In need of a tennis fix this week? While the ATP Tour is on a one-week hiatus ahead of the clay-court season, the ATP Challenger Tour is still going strong. Stars abound across three tournaments, with a total of 10 players inside the Top 100 competing.

Don’t miss a moment of the action, with free live streaming of all 141 matches available on ATPChallengerTour.com.

Abierto GNP Seguros: The prestigious Challenger 125 event in Monterrey, Mexico, is back for a fifth edition and is headlined by Americans Tennys Sandgren and Bradley Klahn, with Spanish veteran Feliciano Lopez and #NextGenATP star Casper Ruud rounding out the Top 4 seeds. Ernesto Escobedo, champion in 2016, is unseeded.

One of just two combined ATP Challenger and WTA Tour events on the calendar, along with Nottingham, UK, the hard-court tournament is a favourite among all players. In 2015, it took home Challenger of the Year honours in its inaugural edition. Located at the base of a vast mountain range extending from the United States to Central America, peaks tower over the Club Sonoma, contributing to the event’s intimate atmosphere.

Mouratoglou Open: After a one-year hiatus, the clay-court event in Sophia Antipolis, France, is back. Held at the world-class Mouratoglous Tennis Academy, the tournament features an equally impressive field. Top 100 stalwarts Pierre-Hugues Herbert, Robin Haase, Benoit Paire and Albert Ramos-Vinolas are joined by Filip Krajinovic, who is coming off a Round of 16 finish at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

#NextGenATP stars Alexei Popyrin, Rudolf Molleker and Lorenzo Musetti are also in the field. On Monday, 17-year-old Musetti won his opener, making him the first player born in the year 2002 to win a match on the ATP Challenger Tour. The Italian claimed the Australian Open junior title in January.

Ferrero Challenger Open: With former World No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero at the helm, the first edition of the tournament in Alicante, Spain, was a great success in 2018. Now, the clay-court event is back for a second year and a familiar face is leading the charge: top seed and reigning champion Pablo Andujar.

Andujar is joined by Jiri Vesely, Elias Ymer and talented teens Jurij Rodionov, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Nicola Kuhn in the field. Held at Ferrero’s Equelite Sport Academy, it is one of two Challengers staged on the grounds of a Spanish legend’s academy, along with the Rafa Nadal Open in August.

The 2019 Miami Open presented by Itau set attendance records almost throughout the two-week tournament.

Fifteen of the tournament’s 24 sessions had higher attendance than the previous records, including an all-time singles-session attendance mark of 32,831 during the Saturday, 23 March day session.

ALSO LIKE]

Overall, the tournament’s two-week attendance was 388,734, breaking the old record of 326,131 set in 2012. It also marked the 10^th consecutive year the tournament recorded more than 300,000 in total attendance. Roger Federer beat John Isner in the men’s final to win his fourth Miami title. Read Report & Watch Highlights

Stefanos Tsitsipas started the #NextGenATP rise of 2019 by making the Australian Open semi-finals, and in South Florida last week, 18-year-old Felix Auger-Aliassime became the latest 21-and-under player to steal the spotlight at a big event.

The #NextGenATP Canadian became the youngest semi-finalist in the Miami Open presented by Itau’s 35-year history (l. to Isner). But Tsitsipas and Auger-Aliassime are far from alone.

Only three months into the 2019 ATP Tour season, five #NextGenATP players are already inside the Top 35 of the ATP Rankings. At this point last year, only one #NextGenATP player – No. 35 Andrey Rublev of Russia – was inside the Top 35.

“Every week it feels like someone new is making a breakthrough and playing well,” Canada’s Denis Shapovalov said.

No. 8 Stefanos Tsitsipas
Tsitsipas, who won his second ATP Tour title in Montpellier in February, leads the group. The Greek, who won the 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals, is at a career-high No. 8 in the ATP Rankings. He’s climbed seven spots from the start of the year.

No. 20 Denis Shapovalov
Shapovalov, 19, made his third ATP Masters 1000 semi-final in Miami and, as a result, cracked the Top 20 for the first time. The left-hander, who fell to Roger Federer in the semi-finals, knocked out Rublev and two #NextGenATP rivals – Tsitsipas and Frances Tiafoe – to reach the last four.

The entire #NextGenATP group feeds off of each other’s accomplishments, but Shapovalov said he and Tiafoe have become especially close over the years.

“We have practised together a bunch of times. We’ve played each other a bunch of times. It feels like every time we play we bring out the best in each other. It’s always an honour to be on the court with him,” Shapovalov said.

No. 25 Alex de Minaur
Aussie Alex de Minaur made his mark in January by winning his maiden ATP Tour title at his hometown Sydney International. De Minaur then followed that title sprint by reaching the third round in Melbourne and the quarter-finals in Acapulco.

No. 30 Frances Tiafoe
Tiafoe, like Tsitsipas, achieved a career-first in Melbourne by making the quarter-finals (l. to Nadal). In Miami, Tiafoe checked off another first by making his maiden Masters 1000 quarter-final (l. to Shapovalov).

No. 33 Felix Auger-Aliassime
Auger-Aliassime has had the most dramatic start to the 2019 season. The teenager made his first ATP Tour final in February at the Rio Open presented by Claro (l. to Djere). Since then, he’s reached the quarter-finals in Sao Paulo, the third round at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells and the semi-finals in Miami.

Auger-Aliassime knocked off two Top 20 opponents at the season’s second Masters 1000 event – No. 19 Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia and No. 13 Borna Coric. Auger-Aliassime is 5-1 against Top 20 opponents.

