No. 36 Pierre-Hugues Herbert, +8
Pierre-Hugues Herbert reached his third ATP World Tour singles final at the Open Sud de France, dropping just one set en route to the championship match. The seventh seed, who also finished as runner-up in Winston Salem in 2015 and Shenzhen last year, defeated Denis Shapovalov and Tomas Berdych in back-to-back matches, before falling to countryman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the final. With an 8-3 record this season, Herbert rises eight places to a career-high No. 36 in the ATP Rankings.

Herbert’s strong start to the 2019 ATP Tour season has been inspired by doubles success. The 27-year-old captured titles in Doha (w/Goffin) and at the Australian Open (w/Mahut) last month. By defeating Henri Kontinen and John Peers in the Australian Open final, Herbert and Mahut became the eighth doubles team in history to complete the Career Grand Slam.

Read More: Herbert/Mahut Complete Career Grand Slam With Title At Australian Open

No. 38 Marton Fucsovics, +9
After opening the 2019 ATP Tour season with a 3-3 record, Marton Fucsovics advanced to his second tour-level championship match at the Sofia Open. The 27-year-old Hungarian, who lifted his maiden ATP Tour trophy last year in Geneva (d. Gojowczyk), defeated eighth seed Andreas Seppi in straight sets before three-set wins over Yannick Maden and Matteo Berrettini to reach the final. Fucsovics jumps nine spots to No. 38 in the ATP Rankings, just three places shy of his career-high No. 35 position achieved on January 7.

No. 59 Tomas Berdych, +20
Tomas Berdych continued his strong return to the ATP Tour in Montpellier. After missing six months of the 2018 ATP Tour season due to a back injury, the Czech improved to 10-3 this year with a run to the Open Sud de France semi-finals (l. to Herbert). The former World No. 4 built on his runner-up finish in Doha (l. to Bautista Agut) and fourth-round appearance at the Australian Open (l. to Nadal), with victories against Matthias Bachinger, Benoit Paire and Filip Krajinovic. Berdych soars 20 positions to No. 59 in the ATP Rankings.

No. 69 Juan Ignacio Londero, +43
On his tour-level main draw debut at the Cordoba Open this week, Juan Ignacio Londero stunned the field by claiming his maiden ATP Tour title. The Argentine wild card did not drop a set en route to the final, before rallying fron a set and a break down to beat countryman Guido Pella in the championship match. Londero leaps 43 places to a career-high No. 69 in the ATP Rankings.

Read More: Londero’s Dream Week: From Winless To ATP Titlist

Other Notable Top 100 Movers This Week
No. 46 Matteo Berrettini, +7
No. 50 Guido Pella, +9
No. 57 Aljaz Bedene, +8
No. 64 Federico Delbonis, +13
No. 78 Pablo Cuevas, +14
No. 79 Radu Albot, +11
No. 89 Reilly Opelka, +9

Talk about a fairytale finish. It doesn’t get much better than this for Mitchell Krueger.

Krueger captured his maiden ATP Challenger Tour title on Sunday at his hometown RBC Tennis Championships of Dallas. In front of his family and friends, the nearby Fort Worth native produced a dramatic display to raise the trophy. He rallied from a set and a break down to outlast Mackenzie McDonald 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-1 after two hours and three minutes. 

The victory carried added signficance, considering Krueger was born and raised in the Dallas area and trained at T Bar M Racquet Club since he was nearly 10 years old. Now, the tournament has its first home grown champion in its 21st edition.

McDonald entered the prestigious Challenger 110 event as the top seed and had reached the final in 2018 as well, but this was Krueger’s day. The 25-year-old has been plotting his ascent on the ATP Challenger Tour for more than four years and was finally rewarded with his first piece of silverware.

Hard work and perseverance have paid dividends for Krueger in the past year. In August, he qualified for his first Grand Slam at the US Open after saving three match points in his second-round match and rallying from a set and a break to punch his ticket. And then last month he earned a spot in the Australian Open main draw for the first time, before falling to Novak Djokovic on Rod Laver Arena.

The momentum would carry Krueger to new heights and he has been rewarded with a career-high ATP Ranking of No. 160. Up 49 spots thanks to his title in Dallas, he is making a significant surge at the age of 25. For some players, it simply takes time to put it all together. After many years fighting for Challenger glory, Krueger has his moment.

