ATP Challenger Series

The ATP Challenger Series is a series of international men's professional tennis tournaments that allow players to win enough ranking points to earn an entry into an ATP-level (usually International Series tournaments) main draw or qualifying draw. They are fully administered by the ATP Tour.

Prize Money and Ranking Points

Challenger tournaments offer total prize money ranging from $25,000 up to $150,000, which, along with whether the tournament provides "hospitality" (food and lodging) to the players, determines the number of points a player gets for winning each match in the tournament.

"Hospitality" bumps the points distribution up one level, and the points to the overall winner range from 50 points for a $25K tournament to 100 points for $150K with Hospitality, in contrast of ATP-level tournaments, which offer total prize money from $400K to over $6 Million and points to the overall winners from 175 to 1000.

As a point of reference, player rankings are based on points accumulated in the previous 52 weeks, and in any given week of rankings, a player who has earned 400 points in the last 52 weeks would be ranked around the 100th position. 200 points would get him a ranking near 200th, while with 100 points he would get to about the 350th, and 50 points would put him close to the 500th. So rankings points earned in Challengers can help a player to move up in the rankings quickly.

Player Quality

Players have usually had success at the "Futures" tournaments of the ATP Tour before competing in Challengers. Due to the lower level of points and money available at the Challenger level, most players in a Challenger have a world ranking of 100 to 500 for a $25K tournament and 50 to 250 for a $150K tournament.

An exception happens during the second week of a Grand Slam tournament, when top-100 players who have already lost in the Slam try to take a wild card entry into a Challenger tournament beginning that second week.

Tretorn Serie+

In February 2007, Tretorn became the official ball of the Challenger Series, and the sponsor of a new series consisting of those Challenger tournaments with prize money of $100,000 or more.

2008 tournaments

See also 2008 ATP Challenger Series

See also 2007 ATP Challenger Series

References

* [http://stevegtennis.com/entrypoints.txt Entry Points and Prize Money Table]
* [http://2006.usopen.org/en_US/about/history/prizemoney.html US Open Prize Money]
* [http://steveghelper.com/MatchResults.php?countries=&players=%281%29%2C+%288%29&weeks=&weektype=from&from_date=6%2F11%2F2007&weeks_back=&qualies=exclude&chall=yes&matches=singles Challengers not during the 2nd Week of a Grand Slam]
* [http://steveghelper.com/MatchResults.php?players=hrbaty%2Cmayer&weektype=from&from_date=6%2F4%2F2007 Challenger Example from 2nd Week of French Open]
* [http://www.tennis-x.com/story/2006-06-24/m.php Article mentioning Agassi's Las Vegas Challenger]
* [http://www.atptennis.com/3/en/tournaments/challenger/CScircuit.asp Overview from ATPtennis.com]

External links

* [http://www.atptennis.com Official Website of the ATP]
* [http://www.atptennis.com/3/en/tournaments/challenger/ List of Upcoming/Past Challenger events]