The Numbers Game: 2019 ATP Challenger Tour

Win-Loss Percentage Leaders
For the second straight year, an Australian led the circuit in match wins. One year after Jordan Thompson posted a 50-win season, James Duckworth followed with an impressive 49-18 mark, dominating from start to finish. In the penultimate week of the season, the Aussie capped his campaign with a fourth title, returning to the Top 100 in style.

Meanwhile, Ricardas Berankis was the most consistent performer with a tour-leading .889 win percentage (min. 25 matches played). The Lithuanian was ruthless in his brief stay on the circuit, registering a 24-3 record from only seven tournaments played.

Berankis, Tommy Paul, Ugo Humbert and Jannik Sinner were the most consistent performers of the year, with each posting a win percentage of .800 or higher. For perspective, no players achieved that feat in 2018.

Singles Title Leaders
A total of 12 players won at least three titles this year, with Berankis, Duckworth and #NextGenATP stars Emil Ruusuvuori and Mikael Ymer leading the way with four apiece. Berankis lifted trophies on three different continents, prevailing in France, Canada and South Korea. The 20-year-old Ruusuvuori became the youngest to win as many titles since Hyeon Chung in 2015, while Ymer’s quartet of crowns propelled him to the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan.

Duckworth, Vasek Pospisil and Juan Pablo Varillas dominated the latter stages of the season, as the only players with multiple titles in October and November. The late-season charge was critical for Duckworth, who secured his place in the Australian Open main draw. Pospisil and Varillas also soared to the Top 150 of the ATP Rankings, with the former World No. 25 Canadian winning 16 of 18 matches to close the season, including back-to-back titles in Las Vegas and Charlottesville.

Teen Titlists
Four different teenagers accounted for a total of six Challenger titles this year, with Jannik Sinner the lone player with multiple crowns (Bergamo, Italy; Lexington, USA & Ortisei, Italy). At 17 years, 6 months, he became the youngest-ever Italian champion with his victory on home soil in Bergamo.

Sinner’s second title in Lexington put him in elite company as just the 11th player to win multiple titles at age 17 & under. He joined the likes of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Juan Martin del Potro and most recently Felix Auger-Aliassime. And Sinner’s third victory made him the second-youngest to complete the trifecta, behind only Richard Gasquet.

Nicola Kuhn, Thiago Seyboth Wild and Corentin Moutet were the other teenage winners in 2019. Moutet became the first teen to win titles at the ages of 17, 18 and 19 since Evgeny Korolev from 2005-07. Seyboth Wild, meanwhile, became the first teen titlist from Brazil since Guilherme Clezar in 2012.

Biggest Movers To Top 100
The Top 7 movers to the year-end Top 100 all won Challenger titles this year. Sinner jumped 685 spots to a career-high No. 78 in the ATP Rankings. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga leapt 230 places and Mikael Ymer soared 207 spots.

Title Leaders By Country
Players from 39 countries won titles this year. Juan Pablo Varillas became the first from Peru to lift a trophy since 2008, while Emilio Gomez was the first from Ecuador to do so since 2011 and Emil Ruusuvuori the first from Finland since Jarkko Nieminen in 2013.

Italy boasted a tour-leading 15 titles from 10 different players, followed by Spain and the United States (14 each). It marked the first time that the Italian contingent has led the tour in titles.

Lowest-Ranked Winners
The slipper fit for five Cinderella stories, with a bevy of players ranked outside the Top 400 tasting success. At No. 612, Matias Franco Descotte was the lowest-ranked of the group, prevailing on the hard courts of Morelos, Mexico. At No. 546 and No. 528, respectively, Jannik Sinner and Maxime Cressy both tasted victory in February. It was Sinner’s fourth Challenger appearance and only Cressy’s second.

For No. 417 Steven Diez, his maiden title in Burnie comes six years after reaching his first final.

ATP Tour & ATP Challenger Tour Winners
Five players lifted trophies on both the ATP Tour and ATP Challenger Tour this year.

Matteo Berrettini followed his victory in Phoenix with his first tour-level crowns in Budapest and Stuttgart, en route to the year-end Top 10 in the ATP Rankings. The Italian became just the fourth player to win a Challenger title and qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals in a season since 1995.

