Richard Gasquet turned back the clock with a vintage display in Saturday’s ASB Classic final to claim his first ATP Tour title since 2018. The 36-year-old Frenchman stunned second seed and former Auckland resident Cameron Norrie 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, winning the final five games of the match to become the oldest champion in the event’s 66-year history.

The former World No. 7 last raised a tour-level title more than four years ago in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. The Auckland triumph, which lifted him 25 spots to No. 42 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings this week, is just the second outdoor hard court triumph of his career (Doha 2013). It is the 16th title of his decorated career.

Gasquet denied Norrie a full-circle moment at the tournament he once attended as a young fan, with the Briton thwarted in the final of the ATP 250 for a second time in five years. The defeat is his first of the new season, dropping him to 6-1 on the year.

In a matchup that pitted Gasquet’s iconic one-handed backhand against Norrie’s flat two-hander, the Frenchman proved he still has plenty of substance to go along with his style. Both men had countless opportunities to hit groundstrokes off both wings across many marathon rallies, but it was Gasquet who stood tallest down the stretch after falling behind 0-3 and 1-4 in the final set.

Against a man known for his fitness, the Frenchman was electric in his late charge as he attacked with the shotmaking flair that has defined career — but only after his dogged defending brought up those opportunities to step into the court. 

Gasquet’s victory keeps the Auckland title in French hands, after Ugo Humbert won the previous edition of the event in 2020. The tournament was not played in the past two seasons due to COVID-19.

Norrie, whose six wins lead the ATP Tour on the young season, falls to 4-8 in tour-level finals. He reached his first final in Auckland in 2019, falling to Tennys Sandgren.

More to come…

ATPTour.com looks at five Challenger Tour players to keep your eyes on during the 2023 Australian Open.

Rinky Hijikata (AUS)
The 21-year-old sets his sights on making a splash at his home Slam, where he is playing the main draw for the first time. Last season, Hijikata met Rafael Nadal in the opening round of the US Open and pushed the 22-time major champion to four sets.

In October, Hijikata won his maiden Challenger title on home soil at the Playford Challenger. The Sydney native became the youngest Australian to win a Challenger title since 2018, when the-then 19-year-old Alexei Popyrin won in Jinan, China.

Rinky Hijikata is crowned champion at the 2022 Playford Challenger. Credit: Tennis Australia

The former University of North Carolina star, who is World No. 169, has already clashed against Top-5 players such as Nadal and Daniil Medvedev at the ATP 250 event in Los Cabos, where Hijikata earned his first Tour-level victory before meeting the-then World No. 1. Should Hijikata get past qualifier Yannick Hanfmann in Melbourne, he could face third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the second round.

Shang Juncheng (CHN)
At the Lexington Challenger, the teenager became the youngest (17 years, 6 months) player to win a Challenger title since Carlos Alcaraz at Alicante in 2020 and the youngest Chinese champion in Challenger Tour history.

The Beijing native, who became the first player born in 2005 to win a Challenger title, is one of three Chinese men in the Australian Open main draw, alongside Wu Yibing and Zhizhen Zhang. The #NextGenATP star Shang advanced through qualifying and will make his Grand Slam debut against German Oscar Otte.

‘Jerry’ Shang claims the 2022 Lexington Challenger. Credit: Lexington Challenger presented by Meridian Wealth Management

“I think overall I’m just very happy and excited about what’s coming next,” Shang said. “These three rounds I’ve given 100 per cent and I think I did very well at controlling my emotions after each round. It’s my first time playing Grand Slams, and I’m just super excited about what’s coming next in the main draw, and I’ll try my best to win.”

Yosuke Watanuki (JPN)
The 24-year-old has been one of the toughest players to beat on the Challenger Tour recently and will now get to show his talents during his Grand Slam debut. Watanuki has won 17 of his past 19 Challenger-level matches, including three final appearances. The Japanese star earned back-to-back titles in November, when he triumphed at the Kobe and Yokkaichi Challengers.

Yosuke Watanuki at the 2023 Canberra Challenger. Credit: Anastasia Kachalkova

Now at a career-high 138 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, Watanuki advanced through qualifying in Australia. But it wasn’t without a test. In the second round of qualifying, the Saitama native fended off two match points against Mikhail Kukushkin to keep his hopes alive. Watanuki, who is coached by his older brother Yusuke, will meet Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech in the opening round.

