Challenger Tour, Milan Final: Albert Ramos Wins 3rd CH Title

The Aspria Tennis Cup in Milan, Italy, was played last week in conjunction with the Wimbledon qualies from Roehampton. This was where the clay courters who felt they didn't have a chance of qualifying for Wimbledon came to gain some valuable ranking points and press their claims for a challenger title. With the exception of the top two seeds of course with Pere Riba and Ruben-Ramirez Hildago making the main draw directly and lets just say that Robin Haase and Rik de Voest are very lucky human beings right about now. In any case, both of them lost early, Hildago to eventual finalist Evgeny "cousin of Kournikova" Korolev in the first round, and Riba to Galvani in the 2nd round after defeating Thomas "comeback" Muster in his opening round clash.


Unfortunately the final ended on a retirement, with the luckless Evgeny Korolev having to retire while trailing 4-6 0-3 to Spaniard Albert Ramos. One can only hope it isn't a reoccurrence of the elbow injury that required surgery in September last year and kept him off the tour for 4 months. Korolev also retired in the quarter finals of the Prostejov challenger a fortnight ago, so clearly something still isn't right. Elbow injuries are a real nuisance, especially at a young age so hopefully Evgeny can rest up and still be able to compete for the rest of the year in an attempt to get the ranking, which has slipped to 214, back to where it belongs. Of course if he keeps winning matches, then the ranking will take care of itself.

Onto the eventual winner now, and Ramos has now picked up three challenger titles and in the process, has firmly entrenched himself in the top 100 and will most likely pick up a main draw spot in the US Open for his victory here.  The young Spaniard has made decent strides since turning pro in 2007 and is well placed to progress further now, just needs to hone is game more on the hardcourts which will come in time. Ramos had a fairly simple run to the semi finals where he ran into the old Italian warhorse, Stefano Galvani who gave him a tough match, with Albert eventually prevailing in three sets, 2-6 6-3 6-1. Ramos would have fancied his chances against a fit and healthy Korolev, especially on clay, let alone against the injured version that he got yesterday. Korolev was going for his shots, as he always does, in an attempt to end the match quickly and on his terms but the final was always going in one direction, and Albert Ramos victory.

The Challenger tour now moves onto Mexico and Germany next week.