Taylor Fritz and Lorenzo Sonego successfully defended their Challenger crowns in Newport Beach and Genova, respectively, while lifting their maiden ATP Tour trophies on the grass of Eastbourne and Antalya.

Match Points Saved In Finals
One year ago, only two players saved a match point in a Challenger final. In 2019, that number soared to seven. Marcos Giron denied six championship points, rallying from 1/6 down in the deciding tie-break to topple Ivo Karlovic in Houston. It was the second-most match points saved in a final in Challenger history.

Yannick Hanfmann and Maxime Cressy also saved multiple match points, while Dominik Koepfer earned his maiden title and a Wimbledon wild card in dramatic fashion in Ilkley, turning aside one against Dennis Novak.

Oldest Winners
Tommy Robredo earned his first trophy at any level in six years, dominating the month of June with victories in both Poznan, Poland and Parma, Italy. At the age of 37, the former World No. 5 was the oldest winner of the year.

One year after becoming the oldest Challenger champion with his victory in Calgary, Ivo Karlovic became the first 40-year-old finalist. The big-hitting Croatian finished runner-up in Houston last month, adding another slice of history to his growing resume.

Doubles Title Leaders
Playford, Launceston, Zhangjiagang, Anning, Seoul, Binghamton and Traralgon. Seven titles, three continents, one impressive team.

Max Purcell and Luke Saville dominated the doubles circuit in 2019, securing seven trophies and a whopping 41 match wins together. The Aussie pair also appeared in three ATP Tour events together, earning their first match victory on the circuit in Antalya.

Uruguay’s Ariel Behar and Ecuador’s Gonzalo Escobar won the second-most titles of any team, lifting six trophies together. They streaked to the finish line with four crowns in the final three months of the season. 

Fast Facts

• At the age of 15 years, 11 months, Carlos Alcaraz  was the youngest player to win a match in 2019. The Spaniard made a winning Challenger debut, stunning Jannik Sinner in Alicante, Spain. Alcaraz became the first player born in the year 2003 to win a match, a day after 17-year-old Lorenzo Musetti became the first born in the year 2002 to claim his first victory, in Sophia Antipolis, France.
• A total of 32 different players enjoyed their maiden moments of glory this year. Jannik Sinner was the youngest of the group at the age of 17, while 27-year-old countryman Lorenzo Giustino was the oldest.
• Qualifiers claimed one title, with Maxime Cressy winning seven matches in seven days in Cleveland.
• Four players successfully defended titles: Taylor Fritz (Newport Beach, USA), Gregoire Barrere (Lille, France), Pablo Andujar (Alicante, Spain) and Lorenzo Sonego (Genova, Italy).
• Three unseeded wild cards won titles: J.J. Wolf, Jannik Sinner and Zhang Zhizhen, all on home soil in Columbus, Bergamo and Jinan, respectively.
• Longest final: The longest final registered at three hours and 15 minutes, with Tommy Robredo beating Federico Gaio 7-6(10), 5-7, 7-6(6) in Parma, Italy.
• Shortest completed final: Shortest completed final: At 43 minutes, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga downed Dudi Sela 6-1, 6-0 in Cassis, France. It is the shortest final in Challenger history.
• A total of four Top 40 players entered a Challenger in 2019. World No. 27 Kyle Edmund won the title in Indian Wells, while 32nd-ranked Lucas Pouille lifted the trophy in Bordeaux. Meanwhile, World No. 21 David Goffin reached the quarter-finals in Phoenix and No. 39 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga reached the semis in Orleans.
• Daniel Evans went back-to-back on home soil in Surbiton and Nottingham, joining Yen-Hsun Lu as the only players to win consecutive Challenger titles on grass in the past 20 years.
• Aljaz Bedene improved to 16-2 in Challenger finals with his title on home soil in Portoroz. It is the highest win percentage (.889) among all players with at least 15 finals reached.
• Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s victory in Cassis, France, came 12 years and two months after his most recent triumph in Surbiton 2007. It is the fourth-largest gap between titles in Challenger history.
• Paolo Lorenzi became the second player to earn 400 wins on the Challenger circuit. He reached the milestone on 7 August in Manerbio, Italy.