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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.

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.

In efforts to further the progression of college and junior players into the professional tour, the ATP Challenger Tour has partnered with the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) and the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to give players more opportunities on the professional tour. Those that finish in the top 10 of the end-of-year college rankings are now eligible for six wild cards into the main draw of Challenger events, and if they have finished their college education, they receive 8 of those wild cards. Those that finish in the 11 through 20 range of the collegiate rankings are eligible for six qualifying wild cards, with those who have completed their college education being eligible for eight wild cards.^[1]

Much like the partnership with the ITA, the Challenger Tour also partnered with the ITF. This partnership granted those with year-end rankings inside the top 10 in the world eligible for eight main draw Challenger Tour wildcards, and those who finished the year between 11 and 20 in the world receiving eight Challenger Tour qualifying wildcards.^[2]

In 2022, during the most numerous season in the tour's history,^[3] the ATP Tour announced an overhaul of the tournaments system from 2023 season. Challenger 110 and Challenger 90 events were scrapped, Challenger 80 reduced to the Challenger 75 while the prize money requirements for it and Challenger 100 were increased. It also introduced the new highest category − Challenger 175 to be inaugurally held in the second week of Indian Wells, Rome and Madrid ATP Tour Masters 1000 events.^[4]

The new points system is as follows:

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.

In February 2007, Tretorn 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.

Position	Player	Title
1	Lu Yen-hsun	29
2	Dudi Sela	23
3	Paolo Lorenzi	21
4	Carlos Berlocq	19
5	Go Soeda	18
6	Maximo Gonzalez	17
	Blaz Kavcic
	Facundo Bagnis
8	Takao Suzuki	16
	Aljaz Bedene

Updated as of 10 May 2024^[update]

#	Matches won	Years
423	Rubén Ramírez Hidalgo	2000–2017
421	Paolo Lorenzi	2003–2021
409	Go Soeda	2004–2022
369	Lu Yen-hsun	2002–2018
363	Facundo Bagnis	2009–2024
350	Carlos Berlocq	2002–2019
328	Filippo Volandri	1999–2016
325	Blaž Kavčič	2007–2022
323	Rogério Dutra Silva	2006–2019
321	Dudi Sela	2003–2022
306	Horacio Zeballos	2006–2017
minimum 300 wins

Player	Age	Title
Ivo Karlović	39 years, 7 months	Calgary 2018
Fernando Verdasco	38 years, 3 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

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

Player	Age	Title
Richard Gasquet	16 years, 8 months	Sarajevo 2003
Félix Auger-Aliassime	17 years, 1 month	Sevilla 2017
Rafael Nadal	17 years, 1 month	Segovia 2003
Bernard Tomic	17 years, 3 months	Burnie 2010
Carlos Alcaraz	17 years, 5 months	Barcelona 2020
Novak Djokovic	17 years, 5 months	Aachen 2004
Juan Martin del Potro	17 years, 6 months	Aguascalientes 2006

Richard Gasquet	16 years, 10 months	Napoli 2003
Carlos Alcaraz	17 years, 5 months	Alicente 2020
Félix Auger-Aliassime	17 years, 10 months	Lyon 2018
Juan Martin del Potro	17 years, 10 months	Segovia 2006
Novak Djokovic	17 years, 11 months	San Remo 2005

The Tampere Open is the longest running ATP Challenger event.^[3]

• Arizona Tennis Classic
• BNP Paribas Primrose Bordeaux
• Open Aix Provence Crédit Agricole
• Piemonte Open Intesa Sanpaolo
• Sardegna Open

• 2024 ATP Challenger Tour
• ATP Tour
• ITF Men's World Tennis Tour
• WTA 125 tournaments

• ATP 2010 Tretorn SERIE+
• Entry Points and Prize Money Table
• US Open Prize Money
• Challengers not during the 2nd Week of a Grand Slam
• Challenger Example from 2nd Week of French Open
• Article mentioning Agassi's Las Vegas Challenger
• Overview from ATPtennis.com

• Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) official website
• List of Upcoming/Past Challenger events (archived 9 May 2008)