Luca Van Assche (FRA)
The French youngster went on a late-season surge in 2022. The 18-year-old reached four Challenger finals in the latter part of the year, including at the Maia Open, where he collected his first Challenger trophy.

Luca Van Assche in action at the 2022 Maia Challenger. Credit: FPT/Sara Falcao

The 2021 Roland Garros boys’ singles champion is the youngest French player in the Top 200. Following his title in Portugal, he joined an exclusive list of French Challenger champions aged 18 and under: Richard Gasquet, Sebastien Grosjean, Gael Monfils, Corentin Moutet, and Fabrice Santoro.

Van Assche, who earned a wild card into the Australian Open, opens with a tough test against 11th seed Cameron Norrie.

Mattia Bellucci (ITA)
The Italian made a sudden impact on the Challenger Tour last season and climbed more than 500 spots in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings throughout the year.

In October, the 21-year-old won 12 consecutive matches and won back-to-back Challenger titles at the Saint-Tropez and Vilnius Challengers. Bellucci became the youngest Italian to win Challenger titles in back-to-back weeks since 19-year-old Stefano Pescosolido in 1991.

Mattia Bellucci earns his second Challenger title in Vilnius, Lithuania. Credit: Saulius Cirba

Bellucci, who ousted countrymen Francesco Passaro and Luciano Darderi in qualifying, is at a career-high 153 and will make his Grand Slam debut against Frenchman Benjamin Bonzi in the first round at Melbourne Park.

A key storyline at Roland Garros last year was the ‘Uncle Toni controversy’. Toni Nadal, the uncle and former coach of all-time great Rafael Nadal, coaches Felix Auger-Aliassime. Before the pair clashed on the Parisian clay, Uncle Toni told the media he wanted his nephew to win.

That caused drama in the media, where some wondered how Auger-Aliassime would feel about the situation. The moment became a central theme in the fifth episode of Netflix’s new tennis series, Break Point.

Although dramatic on the show, Auger-Aliassime told ATPTour.com that there was no controversy on his side.

“I had been working with him for a while. It’s a discussion that we had from day one about potentially playing Rafa… [that]normally that he might sit it out and not be in the box or just watch from a neutral place,” Auger-Aliassime said. “It was still nice to see him at the match, though. Of course I saw him in the front row.

“It was nice to see him there just to know he was in the stadium watching the match, watching over us. So he’s been an important part also of my success in the past two years. I was happy that he was there, actually. But no it didn’t bother me in any way.”

Auger-Aliassime pushed Nadal to five sets in an epic encounter at the clay-court major. Thoughts about Uncle Toni, where the Spaniard was sitting and whom he was supporting were far from the Canadian’s mind. Auger-Aliassime was not concerned about who was across the net from him, either.

“I was really just locked in on the idea of winning. You know as a player that in order to win it’s more about how you’re going to play, and the choices you’re going to make and also how well you’re going to execute your game plan that’s going to make the difference,” Auger-Aliassime said. “After the match is done then you can look back… then you can appreciate the moment or what you’ve been able to do, but when the match is not over yet, you’re really just trying to find a way to win.

“That’s what I remember, just taking it game by game and trying to see if I can give myself a chance to win.”

Despite his loss, Roland Garros proved a confidence-booster for Auger-Aliassime, who later in 2022 soared to the highest heights of his career. He climbed to a career-high No. 6 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings and qualified for the Nitto ATP Finals for the first time.

“The French Open was a special tournament for me this year. It was a tournament where I struggled to win any match in the past. I was injured one year and then I was actually 0-2. I thought, ‘Okay, this time around I need to win my first match’,” Auger-Aliassime recalled. “I ended up playing Rafa on centre court in the Round of 16 on Sunday. It was a special day filled with of course tension and a lot of emotions before, but in the end the fact that I was able to push it to five sets kind of showed also that I could play well on any surface at any tournament.

“It was a big deal for me and it gave me a lot of confidence heading into the rest of the season. Now looking back at it, I think showing up again at the tournament this year I’m going to feel better about my chances.”

Matteo Berrettini has always excelled on grass courts, his big serve and booming forehand at their most dangerous on the slick lawns. But it was at the 2019 US Open where the Italian made his Grand Slam breakthrough, reaching the semi-finals before a defeat to eventual champion Rafael Nadal.

With that experience in his locker, in addition to a run to the 2021 Roland Garros quarter-finals, Berrettini was hotly tipped for another deep run at Wimbledon in 2021. His title triumph on the grass at The Queen’s Club in London, just before the year’s third major, lifted him further up the list of favourites at the All England Club.

