{"id":1135,"date":"2013-04-06T12:12:43","date_gmt":"2013-04-06T16:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1135"},"modified":"2013-04-06T12:12:43","modified_gmt":"2013-04-06T16:12:43","slug":"national-showdowns-in-challenger-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/06\/national-showdowns-in-challenger-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"National Showdowns in Challenger Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Dudi Sela<\/a> and Amir Weintraub<\/a> both win their semifinal matches at the Leon Challenger today–against Donald Young<\/a> and Jimmy Wang<\/a>, respectively–it would the first time that two Israelis face off in a Challenger final, at least since the beginning of 1991, when my challenger database begins.<\/p>\n

In over 2800 Challengers in that time span, 407 of them have ended with finals contested between countrymen. \u00a0As you might guess, all-USA finals have been the most common, at 84, partly due to the former dominance of Americans in the sport and also owing to the large number of Challengers held on US soil. \u00a0Next in line are Argentina (59) and Spain (52), two countries with the key combination of many events and a large pool of second-tier pros.<\/p>\n

Perhaps more interesting are the countries at the bottom of list. \u00a0Nations like Slovenia*, Taiwan, and Slovakia have more in common with Israel–few events in-country, with just a handful of players contesting Challengers. \u00a0Those are the three most recent countries to join the list. \u00a0Given the contemporary Challenger field, even more surprising are inclusions such as Norway, Denmark, Mexico, and Morocco, all of which enjoyed all-national Challenger finals in the 90s.<\/p>\n

<\/em>*Slovenia is increasingly becoming a force to be reckoned with. \u00a0Led by the underrated Grega Zemlja<\/a>, it is one of only 12 countries<\/a> with three players in the ATP top 100.<\/em><\/p>\n

Given that 29 countries have experienced such a final, we might expect some nations that aren’t on the list. \u00a0A few that come to mind are Switzerland (usually better represented than the current two players ranked between 20 and 300), Ukraine (currently six players between #98 and #300), and Portugal (surely Rui Machado<\/a> and Frederico Gil<\/a> will meet in a final eventually).<\/p>\n

Here’s the full list, including the most recent final for each country:<\/p>\n

Country  CH Fs  Date      Event            Winner              Runner-up                \nUSA      84     20130204  Dallas CH        Rhyne Williams      Robby Ginepri            \nARG      59     20120730  Manta CH         Guido Pella         Maximiliano Estevez      \nESP      52     20121112  Marbella CH      Albert Montanes     Daniel Munoz De La Nava  \nGER      39     20130121  Heilbronn CH     Michael Berrer      Jan Lennard Struff       \nFRA      36     20121001  Mons CH          Kenny De Schepper   Michael Llodra           \nITA      31     20110718  Orbetello CH     Filippo Volandri    Matteo Viola             \nCZE      24     20120312  Sarajevo CH      Jan Hernych         Jan Mertl                \nBRA      20     20120910  Cali CH          Joao Souza          Thiago Alves             \nAUS      17     20130225  Sydney1 CH       Nick Kyrgios        Matt Reid                \nNED      5      20100906  Alphen CH        Jesse Huta Galung   Thomas Schoorel          \nBEL      4      20120924  Orleans CH       David Goffin        Ruben Bemelmans          \nROU      4      20120806  Sibiu CH         Adrian Ungur        Victor Hanescu           \nAUT      4      20070716  Rimini CH        Oliver Marach       Daniel Koellerer         \nCOL      3      20120709  Bogota CH        Alejandro Falla     Santiago Giraldo         \nJPN      3      20120423  Kaohsiung CH     Go Soeda            Tatsuma Ito              \nRSA      3      20110411  Johannesburg CH  Izak Van Der Merwe  Rik De Voest             \nSWE      3      19931101  Aachen CH        Jonas Bjorkman      Jan Apell                \nRUS      2      20100823  Astana CH        Igor Kunitsyn       Konstantin Kravchuk      \nGBR      2      20050704  Nottingham CH    Alex Bogdanovic     Mark Hilton              \nCAN      2      19991129  Urbana CH        Frederic Niemeyer   Sebastien Lareau         \nIND      2      19990412  New Delhi CH     Leander Paes        Mahesh Bhupathi          \nSLO      1      20120716  An-Ning CH       Grega Zemlja        Aljaz Bedene             \nTPE      1      20111017  Seoul CH         Yen Hsun Lu         Jimmy Wang               \nSVK      1      20100809  Samarkand CH     Andrej Martin       Marek Semjan             \nNOR      1      19980601  Furth CH         Christian Ruud      Jan Frode Andersen       \nECU      1      19960715  Quito CH         Pablo Campana       Luis Adrian Morejon      \nDEN      1      19960226  Hamburg CH       Kenneth Carlsen     Frederik Fetterlein      \nMAR      1      19950814  Geneva CH        Younes El Aynaoui   Karim Alami              \nMEX      1      19920427  Acapulco CH      Leonardo Lavalle    Luis Herrera<\/pre>\n
TennisAbstract.com update:\u00a0<\/strong>If you like ATP stats, you’ll love the new leaders page<\/a>. \u00a0It allows you to compare the ATP top 50 across nearly 60 different metrics, and filter matches in all the same ways you can on player pages. \u00a0Find out who hits the most aces on \u00a0clay, who plays the most tiebreaks in Masters events, who has faced the toughest opponents, or just spend the rest of your afternoon tinkering with the thousands of possible permutations. \u00a0It’s very much a work in progress, so (a) let me know if you have suggestions or come across a bug; and (b) don’t be shocked if I occasionally break it while trying to improve it.<\/p>\n
Also, I’ve created a “current tournaments” page<\/a> that aggregates all matches (completed and upcoming) at this week’s events. \u00a0It’s a great way to get a quick overview of what’s happening this week, and with next week’s qualifying draws released, you can also use the filters to zero in on, say, all Americans who are still alive in some ATP, WTA, or Challenger event.<\/p>\n
Finally, don’t miss the Player Schedules page<\/a>, which aggregates ATP and Challenger entry lists to show you who is playing where for the next six weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If Dudi Sela and Amir Weintraub both win their semifinal matches at the Leon Challenger today–against Donald Young and Jimmy Wang, respectively–it would the first time that two Israelis face off in a Challenger final, at least since the beginning of 1991, when my challenger database begins. In over 2800 Challengers in that time span, … Continue reading National Showdowns in Challenger Finals<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-challengers","category-tennis-abstract"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}