The American spoke to broadcaster Mike Cation following the final…

Congrats, Mitch. Your first Challenger title. Talk about what this means to you.
It’s incredible. I’ve been taking pictures with so many people that I’ve known from training here. I’m coming here since I was 10 years old. Like they said in the trophy presentation, I was a ball kid here for so many years and then moved on to playing qualies and then main draw. I’ve always had a soft spot for this tournament. You couldn’t have written it up any better than to win my first Challenger here. 

You actually spent a couple years away from this tournament. You would extend your stay in Australia instead of coming home and playing in Dallas.
I struggled playing indoors for the longest time. This time of year is tricky when you’re ranked outside the Top 250. Do I want to play two tournaments in Australia outdoors or come home for one indoor event? I had decent results indoors, but not consistent. On faster surfaces I struggled a bit. I’ve always wanted to play the tournament, but there was a time when I thought it was better for me to stay in Australia. And in 2017 I made a final there. 

But to be honest, I put a lot of work in the offseason this time. I changed my racquet to Yonex and completely changed the grip on my forehand. After the Australian Open, I went back to my childhood coach Dave Licker and his team at The Lakes, 20 minutes north of here. We worked on everything. This is validation for me, knowing I made the right decision for my career. I felt it was time to take some ownership and break from the USTA and go private. That is, take the financial burden and trust that I’ll do the right things and the results will come. I took the leap and this feeling right now is exactly what I was searching for.

In those pressure points and tight moments, you would always get attacked on that forehand wing. You just mentioned the change of grip. It held up pretty well today. How did you feel?
Outside of the first 20 minutes of the match, it felt pretty good. Mackie came out firing and was putting a lot of pressure on me. Once I got my teeth into the match a little bit, I definitely raised my level. I thought my forehand was as good as it’s ever been. In the past, guys would pick that side to break down and it didn’t like it used to. I’m at the point where I’m playing a lot more aggressive and offensive with it. If I can pair that weapon with my backhand and I’m serving well, I’d like to think it’s tough to beat me.

If you could see the pressure of the practises I was doing in Orlando in the offseason, you’d know. Literally doing hand feeds to my forehand for three hours a day for a week and a half. Not doing anything else. Just to feel the new grip. I slowly progressed to live balls and then baseline points. Going into the first week of the season, I wasn’t 100 per cent ready to play with the new racquet and grip, but I felt it was important to throw myself out there. I lost to Stefan Kozlov and it actually gave me confidence, because there were many good moments and I took it right to Australia. I had one of the biggest moments of my career there, playing Novak Djokovic. Every week it got progressively better and better.

It feels like you’re actually downplaying this. To think that you’re spending hours doing hand-feeding, that’s a massive change you’ve made in the span of a month.
We decided to make the change pretty much immediately into the offseason. I knew I had about three and a half weeks to get it down as best I could. I basically started from scratch with my forehand. I could tell that with the feeling of the ball coming off the racquet, it was much better. Then it was just about trusting it. My coaches told me to trust in the mindset of the forehand and that it will make a world of difference if I stick with it. This will open up a lot more doors. I’ve done a good job with that mentality in my entire career, just to keep going and going things will happen. It’s trending in the right direction now.

Your parents have great passion to see you succeed. That’s a double-edged sword sometimes, but what does it mean to have this moment with them? And your girlfriend Jeannie of course. 
It means the world to me to have them all here. In front of both my parents, my sister, Jeannie, my grandpa, my sister’s husband had his family here. It was incredible. Pair with that, Dave and all the guys who are part of my team now. There’s no denying that this is the best scenario for winning my first Challenger.

This is often tough for a lot of players. They get their first Challenger title and then the next couple weeks, they get a bit lost and expect things to happen. How do you fight that off?
I think that I’m late to winning my first Challenger. I’m one of the few guys that people are thinking, ‘how has he not won a Challenger yet?’, so I’m excited for what’s next. I hope I get into Delray Beach qualies next and then obviously Indian Wells Challenger and the Masters 1000 event there. I’ve always done well in bigger tournaments against bigger players. I’m excited going into hopefully an ATP Tour event and then another big Challenger and another ATP event.

