Challenger tennis field includes defending champ, top 100 player
Photo submitted
Defending singles champ Tung-Lin Wu of Chinese Taipei will return to the Tallahassee Tennis Challenger, when the event gets underway on April 17.
The weeklong tournament will take place at Forestmeadows Tennis Complex, where it has been played for the last 17 years.
Tung-Lin Wu recently made his Masters 1000 debut at Indian Wells and defeated Alexander Bublik in the first round.
The list of players that was released last Tuesday also includes top-100 player in Zhizhen Zhang. He was the first Chinese man in the Open era to play in the main draw at Wimbledon and recently reached a career-high singles world ranking of No. 91 earlier this year.
Former top-10 player and four-time major champion Jack Sock is also scheduled to come to Tallahassee. The Lincoln, Nebraska native has won four career ATP singles titles and 17 doubles titles, and has career-high rankings of world No. 8 in singles and world No. 2 in doubles.
Sock is a former junior US Open champion, winner at the 2017 Paris Masters and semifinalist at the 2017 ATP Finals.
Also joining the Tallahassee field is 29-year-old Frenchmen Lucas Pouille. He has a career-high ATP singles ranking of No. 10, which he attained in 2018. He has also won five singles titles on the ATP Tour along with being on the winning French Davis Cup team in 2017.
The first USTA Pro Circuit Challenger in Tallahassee took place in 2000 and the tournament has grown steadily every year.
This will be the eighth year that the tournament will be played on clay court.
Tennis enthusiasts who can’t attend in person could catch matches a free on Live Web-Streaming. Streaming would also enable fans all over the world to watch their favorite players compete live from their computers, smartphones, iPads, and other devices.
The Tallahassee Challenger is a collaborated presentation by Visit Tallahassee, the City of Tallahassee Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Affairs, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Foundation, the United States Tennis Association and the Association of Tennis Professionals.
The event will feature a 24-player singles qualifying draw, a 32-player singles main draw and a 16-team doubles draw with a field made up of ATP professional players as well as up-and-coming players.
Proceeds from the tournament will benefit the Vogter Neuro-ICU at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare.
