ATP Challenger Cleveland: Swiss talent Dominic Sticker wins second Challenger title
The 19-year-old Swiss top talent Dominic Stricker won his second title on the ATP Challenger Tour with the title at the hard court event in Cleveland.
by Stefan Bergmann
last edit: Feb 07, 2022, 01:19 pm
Top performance by Dominic Stricker at the ATP Challenger tournament in Cleveland, Ohio. The 19-year-old Swiss achieved his second triumph on the Challenger Tour in the final of the ATP hard court event with a 7: 5, 6: 1 win over the Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka, who was seeded three. Last year, the youngster from the canton of Bern (Münsingen) won the title at the home tournament in Lugano.
Stricker had also been successful on the big ATP tour in 2021, but "only" in the doubles competition at the Sandplatz-Heim event in Gstaad, when he and his compatriot Marc-Andrea Hüsler defeated the Polish pairing of Szymon Walkow and Jan Zielinski in the final 6: 1, 7:6 (7) could conquer.
In good company with Wawrinka and Rosset
In the first round of the US $53,120 indoor event, the Swiss defeated the 18-year-old Italian veteran Andreas Seppi 6-4, 6-4. The current world number 100. was seeded at number two in Cleveland. The US number one Tennys Sandgren failed in the round of 16 to Thomas Fabbiano (Italy).
Stricker is in good company with his second Challenger win before his twentieth birthday. Only Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka and ex-top ten player Marc Rosset were able to win more than one tournament on the Challenger Tour as Swiss teenagers. In the ranking, the left-hander improved by 40 positions to rank 164 and is currently the third best Swiss in the men's world rankings - nine places ahead of Wawrinka.