How do you celebrate?
That is a great question. I have not thought about it yet. I’m just super excited. I have a lot to look forward to in the coming months. Tonight, tomorrow, in the coming weeks.

Juan Ignacio Londero could do no wrong this week at the Cordoba Open. The 25-year-old Argentine, who hadn’t played in a tour-level main draw before this week, won his maiden ATP Tour title on Sunday, beating countryman Guido Pella 3-6, 7-5, 6-1.

Londero, who was a wild-card entrant, was down a set and a break against the 28-year-old Pella, who also was going for his maiden ATP Tour title after losing his first three finals. But Londero stayed aggressive and took control of the final, with his forehand inflicting much of the damage and the Cordoba crowd carrying him to the finish.

Few players have celebrated such come-from-nowhere runs. Belgian Steve Darcis was 0-2 entering Amersfoort when he qualified and won the title in 2007. Spain’s Santiago Ventura had never played a tour-level match when he qualified for Casablanca in 2004 and then captured the crown.

And former World No. 6 Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador owned only five tour-level wins when he competed in his first ATP Tour event, as a qualifier in Bogota 24 years ago, and won his first title.

Pella had beaten Londero all three of their prior meetings — two on the Futures tour and one on the ATP Challenger Tour. The left-hander, with deep, consistent groundstrokes, placed the onus on Londero to start, and the first-time finalist felt the moment. The 25-year-old from nearby Jesus Maria dropped his serve in the second game, and Pella, with the experience of four previous finals, was steady to take the opener.

Read More: Londero: ‘It’s All Very Crazy’

It was the first set Londero had dropped all week. In his semi-final match, he lost only one game, demolishing two-time ATP Tour titlist Federico Delbonis 6-1, 6-0. But Londero regrouped in the second, finding more inside-out forehands. And while Pella’s patience had paid off in the opening set, Londero hit his targets more often and broke in the 12^th game to force a final set.

Pella never recovered. The left-hander was broken three times in the final set and fell to 0-4 in finals. He will receive 150 ATP Rankings points and $49,205 in prize money.

Londero, No. 112 in the ATP Rankings, will receive 250 ATP Rankings points and is projected to rise to No. 69 on Monday when the new rankings are released. He will receive $90,990 in prize money, or about 30 per cent of his career prize money before this week ($317,482).

Dominic Thiem’s pre-tournament prep at the Argentina Open in Buenos Aires went to the dogs.

The top seed spent part of his Sunday lending his time to encourage people to adopt needy dogs. Thiem supported the work of Flojitos de Papeles, an NGO that gives street dogs a temporary home until they can be placed in permanent housing. The dogs also receive essential health care so that they are suitable for adoption when a home opens up.

“All of them are really beautiful creatures and most of them need our help,” said Thiem. “I always feel good when I’m surrounded by dogs, especially when they’re all really nice like I experienced today. It would be amazing if they could find a nice home here. I’d like to adopt all of them!”

The World No. 8 will begin his Buenos Aires campaign against the winner between local qualifier Facundo Bagnis and Maximillan Marterer of Germany.

A LOOK BACK
Chennai Open (Chennai, India): If this is a glimpse into the future of French tennis, the proud tennis nation is off and running. On Sunday, 19-year-old Corentin Moutet became the first teenager to win an ATP Challenger Tour title in 2019, prevailing in Chennai, India. He defeated Andrew Harris 6-3, 6-3 for the crown, needing one hour and 14 minutes to secure the silverware.

Moutet and fellow #NextGenATP Ugo Humbert are making significant statements on the Challenger circuit, with both Frenchmen claiming their third titles in recent months. In fact, Moutet has lifted a trophy in three straight seasons, becoming the first teenager to do so since Evgeny Korolev from 2005-07.

While 20-year-old Humbert is up to No. 86 in the ATP Rankings, Moutet is steadily pushing towards his Top 100 debut, rising to No. 131 with the Chennai title. He rallied from a set down in both the quarter-finals and the semi-finals, before ousting Harris in straight sets in the championship.

“I tried to do my best always and that is what I will do,” said Moutet. “I have to continue to improve many aspects of my game and the ranking will come next. If I do my best, I will always move ahead.”