At Wimbledon, Berrettini dropped just one set in his first four matches as he cruised into the quarter-finals for the first time. A pair of four-set victories against Felix Auger-Aliassime and Hubert Hurkacz sent him through the the final, where World No. 1 and two-time defending champion Novak Djokovic was waiting. By reaching the championship match, he became the first Italian man to reach a major final since Adriano Panatta in 1976.

Berrettini looked back on the final, a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(3) defeat played at the highest level from both men, in the Netflix docuseries Break Point. For added perspective, ATPTour.com caught up with his brother, fellow tennis player Jacopo Berrettini, for his own reflections.

“I told sometimes to [Matteo] and my parents that the final at Wimbledon was probably the first match that I was really, really nervous before the match,” he said. “Every time I’m really calm and I have energy to give to him, but calm. At that time I [left] the stadium at Wimbledon to eat something and I couldn’t eat anything. It was the first time I felt something like that.

“It’s crazy and I was really proud of him and he was fighting with Djokovic, against the injury that he had,” he continued, referring to the thigh injury which later forced Berrettini to withdraw from the Tokyo Olympics. “He fought a lot and he did something crazy for him, for the family, for Italy too. For tennis in Italy it was the first time. I was really proud at that time and I am proud of him now too.”

Berrettini roared back from a slow start to claim the opening set against Djokovic, but ultimately fell victim to the Serbian’s steady, probing game. While he fell just short on that occasion, seeing an 11-match win streak come to a close, the Italian has used that experience to become a mainstay in the later round of Grand Slams. Dating back to Roland Garros in 2021, just before his Wimbledon run, he has reached the quarter-finals or better at each of the past five majors he’s played.

Though he is still seeking a second chance in a Grand Slam final, Berrettini has proven he is more than capable of delivering with the pressure on. His 7-5 record in tour-level finals includes two trophies in both 2021 and 2022, and he reached a career-high Pepperstone ATP Ranking of No. 6 after his run to the Australian Open quarters last year.

While his 2022 season was interrupted by a right-hand injury that required surgery, he returned in time for the grass-court swing, during which he won back-to-back titles at Stuttgart and The Queens’ Club. Once again, Berrettini entered Wimbledon among the shortlist of favourites, but his opportunity compete again the famous lawns was taken away by a positive COVID-19 test just before the tournament.

While Berrettini’s injury (and illness) luck plagued him last season, his brother sees the bright side in an injury of his own, which freed him up to be in London during Wimbledon in 2021.

“I was supposed to play one tournament that week, but I had an injury so I didn’t play that tournament,” he explained, discussing Berrettini’s run to the final. “I came back to home, and then when [Matteo] went to the semi-finals I went to London. Probably I was lucky I had an injury because I enjoyed that moment with him and all the family.”

Soonwoo Kwon delivered a high-quality display of baseline hitting on Friday at the Adelaide International 2, where he clinched a spot in the championship match with a 7-6(6), 6-7(2), 6-3 semi-final victory against Jack Draper.

The South Korean, who lost to Draper last week as a qualifier in Adelaide, was set to miss out on this week’s ATP 250 after a defeat to Tomas Machac in the final round of qualifying. But after finding himself in the draw, he immediately avenged his loss to Machac in the opening round before downing second seed Pablo Carreno Busta and Mikael Ymer to reach the last four.

“It was a very difficult match today,” said Kwon when asked about how he had kept going in his two-hour, 45-minute battle with Draper in the Adelaide heat. “I’m just really happy to win today… Last week he played very well, so I tried to just tried to enjoy this match and tried to be positive. I tried to be more aggressive.”

The key to Kwon’s victory in an engrossing semi-final encounter was his consistent clean ballstriking from the baseline, particularly off his forehand wing. The World No. 84 struck 44 winners to his opponent’s 36, and he also excelled whenever he came under pressure on serve — Kwon saved nine of 10 break points he faced en route to levelling his ATP Head2Head series with Draper at 1-1.

After gaining payback on Draper, he is through to his second ATP Tour final after his 2021 title run in Astana (then Nur-Sultan). Kwon is the first lucky loser to reach the final in Adelaide’s tournament history, with six editions of the event played since 2020.

Kwon awaits home favourite and 2022 Adelaide International 2 champion Thanasi Kokkinakis or fourth seed Roberto Bautista Agut in Saturday’s championship match.