Dustin Brown Pulls Off His First Challenger Title in Three Years

The former World Number 64, Dustin Brown has been declared as the champion at the Mouratoglou Open in Sophia Antipolis, France. Since his title win in Manchester in the year 2016, Brown has won his first title. The Jamaican-German knocked down the fifth seed Serbian, Filip Krajinovic 6-3, 7-5 in the finals of the ATP Challenger clay-court event. The 34-year-old, Brown took an hour and a half to surpass the Serbian tennis player.

The serves and groundstrokes from Brown were simply flawless and the Jamaican-German slammed 10 aces in total. He picked up his the eighth Challenger honour of his career. And Brown’s recent victory on the Challenger tour has awarded him 90 ATP ranking points, which would in turn shoot up his ATP ranking from World Number 219 to 167th in the world.

“I really played well all week,” Dustin Brown said. “I had to withdraw from the Saint-Brieuc Challenger, so I’m very happy to win here.” With this win, he also collected €69,280 as prize money.  Dustin Brown has prosperously began his clay court season and is expected to carry the momentum.

En route to his title, Dustin Brown defeated the Frenchman Baptiste Crepatte, the second seed Dutch Robin Haase, Kimmer Coppejans of Belgium, the Italian Matteo Donati and his compatriot, Rudolf Molleker. Molleker raises his ranking to World Number 170 after his semifinal defeat to Dustin Brown.

On the ATP circuit, Brown is famous for holding a 100% winning percentage record against the Spaniard, Rafael Nadal. He has defeated Nadal in Halle and Wimbledon and Brown remains undefeated against the World Number two tennis player.

On the other courts of the tournament, the Dutchmen Thiemo de Bakker and Robin Haase pulled off the doubles title in Saint Antipolis. The Dutch duo surpassed the French wild card entrants Enzo Couacaud and Tristan Lamasine 6-4, 6-4.