-World No. 2 Rafael Nadal at the United Cup last month.

Editor’s note: This story was translated from ATPTour.com/es

The Alcaraz family spans five generations in El Palmar, a parish of Murcia with a little over 24,000 inhabitants that is now known the world over thanks to the sporting feats of Carlos Alcaraz.

Yet this fledgling superstar surrounds himself with people that keep his feet firmly on the ground. The humility and people skills of Team Alcaraz are an important part of understanding the thrilling story he continues to write with his racquet. Some situations and actions speak louder than words.

The team arrived in Buenos Aires for Alcaraz’s comeback to the ATP Tour after three months away at this week’s Argentina Open. Visiting the venue for the first time, Carlos Alcaraz González, Carlos’ father, surprised Martin Jaite, the tournament director, with an unexpected gift.

He introduced himself before showing the former Top 10 player a photo of him after winning a tournament in 1983 in Murcia. One of the ballboys seen alongside Jaite in the picture is Carlos Sr., who had kept the photo at his parents’ home having asked Jaite to sign it for him as a momento.

“I was only 12 years old and for me, at that time, it was amazing. When we came here, I remembered it and decided to bring it for Martin as a present,” Carlos Sr. recalled in conversation with ATPTour.com. The photo was taken at the Real Sociedad Club de Campo in Murcia, the place where the younger Alcaraz learned the game. It is now a treasured adornment to Jaite’s office.

Carlos Sr. himself could have been a tennis player too. In fact, when he was 14 years old, he was offered a place at the Bruguera Tennis Academy in Barcelona, but his family was unable to afford it at that time.

Even so, he did play a few tournaments on the circuit, did well nationally, and became a tennis coach, something that allowed him to always remain at his son’s side. He has shown hundreds of kids how to move around the court, how to serve, and how to enjoy themselves on a tennis court, teaching them values that they can put into practice in their lives outside of tennis. His best student, of course, ended up becoming the youngest No. 1 in the history of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings at just 19 years of age.

While Alcaraz is very much in the limelight at the Argentina Open, drawing queues of hundreds of fans hoping to get a photo or at least exchange a few words with their Spanish hero, the top seed has shown Buenos Aires that he has none of the airs or graces of a superstar. Quite the opposite.

Whenever his schedule allows it, Alcaraz takes his time to sign autographs, take selfies, and talk to his fans, always with a smile on his face and ever grateful for their gestures of good will. He takes it all in his stride.

Since Alcaraz’s arrival at the Argentina Open, the only difference from the rest of the players is that he and his team have priority for the transport from the hotel to the club, or to wherever they need to be, and the organisers have assigned a security guard to escort him throughout the day.

Alcaraz is accompanied by his father, his elder brother Alvaro, his uncle, his agent Albert Molina, his physio Juanjo Moreno, and Toni Cascales, the long-time former trainer of his main coach Juan Carlos Ferrero, who is not present on this swing of the Tour.

“It’s important to me to always be with my team. I know that with them I’ll make fewer mistakes and that nothing in this new world will catch me off guard,” Alcaraz explained. “At the end of the day, they have been through this, and learning from the experiences of Juan Carlos, Cascales and my family helps me not to make mistakes and to be able to progress more quickly and always try to be better.”

Although their reputation goes before them, the people working at the tournament were constantly surprised by Alcaraz and his team’s good humour and humility, something that was reflected in one particular moment this week.

Alcaraz arrived for training on one of the practice courts as he normally would, with his compatriot Bernabe Zapata Miralles. But when he got there, the court had just been used by other players and was not ready for them. Without complaining, Cascales picked up a rake and Alcaraz himself grabbed a brush that was leaning on the fence to finish the job off before getting down to work.

This is not the only story that speaks to Alcaraz’s character. He also invited some Argentinian players of his age, with whom he had spent time on the junior tour, to come and watch his opening matches from the stands.

Young players like Alejo Lorenzo Lingua Lavallen and Roman Andres Burruchaga, who dream of their own place on the ATP Tour and currently play in lower-tier events, were able to cheer their friend on from the stands. Why does he do it?

