Tseng, Krueger claim second Challenger titles of 2024

Chun-Hsin Tseng and Mitchell Krueger entered the winners’ circle for the second time this season Sunday, when they each captured their fifth career ATP Challenger Tour title.

Tseng, 22, enjoyed a dominant run in Vicenza, Italy, where he did not drop a set all week en route to the title. A competitor at the 2022 Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF, the Chinese Taipei player downed fifth seed Marco Trungelliti 6-3, 6-2 in the Trofeo FL Service - Città di Vicenza final.

Both Tseng and Trungelliti pulled double duty Saturday due to rain, competing in their quarter-final matches in the afternoon before later returning to court for the semi-finals. Tseng appeared the fresher of the pair in Sunday’s final, likely due to the Argentine spending more than five hours on court the previous day while Tseng earned two convincing victories.

“Last year was a very difficult year for me. For me, this victory was very important,” Tseng said after thanking his team in the trophy presentation. “Hopefully I can keep this winning streak for the rest of the year.”

Tseng, who also won the Szekesfehevar Challenger in March, is up 58 spots to No. 195 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings.

Krueger continued his 2024 resurgence with a second title run on American soil. The 30-year-old won the UAMS Health Little Rock Open in Arkansas, where in the final he raced past Japan’s Yuta Shimizu 6-3, 6-4 in one hour, 20 minutes.

^{Mitchell Krueger greets a young fan at the Little Rock Challenger. Credit: UAMS Health Little Rock Open}

Krueger, No. 188 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings, previously triumphed at January’s Southern California Open 1 in Indian Wells and also was a finalist at the Tallahassee Challenger.

“It was definitely a big goal of mine this year to not put too much pressure on myself. I know I can compete at this level and above. It’s just a matter of consistently trusting my game,” Krueger told commentator Mike Cation. “I know what I need to be doing to win, to play well. I know my identity on the court. That was a tough thing last year, I felt like I was playing the best tennis of my career last year and I had, on paper, the worst year of my career, since I was 20 years old or even younger.

“The more matches that I can play on my terms, dictating most of the points, win or lose, I think in the long run it will definitely pay off. It has so far this year."