The Numbers Game: 2018 ATP Challenger Tour

Win-Loss Percentage Leaders
Australia’s Jordan Thompson was the lone player to eclipse the 50-win mark this year, capping his campaign with a 52-17 record. It is the second-most match wins in a single season in Challenger history, behind only Carlos Berlocq’s 57 victories in 2010.

Meanwhile, Vasek Pospisil was the most consistent performer with a tour-leading .784 win percentage (min. 25 matches played). Pospisil, Reilly Opelka (.756), Thompson (.754) and Christian Garin (.754) were the top performers on the circuit. 

Singles Title Leaders
A total of seven players won at least three titles this year, with Guido Andreozzi earning a tour-leading four crowns. The Argentine tasted victory throughout the world, lifting trophies on three different continents – South America (Punta del Este, Uruguay & Guayaquil, Ecuador), Africa (Tunis, Tunisia) and Europe (Szczecin, Poland).

It was a frantic finish to the season for Christian Garin, Jordan Thompson and Reilly Opelka, earning their third titles of the year in dramatic fashion. Garin capped his campaign on a 15-0 run, securing all of his crowns in October and November. Thompson finished on a 10-0 run with back-to-back victories on home soil in Australia, while Opelka streaked to a 9-0 finish behind a pair of titles at home in the U.S.

Teen Titlists (8)
Seven different teenagers accounted for a total of eight Challenger titles this year, with Felix Auger-Aliassime the lone player to win multiple crowns (Lyon, France & Tashkent, Uzbekistan). At 17 years, 10 months, his repeat victory in Lyon made him the youngest player to successfully defend a title. And in October, the Canadian became the second-youngest player to win his fourth Challenger crown, behind only Richard Gasquet.

Germany’s Rudolf Molleker became the youngest champion of the year, at 17 years and six months, on home soil in Heilbronn. Austrian teen Jurij Rodionov is the youngest from his country to lift a trophy since 1986, triumphing in Almaty, Kazakhstan. 

It was also the third straight season in which a teenager reached a final on both the ATP World Tour and ATP Challenger Tour. Alex de Minaur followed in Taylor Fritz (2016) and Andrey Rublev’s (2017) footsteps in achieving the feat.

Title Leaders By Country
Players from 38 countries won titles this year, with Hugo Dellien becoming the first from Bolivia to lift a trophy since 1983. Australia and the United States boasted a tour-leading 17 winners apiece, with 12 different champions from each nation.

Outside Top 400 Winners (7)
The slipper fit for seven Cinderella stories, with a bevy of players ranked outside the Top 400 tasting success. At No. 598, Pablo Andujar was the lowest-ranked of the group, winning on home soil in Alicante in his first Challenger event in two years (elbow surgery).

ATP World Tour & ATP Challenger Tour Winners (8)
Eight players lifted trophies on both the ATP World Tour and ATP Challenger Tour this year. Andujar became the first to win Challenger and tour-level crowns in consecutive weeks since David Goffin in 2014.

Match Points Saved In Finals (2)
Aljaz Bedene and Daniel Evans were the only players to save a match point in a Challenger championship. Bedene denied one in the Orleans final, rallying past Antoine Hoang 4-6, 6-1, 7-6(6). Evans also turned aside one in the Vancouver final, overcoming Jason Kubler 4-6, 7-5, 7-6(3).

Oldest Winners
At 39 years, seven months, Ivo Karlovic became the oldest champion in Challenger history with his victory in Calgary, Canada. Just two weeks prior, Karlovic and David Ferrer created another slice of history with their final match-up in Monterrey, Mexico. At 76 years and one month, it was the oldest combined final ever.

Doubles Title Leaders
Five players claimed a tour-leading seven doubles titles this year, but it was Luke Bambridge who enjoyed the biggest rise in the ATP Doubles Rankings. The Brit soared from No. 142 to a year-end position of No. 56, behind five ATP Challenger Tour titles and his first ATP World Tour crowns.

In addition to tour-level crowns in Eastbourne and Stockholm with Jonny O’Mara, Bambridge won on all three surfaces with different partners on the Challenger circuit. He prevailed on the clay of Savannah (w/Santillan), grass of Surbiton (w/O’Mara), outdoor hard courts of Vancouver and Chicago (w/N Skupski) and indoor hard courts of Orleans (w/O’Mara). 

Fast Facts

• A total of 34 different players enjoyed their maiden moments of glory this year. Molleker was the youngest of the group at the age of 17, while 29-year-old Spaniard Sergio Gutierrez-Ferrol was the oldest.
• Qualifiers won 14 titles, with Kimmer Coppejans defeating Alex Molcan in an all-qualifier final in Sevilla, Spain.
• For the first time in Challenger history, multiple lucky losers won titles in a single season. Both are #NextGenATP Americans – Ulises Blanch (Perugia, Italy) and Tommy Paul (Charlottesville, USA).
• Two players successfully defended titles: Felix Auger-Aliassime (Lyon, France) and Elias Ymer (Mouilleron-le-Captif, France).
• Six unseeded wild cards won titles: Mats Moraing, Pablo Andujar, Gianluigi Quinzi, Rudolf Molleker, Thiemo de Bakker and Dragos Dima.
• Among first-time winners, Blanch won the title in Perugia, Italy in his Challenger debut, while Molleker won in Heilbronn, Germany having never previously won a main draw match.
• Dutch brothers Scott Griekspoor and Tallon Griekspoor both won their maiden titles, in Blois, France and Tampere, Finland, respectively. They are just the fourth pair of brothers to triumph in the same season since 2000.
• Longest final: The longest final registered at three hours and 24 minutes, with Alessandro Giannessi beating Carlos Berlocq 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-4 in Banja Luka, Bosnia & Herzegovina. It is just seven minutes shy of the record (3:31 in Winnetka 2015).
• Shortest completed final: At 47 minutes, Mats Moraing downed Kenny De Schepper 6-2, 6-1 in Koblenz, Germany, in the shortest final of the year.