Britain’s Edward Corrie continued his unlikely run in Budapest as a lucky loser by defeating the unseeded Yannick Maden in the quarter-finals of the Romanian Challenger. The twenty-eight year-old Britain was only ranked sixteen places lower than Maden, and therefore had to have seen the match as a huge opportunity.
He took full advantage of that opportunity, winning 64 64. Corrie will be happy to know that he has earned semi-final points from this tournament as the Drummondville challenger, which he was a surprise finalist at last year is fast approaching. Corrie will be secure knowing that he has at least gained a number of new points from his still live run in Budapest that could cushion any potential early loss in Drummondville. Another benefit of reaching at least the semi-finals in Budapest is that his ranking is likely to move high enough that he may not have to qualify for such events anymore in the run-up to that Drummondville event.
Corrie earns the right to face veteran and former Top Ten star Jurgen Melzer, after the Austrian mirrored Corrie’s result with a 64 64 win over third seed Marius Copil.
Eighth seed Luca Vanni also lost, at the hands of Marton Fucsovics 63 75, meaning that not a single seed will contest the Budapest Challenger semi-finals in 2017.
The match of the day for the neutral however, was the battle between Norway’s eighteen year-old Casper Ruud and Russia’s Alexey Vatutin. Ruud’s young career has mostly seen him be successful on clay, having won the Seville Challenger towards the end of last season. He has proven so far this week in Budapest that he is versatile on at least two surfaces though, edging the Russian 62 46 76.