“The biggest lesson was to stay in the present and believe in yourself, because you can always dig deep and find resources within yourself. So I think that’s a huge lesson to not give up, stay calm, and just work every day,” Auger-Aliassime said.

All five players also occupy the top five spots in the ATP Race To Milan, which will determine seven of the eight players who compete at the 2019 Next Gen ATP Finals, to be held 5-9 November in Milan. The eighth spot will be given to the winner of an all-Italian 21-and-under tournament.

Roger Federer made history on Sunday in the Miami Open presented by Itau. Not only did he lift his fourth trophy at the ATP Masters 1000 event, but he set and matched several personal serving records in the process.

Federer won all but three of his service points (32/35) against 2018 champion John Isner. The Swiss has now played 154 tour-level finals, and the three points he lost on serve is the fewest he has dropped in any of those championship matches. His previous low in a final came five years ago in Basel, where he lost five service points (32/37) against David Goffin.

Fewest Service Points Lost In A Final

This was also just the sixth time in 1,460 tour-level matches that Federer has won 100 per cent of his first-serve points. It is the first time he has done so in a championship match. The most first-serve points Federer has won in a match without losing one of those points is 29, which he did in his lone Tokyo appearance in 2006 against retired German Benjamin Becker.

Matches Without Losing A First-Serve Point

Not only was Federer’s performance impressive for a final, but it ranked among the best of his career in any round. The three service points Federer lost is tied for the fewest he has lost in any of his tour-level completed matches. He only lost three service points against Ivo Karlovic in his Miami opener in 2014. In that match, Federer played 17 more service points.

Fewest Service Points Lost In A Completed Tour-Level Match

“I think I was very clear on how I wanted to play, so I think that helped that I was able to not just have the plan, but then being able to execute. It’s always two things: having the plan and then it not working. Of course to win every single point, things need to go your way against him,” Federer said. “So there needs to be both sides to the thing because he did have chances obviously to win some points. But apparently also on second serve I hardly dropped any points. I just can be very happy on either end, return and serve, and that’s why I’m so happy that I was able to produce a performance like this in a final.”

Editor’s Note: Service stats do not include the following: All Davis Cup (48 matches), 2000 & 2004 Olympics (8 matches) and 1999 Basel 2R vs. Alexander Popp.

Statistical assistance provided by Joshua Rey.

Click here to stay informed all year with tennis news from the ATP Tour.

Done with the quiz? Scroll back up to the top to see how you did!

Roger Federer is flying high, currently leading the ATP Race To London after winning his 28th ATP Masters 1000 title at the Miami Open presented by Itau.

But just a few years ago, the Swiss didn’t know if he would ever find such form again. Federer reached the 2016 Australian Open semi-finals, losing to World No. 1 Novak Djokovic. The next day, while running a bath for his daughters, he heard a click in his knee. After returning home to Switzerland, Federer learned from an MRI that he had broken his meniscus and needed surgery.

“[I] couldn’t believe it. [I] was actually quite emotional, especially after the surgery, looking down at my foot and understanding that maybe this leg or this knee will never be the same,” Federer said. “Took it on my chin and said, ‘Okay, I’ll start working basically that next day after I came back from the hospital’.”

Federer did not immediately find his form, though. His knee still bothered him during clay-court tournaments in Monte-Carlo and Rome, and then his back began to act up. That forced him to withdraw from Roland Garros.

“I just realised there was no way I could even win a match there,” Federer said.

While the Swiss’ back got better on the grass, his knee did not. So after a semi-final loss against Milos Raonic, Federer decided that his body needed a break, and his team agreed. Federer did not compete for the rest of the season.

“It gave me all the time I needed as well on the practice court to work on my game again,” Federer said. “So when I did come back in 2017, I came back so strong.”

Federer was the 17th seed at the Australian Open, yet he managed to earn his first Grand Slam championship in nearly five years, overcoming a 1-3 deficit in the fifth set of the final against Rafael Nadal to emerge victorious. At 35 years and 174 days, Federer became the oldest major since Ken Rosewall in 1971.

“I couldn’t believe it myself because I actually thought it was going to take me at least almost half of a season to get into the swing of things,” Federer said. “But this fairytale ended very nicely by winning the Australian Open in my comeback in a final against Rafa where I was down 1-3 in the fifth. The rest we know I go on, I turn it around and I win it. So it was maybe one of the most special moments in my entire tennis career.”

At home in Mallorca, Rafael Nadal’s preparations for the upcoming European clay court swing are already in progress.

The World No. 2, who was forced to withdraw from a semi-final showdown against Roger Federer at the BNP Paribas Open due to pain in his right knee, resumed training last week by taking to the practice courts of the Rafa Nadal Academy by Movistar.

The 32-year-old is targeting a mid-April return to the ATP Tour, just in time to defend his Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters title. An 11-time champion at the ATP Masters 1000 event, Nadal holds an Open-Era record of eight successive titles in Monaco between 2005-2012. It will mark the first time Nadal has competed on clay since June 2018, when he defeated Dominic Thiem 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 to lift his 11th Roland Garros title.

Nadal looks set to enter a crucial stretch of the calendar with fitness and form. In addition to the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, the Spaniard is also scheduled to compete at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, the Mutua Madrid Open, the Internazionali BNL d’Italia and Roland Garros. From April through June, Nadal will be defending 4,680 ATP Ranking points after triumphing in Monte-Carlo, Barcelona, Rome and Paris last year.