The Challenger Tour is finally winding down, and there are now just two regular season events left. They are in Andria and Toyota.
Andria: The event in Italy sees the top two seeds, Nikoloz Basilashvili and Ivan Marchenko, qualify with rankings in the Top 100, at 93 and 97 respectively. The other seeds are very much as you were from other recent events in Italy, as Michael Berrer, Dudi Sela, Mirza Basic, Luca Vanni and Dustin Brown all appear again. Ivan Dodig is the only new name to appear since Brescia, though Benjamin Becker and Marsel Ilhan are not at the event this week.
In early play, one German seed progressed, and another fell. Michael Berrer made short work of Italian wildcard Julian Ocleppo, dropping just three games in a 6-2, 6-1 win. Things were not so easy for Dustin Brown, as he fell to the in-form Egor Gerasimov, who picked up his maiden Challenger title just two weeks ago. Gerasimov beat the erratic Brown for the loss of just five games, winning through 6-3, 6-2. Illya Marchenko also won 6-4, 6-0.
Tuesday sees Dudi Sela take on Swiss Adrien Bossel, and Ivan Dodig is up against Andrea Pellegrino (picks in bold). The match of the day however is likely to be eighth seed Mirza Basic’s encounter with local Roberto Marcora. Basic is in good form, but Marcora is an effective player, and with home support makes for a very tricky opening round tie. Marco Chiundinelli and Marton Fucsovics also feature.
Toyota: Like Andria, its very much as you were in Toyota, as seven of the eight seeds from Yokohama take part. The only change is the absence of last week’s top seed John Millman from play, he is replaced as top seed by last week’s second Matthew Ebden. Jordan Thompson comes in as the new eighth seed as a result.
It did not help that much though, as Thompson was the first to depart, beaten in straight sets by Jason Jung. Alexander Kudryavtsev won losing just one game, and Konstantin Kravchuk advanced to the second round, defeating Japanese wildcard Makoto Ochi 6-3, 6-1. James Duckworth took care of another wildcard in Sora Fukuda, 6-3, 6-4, though Sho Katayama did beat Gavin Van Peperzeel 6-4, 6-2.
The match of Wednesday is sure to be Omar Jasika taking on second seed Tatsumo Ito. Jasika is very highly thought of in Australia, and Ito is not the player he once was. The other young star involved in recent Asian Challengers, Duckhee Lee, is not playing in Toyota.
Other matches see Yoshihito Nishioka up against Hiroki Moriya, Yuichi Sugita against Brit Brydan Klein, and Go Soeda versus Yasutaka Uchiyama. Top seed Matthew Ebden is also in action against Greg Jones, who plays with a protected ranking.