2019 #NextGenATP Winners

He-Do Hungarian Challenger Open (Budapest, Hungary): Alexander Bublik was a man on a mission in Budapest. The Kazakh extended his perfect record in ATP Challenger Tour finals to 4-0, scoring his first title of the year with an efficient 6-0, 6-3 victory over Roberto Marcora on Sunday. 

A former World No. 95, Bublik has clawed his way back to No. 144 in the ATP Rankings after suffering a broken ankle nearly a year ago at the BNP Paribas Open. He has now captured two titles in the past three months, soaring more than 100 spots in that span. 

The 21-year-old rallied from a set down in both the second round and quarter-finals, before dropping a combined six games in the semis and final. Bublik is now 14-2 on the ATP Challenger Tour since the start of November.

RBC Tennis Championships of Dallas (Dallas, Texas, USA): Top seed Mackenzie McDonald is battling 14th seed Mitchell Krueger for the title at the T Bar M Racquet Club in Dallas. McDonald finished runner-up last year, while Krueger is seeking his maiden Challenger crown in his hometown. More to come…

A LOOK AHEAD
One of the longest-running tournaments on the ATP Challenger Tour, the Challenger La Manche returns to Cherbourg, France for a 26th edition. Home hope Ugo Humbert is the top seed, with 10th seed Alexander Bublik eyeing back-to-back crowns. Mathias Bourgue (2017) is the lone former champion in the field.

Meanwhile, in Bangkok, Prajnesh Gunneswaran leads the pack, with 2017 winner Janko Tipsarevic back as an unseeded wild card. Corentin Moutet, seeded fourth, eyes consecutive crowns.

Former World No. 1 Andy Roddick has plenty of fond memories in New York. He is the last American man to win a Grand Slam, capturing the title at the 2003 US Open in Flushing Meadows. So visiting the New York Open for an exhibition ahead of its second edition, Roddick was happy to see an ATP Tour event in this area.

“It’s great. This market has so much history with the game. Obviously the US Open is the one that comes to mind. But the year-end Masters was here so many times. There’s so much tradition of tennis in Madison Square Garden,” Roddick said. “There is so much history in this market and it’s nice to see new tennis history being made with the New York Open.”

It’s not just that the event is in New York. Roddick says that early in the year, it’s important for players to get matches under their belt to build up their form. Last season, Kevin Anderson won his first title in two-and-a-half years here to launch his personal-best season, qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals in London.

“There’s no doubt that an event where you’re trying to gain momentum for the season is probably a little bit different mentally than a Grand Slam,” Roddick said. “I don’t think there’s any substitute for real match play, especially early in the season. You want to get your motor going. It was always important for me to try to establish myself early in the season and these guys are the same. The margins are so thin at this level, it just takes two, three matches getting into an event and all of a sudden you feel like you can roll into the next month or two.”

A player competing on Long Island who has already gained momentum early in the year is #NextGenATP American Frances Tiafoe. The wild card advanced to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, his first trip to the last eight of a major. This time last year, he had never made the quarter-finals of an ATP Tour event before doing so at the inaugural New York Open.

“It’s good. It’s the progress you want to see. You want to see the trajectory going up, up, up without a lot of hiccups,” Roddick said of Tiafoe. “I do think Australia was big for him. I think playing week-in and week-out is one thing, I think winning really, really tough matches, best-of-five over the course of two weeks is another animal entirely both physically and mentally, so that was seemingly a huge step for him. We’ll see how he builds from it.”

The top seed at this ATP 250 event is John Isner, who broke through in 2018 by winning his maiden ATP Masters 1000 title in Miami, qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals for the first time and finishing inside the year-end Top 10 of the ATP Rankings for the first time at 33 years old.

“I don’t know that I saw the trend of tennis getting older, but obviously John statistically having his best year ever, playing a little bit better at the Slams, playing lights out in Miami, he made it a real priority to try to finish in the Top 10,” Roddick said. “So to get there at 33 was really cool from a friend’s perspective but also professionally, to see him do the right things and reach a new level in his career.”

Did You Know?
The New York Open was relocated from Memphis last year. Roddick triumphed in Memphis three times (2004-05, 2008).