Mackenzie McDonald has achieved a new milestone in his young career. The American, 22, won his first career Challenger with victory over Bradley Klahn in Fairfield.
McDonald won 6-4, 6-2 in one hour and three minutes. McDonald edged a tight first set that featured five breaks of serve. The 5’10 2016 NCAA singles and doubles champion served the set out successfully, fending off two break points. McDonald’s serving settled in the second set, whilst Klahn continued to struggle. The left-hander, 27, surrendered his serve twice in the second set to hand the title to McDonald.
McDonald posted an exceptionally strong week, dropping just one set in the tournament. That came in his opening round win over 6th seed Stefan Kozlov, before dispatching Stockton finalist Darian King, 2nd seed Tennys Sandgren, and Christopher O’Connell in straight sets.
The win sees McDonald move back into the Top 200. He ha briefly fallen out after failing to defend points in the last few weeks. McDonald is also set to eclipse his previous career-high ranking of No.196. He is set to move up to around No.164 in the rankings. The title win adds a full 90 ATP points to his total as he lost in the first round of the same event last season.
It is the second tournament in a row that Klahn has reached the final of a Challenger, after he was also the runner-up to Maximilian Marterer in Monterrey last week. He avenged that loss by dispatching Marterer in the semi-finals this week, but drops to 5-5 in Challenger finals. Klahn had an impressive week that saw him defeat top seed Ernesto Escobedo in the second round, 8th seed Nikola Milojevic in the quarter-finals, and 4th seed Marterer in the semi-finals.
Klahn’s run the past two weeks is a story in itself. The American missed much of the 2015-2016 seasons after undergoing back surgery in February 2015. His ranking in the week before the Monterrey Challenger sat at No.429. When the new rankings add the 55 ATP points he earns as the beaten finalist in Fairfield, his new ranking will be somewhere around No.254.
