Eighteen year-old wildcard Corentin Moutet became just the latest young star to win a Challenger title in 2017. The Frenchman defeated a fellow potential Next Gen star in Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6, 6-2.
It was a strong week for Moutet, who had dispatched the 3rd seed Norbert Gombos as early as the first round. A hard-fought win over Tristan Lamasine followed, before a rather more routine victory over Geb Sakharov in the quarter-finals.
Moutet benefited from Yannick Maden’s shock quarter-final win over top seed Daniil Medvedev, but defeating the in-form German took two hours and forty minutes on Saturday.
Moutet’s title is his first at Challenger level, and will see him break the Top 200 of the ATP world rankings for the first time. The title is the culmination of a incredible run of 28 wins from 31 matches in recent tournament spanning the Futures and Challenger circuits. Despite the title win the run comes to late for Moutet to feature in the Next Gen Finals in Milan, but aged just 18, the youngster retains his eligibility to play in the event for three more years.
On the back of his strong performance in Brest, Moutet has been awarded a special exemption into the main draw of the Eckental Challenger in Germany next week. He starts against 6th seed Lukas Lacko.
Moutet is the third youngest winner of a Challenger title in 2017, with a pair of Canadians, Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime, both younger than Moutet when they picked up titles earlier in the season.
Stefanos Tsitsipas had an excellent week that continues his strong end to the season. The Greek youngster defeated three seeds to make the final. He defeated 7th seed Andrey Kuznetsov 6-1, 6-3, 4th seed Jeremy Chardy 7-6, 6-4, and finally 2nd seed Marius Copil.
Tsitsipas runner-up display sees him finish 10th in the Next Gen Finals ranking positions. The top seven players qualify, with the final 8th position reserved for a wildcard entrant. However, No.1 ranked player Alexander Zverev will not feature as he has qualified for the Nitto ATP Finals. Despite the absence of Zverev, Tsitsipas will require the wildcard if he is to feature.