“I like being friendly. I have good friends from when I was a junior, I went through a lot with them and I hadn’t seen them for a while. I’m really glad to see them again,” Alcaraz explained. “I’ve always tried to get on well with the people I’ll basically be spending time with every day of my life. I try to be friendly, that’s important to me.”

This is how the World No. 2 spends his days. Always smiling, competing and enjoying this sport as much as he possibly can.

Daniil Medvedev cemented his return to the Top 10 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings by continuing his domination of Jannik Sinner on Sunday at the ABN AMRO Open, where the sixth seed completed a 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 victory in the championship match.

Medvedev had to retain his composure after dropping a hard-fought opening set at the indoor ATP 500 event in Rotterdam. Montpellier champion Sinner started aggressively in his pursuit of back-to-back ATP Tour titles, but Medvedev responded by digging deep, dialling in on serve and frequently defying the Italian with some outstanding defence to improve his lead in the pair’s ATP Head2Head series to 6-0.

“I first came here in [2018] and I straightaway loved it here,” said Medvedev, who now holds a 10-4 record in Rotterdam, at the trophy ceremony. “I love coming back here. The last two times I played here were terrible and I’m happy to make it better this year.”

With his two-hour, 29-minute win, Medvedev secured his 16th tour-level title, 15 of which have been won on hard courts. He will return to the Top 10 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings on Monday as a result of his first title since his Vienna triumph last October, with the 27-year-old set to leapfrog Hubert Hurkacz, Holger Rune and Felix Auger-Aliassime to No. 8.

After his semi-final win against Tallon Griekspoor, Sinner revealed plans to speak to his team to devise a plan for Sunday’s final that would help avoid a repeat of his past struggles against Medvedev. Although the Italian was still required to go toe to toe in extended baseline exchanges with the sixth seed, he also frequently ventured forward to try and disrupt his opponent’s rhythm.

Those tactics paid off early as Sinner clinched a gripping opening set at the Rotterdam Ahoy. Although Medvedev rallied by winning three games in a row from 1-4, some stunning all-court play from Sinner earned him another crucial break in the 12th game to clinch a set in which he won 12 from 17 points at the net.

Yet that disappointment barely seemed to impact Medvedev, who engineered an immediate momentum shift. His relentless hitting off both wings forced Sinner into some early errors in the second set, and he broke the Italian in the first game en route to levelling the match.

Two further breaks of serve for Medvedev followed in the decider as Sinner, who was chasing his eighth win in the space of 10 days after lifting his first title of the season in Montpellier last week, appeared to tire. Medvedev went on to complete victory after converting five of his 12 break points and hitting just 17 unforced errors to Sinner’s 30.

“Daniil, congrats to you and your team, winning your first title of this season,” said Sinner, who will rise two spots to No. 12 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings on Monday. “I think you’re going to win many more this year, so I wish you all the best… It has been two positive weeks for me. I played many matches and I’m very proud.”

Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek capped a week of tie-break tension with a thrilling championship match victory on Sunday afternoon at the ABN AMRO Open, where the third seeds downed Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden 7-6(5), 2-6, 12-10 to claim their first title of 2023.

Dodig and Krajicek faced a championship point at 9/10 in the Match Tie-break but reeled off three straight points to clinch their fourth ATP Tour title as a team. Earlier, they had also rallied from 3-5 in the opening set, which featured six service breaks.

The Croatian-American duo was frequently forced to dig deep during its title run at the indoor hard-court ATP 500. Dodig and Krajiceck prevailed in four tie-breaks and two Match Tie-breaks across their four matches at the Rotterdam Ahoy, where they were competing for the first time as a team.

Bopanna and Ebden converted five of eight break points in the final but were left to rue missed chances at key moments in the one-hour, 42-minute encounter. The Indian-Australian pair let slip two set points in the 10th game of the first set before also missing their chance to clinch victory in the Match Tie-break.

Since becoming a full-time partnership last April, Dodig and Krajicek have lifted tour-level titles in Lyon, Naples, Basel and now Rotterdam, while they also competed at the 2022 Nitto ATP Finals. Sunday’s triumph was Dodig’s second in Rotterdam, after he also lifted the trophy there in 2017 alongside Marcel Granollers.