ATP Challenger Tour

The ATP Challenger Tour, known until the end of 2008 as the ATP Challenger Series, is a series of international men's professional tennis tournaments. The Challenger Tour events are the second-highest tier of tennis competition, behind the ATP Tour. The ITF World Tennis Tour tournaments are on the entry-level of international professional tennis competition. The ATP Challenger Tour is administered by the Association of Tennis Professionals. Players who succeed on the ATP Challenger Tour earn sufficient ranking points to become eligible for main draw or qualifying draw entry at ATP Tour tournaments. Players on the Challenger Tour are usually young players looking to advance their careers, those who fail to qualify for ATP events, or former ATP players looking to get back into the big tour.

History of challenger events[]

The first challenger events were held in 1978, with eighteen events taking place. Two were held on the week beginning January 8, one in Auckland and another in Hobart. The next events were held one at a time beginning June 18 and ending August 18 in the following U.S. locations, in order: Shreveport, Birmingham, Asheville, Raleigh, Hilton Head, Virginia Beach, Wall, Cape Cod, and Lancaster.

Events continued after a one-month hiatus with two begun September 24 and 25, one in Tinton Falls, New Jersey and in Lincoln, Nebraska respectively. The following week saw one event played, in Salt Lake City, then two played simultaneously in Tel Aviv and San Ramon, California, then one played the following week in Pasadena. A final event was played a month later in Kyoto. In comparison, the 2008 schedule saw 178 events played in more than 40 countries.

Present-day prize money and ranking points[]

Challenger tournaments offer total prize money ranging from $30,000 up to $168,000+, which, along with whether the tournament provides hospitality (food and lodging) to the players, determines the number of points a player gets for winning each match in the tournament.

Hospitality moves the points distribution up one level and the points to the overall winner range from 80 points for a $40,000 tournament to 125 points for a $220,000 tournament with hospitality. In contrast, the ATP-level tournaments offer total prize money from $400,000 to over $6 million and points to the overall winners from 250 to 1500.

As a point of reference, player rankings are based on points accumulated in the previous 52 weeks, and as of February 2016, a player who has earned 550 points in the last 52 weeks would be ranked just below the 100th position. 250 points would get him a ranking just below 200th, while with 100 points he would get to around 425th, and 50 points would put him just below 600th. So rankings points earned in Challengers can help a low-ranked player to move up in the rankings quickly.

Points are awarded as follows:^[1]

Tournament Category	Singles									Doubles
Tournament Category	W	F	SF	QF	R16	R32	R48	Q	Q1	W	F	SF	QF	R16
Challenger 125	125	75	45	25	10	5	0	0	0	125	75	45	25	0
Challenger 110	110	65	40	20	9	5	0	0	0	110	65	40	20	0
Challenger 100	100	60	35	18	8	5	0	0	0	100	60	35	18	0
Challenger 90	90	55	33	17	8	5	0	0	0	90	55	33	17	0
Challenger 80	80	48	29	15	7	3	0	0	0	80	48	29	15	0

Player quality[]

Players have usually had success at the Futures tournaments of the ITF Men's Circuit before competing in Challengers. Due to the lower level of points and money available at the Challenger level, most players in a Challenger have a world ranking of 100 to 500 for a $35K tournament and 50 to 250 for a $150K tournament.

An exception happens during the second week of a Grand Slam tournament, when top-100 players who have already lost in the Slam try to take a wild card entry into a Challenger tournament beginning that second week.

Tretorn Serie+[]

In February 2007, became the official ball of the Challenger Series, and the sponsor of a new series consisting of those Challenger tournaments with prize money of $100,000 or more. They renewed the sponsorship with the ATP in 2010 and extended it until the end of 2011.

Records[]

Most singles titles[]

Lu Yen-hsun has won 29 ATP Challenger Tour titles.

Oldest champions[]

Player	Age	Title
Ivo Karlović	39 years, 7 months	Calgary 2018
Fernando Verdasco	38 years, 4 months	Monterrey, 2022
Dick Norman	38 years, 1 month	Mexico City 2009
Stéphane Robert	37 years, 8 months	Burnie 2018
Bob Carmichael	37 years, 6 months	Hobart 1978
Stéphane Robert	37 years, 5 months	Kobe 2017
Tommy Robredo	37 years, 1 month	Parma 2019
Tommy Robredo	37 years, 1 month	Poznań 2019
Andreas Seppi	37 years	Biella III 2021
Víctor Estrella Burgos	37 years	Santo Domingo 2017

Youngest champions[]

Player	Age	Title
Michael Chang	15 years, 7 months	Las Vegas 1987
Richard Gasquet	16 years	Montauban 2002
Bernard Tomic	16 years, 4 months	Melbourne 2009
Kent Carlsson	16 years, 7 months	New Ulm 1984
Marcos Ondruska	16 years, 7 months	Durban 1989
Richard Gasquet	16 years, 8 months	Sarajevo 2003
Rafael Nadal	16 years, 9 months	Barletta 2003
Richard Gasquet	16 years, 10 months	Napoli 2003
Félix Auger-Aliassime	16 years, 10 months	Lyon 2017

Most matches won[]

Updated as of 18 December 2021

#	Matches won	Years
423	Rubén Ramírez Hidalgo	2000–2017
421	Paolo Lorenzi	2003–2021
404	Go Soeda	2004–2021
369	Lu Yen-hsun	2002–2018
350	Carlos Berlocq	2002–2019
328	Filippo Volandri	1999–2016
325	Blaž Kavčič	2007–2021
323	Rogério Dutra Silva	2006–2019
321	Dudi Sela	2003–2019
306	Horacio Zeballos	2006–2017
305	Facundo Bagnis	2009–2021
minimum 300 wins