Challenger Tour: Purcell & Borges’ Ascent Leads Q1

The first quarter of 2023 saw a dazzling start to the ATP Challenger Tour season. Tennis fanatics witnessed the premiere of the Challenger 175 category and saw memorable moments such as Max Purcell’s Indian hat-trick, Nuno Borges’ biggest career title, and the surge of several young stars.

Purcell, who’s tallied a season-leading 25 Challenger-match wins, boasts an early lead for most Challenger titles this year after the Australian won three consecutive crowns in India.

The Sydney native left for the Indian Challenger swing with two things in mind: winning matches and spending less time on his cell phone.

“I made the choice to stop with distractions off court,” Purcell told ATPTour.com. “Especially through India, I wanted to be off my phone as much as I could. I wanted to make sure I was getting as much quiet time as I could and just make sure going into my matches that I didn’t bring anything else on the court.

“No extra emotions or anything like that. I just wanted to be as calm as I could and focus on my mission. That seemed to work out really well.”

The-then 24-year-old went on a 15-match winning streak, triumphing at the Chennai, Bengaluru, and Pune Challengers. Purcell became the only Australian to earn three consecutive Challenger titles (since 1978).

Purcell, who partnered countryman Matthew Ebden to win the 2022 Wimbledon doubles title, continued his strong start to the year at last week’s Lille Challenger, where he was a finalist (l. Virtanen).

The newly-innovated Challenger 175 event at the Phoenix Country Club hosted eight Top-60 players, including Matteo Berrettini, Diego Schwartzman, and Richard Gasquet. But it was the Portuguese Borges who captured the Arizona Tennis Classic trophy off the back of his Monterrey Challenger crown to keep alive his perfect 10-0 Challenger-level season record (Read More).

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight,” Borges said after winning in Phoenix. “Honestly I don’t even know what to say, I was in qualies when I first signed up, but got in last minute to the main draw. Really low expectations with having a tough first round [against Schwartzman] right away. Kept fighting every match one at a time.

“Somehow I found myself in the final and I finally did it. I feel like I’m still absorbing it but it’s unbelievable. These last few weeks have been amazing. First Challenger 175 event, it’s a very special place. It motivates me a lot for everything else.”

Nuno Borges celebrates his title at the Arizona Tennis Classic with a pool plunge. Credit: Mary Grace Grabill

One of the stories of the Phoenix Challenger was the surge of Alexander Shevchenko. The 22-year-old, who won the Tenerife-1 Challenger in January, advanced through qualifying before ousting Gael Monfils, Marc-Andrea Huesler, top seeded Berrettini, and Quentin Halys. In the championship match, Shevchenko let slip a one set lead to Borges.

Despite the final loss, Shevchenko’s run in Phoenix lifted him to just one spot shy of cracking the Top 100.

French teen Luca Van Assche etched his name into the history books when he ousted countryman Ugo Humbert in the Pau Challenger final. The 18-year-old held his nerve as he saved two championship points to win the longest Challenger final in history at three hours, 56 minutes (Read More).

Van Assche, who is studying mathematics online at Paris Dauphine University, built on his momentum and was crowned champion at last week’s Sanremo Challenger to rise to a career-high No. 91 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

Luca Van Assche celebrates a thrilling final victory at the 2023 Pau Challenger. Credit: Alexis Atteret

Van Assche is the fourth Frenchman to win multiple Challenger titles before turning 19, joining Richard Gasquet, Gael Monfils, and Fabrice Santoro, who all surpassed the Top 20. Monfils and Gasquet, who are still active on Tour, have been as high as No. 6 and 7, respectively.

Abdullah Shelbayh, 19, made tennis history in February. In just his third Challenger appearance, Shelbayh became the first Jordanian and the youngest Arab to reach a Challenger final at the Manama Challenger (l. Kokkinakis). He then travelled to the ATP 250 event in Doha, where where he became the first Jordanian to play a Tour-level match, but fell short to Soonwoo Kwon (Read More).

Perhaps a contender for story of the season came in the first week, when Belgian Joris De Loore celebrated his maiden Challenger title on the clay of Oeiras, Portugal. While that week may have been smooth sailing for De Loore, who dropped just one set all tournament, the 29-year-old’s injury-plagued career has been far from easy. De Loore underwent seven surgeries on six different body parts, forcing him to stop playing tennis for two years (2019-2020). But the Bruges-native rebuilt his body–and career– to become the oldest (29 years, 8 months) first-time winner on the Challenger Tour since 2015 (Read More).

Juan Manuel Cerundolo, Aleksandar Kovacevic, and Otto Virtanen added their names to the list of multiple Challenger tilists this season, joining Purcell, Borges, and Van Assche.