Australian Rinky Hijikata and Croatia’s Borna Gojo cruised to victory to claim their maiden ATP Challenger Tour titles this week. Hijikata dropped just one set all week to win on home soil in Playford, Australia, while Gojo was unbroken at the Ortisei Challenger. Gojo and Hijikata are among five Challenger champions this week.
#NextGenATP Hijikata took down Japan’s Rio Noguchi 6-1 6-1 in Sunday’s final to win the City of Playford International.
“I’m stoked [to win the title], I’m over the moon,” Hijikata said. “It’s a little bit of a relief, it’s always nice to win the first title, it’s not easy to get over that hump. To be able to do that this week at home, I’m pretty proud of the way I played this week.
“I came out firing. I thought I stuck to my game plan well. I played to the [windy] conditions as well as I could.”
Hijikata, 21, made his Challenger Tour main-draw debut at the 2018 Playford Challenger and this week, the fifth seed collected the title to become the youngest Australian to win a Challenger title since 2018, when the-then 19-year-old Alexei Popyrin won in Jinan, China. The title in Australia lifts Hijikata to a career-high No. 159 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.
Hijikata, who played college tennis at University of North Carolina from 2020-21, earned All-American honours as a sophomore before turning pro.
In August, the Sydney native claimed his first Tour-level win at the ATP 250 event in Los Cabos, Mexico, where he advanced through qualifying and defeated wild card Pacheco Mendez before falling to then-World No. 1 Daniil Medvedev. At the US Open, Hijikata made his Grand Slam main-draw debut and pushed Rafael Nadal to four sets in the opening round.
Gojo, 24, went on a run ousting four of the top-seven seeds at the indoor hard court event in Ortisei, Italy, including defeating seventh seed Lukas Klein in the final 7-6(4), 6-3 to win the Sparkasse Challenger Val Gardena.
Borna Gojo in action at the 2022 Ortisei Challenger.” />
Borna Gojo in action at the 2022 Ortisei Challenger. Credit: P.Codeluppi/ChallengerOrtisei
“This is big for me,” Gojo said. “I’m happy I was able to put together a nice tournament here and win my first Challenger.”
“It’s [The surface] a bit faster than usual, which is great for my serve, it helps me get some free points.”
The Split native, a former college standout, finished runner-up at 2018 NCAA Division I Tennis Championships (l. Chrysochos) and…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Tennis – ATP World Tour…