BINGHAMTON, July 27, 2015
Great Britain’s Kyle Edmund captured the 2015 Levene Gouldin & Thompson Tennis Challenger Singles Title, defeating US-American Bjorn Fratangelo in straight sets. The top torunament seed won his second ATP Challenger Tour title of the year.
In a match that featured two players ranked in the top 125 of the world, Edmund (No. 113) utilized a dominant service game, featuring multiple 120-plus mph serves, to keep Fratangelo (No. 123) off-balanced and cruise to the 6-2, 6-3 victory. Edmund, who defeated a pair of wild card entrants and qualifiers en route to the title match, won his first USTA Pro Circuit event in just an hour and five minutes. The South African-born Edmund won 88 percent of his first service points (23-of-26) while connecting on seven aces. The 20-year old ended the match with back-to-back aces helping the tournament finish just before an oncoming rainstorm.
“It feels real good,” said Edmund. “It was probably the best match I’ve played (here), which is good considering it was the finals so I’m pleased with that. “Everything worked really well today. I served great and my ground strokes on the backhand were really heavy and I felt like I kept Bjorn on his back foot. First tournament of the trip… I’m very pleased how it started.”
Edmund won the coin toss and elected to begin the match in the service game. From there the three-time grand slam participant put on a show for the near-capacity crowd. The second-seeded Fratangelo failed to hold serve in the fourth game of the opening set allowing Edmund to open a 4-1 lead. After each player completed a successful service game Edmund earned his second break of the set to seize a crucial 1-0 advantage, 6-2.
In the second set, Edmund came out firing on all cylinders racing out to a 3-0 lead after breaking Fratangelo in the second game. Fratangelo, an eight-time ITF Futures champion, did not go away quietly rallying from a 0-30 hole and fighting off multiple break points in the sixth game to pull within two, 4-2. However, the 22-year old Pittsburgh, Pa. native never gained any traction due to several unforced errors. Both players held serve in games seven and eight before Edmunds finished the match with a 6-3 victory.
By advancing to the finals Fratangelo did earn key points in the 2015 US Open Wild Card Challenge. The LG&T Challenger is the first stop of a three-tournament series for the 2015 US Open Main Draw Wild Card. Next week’s stop on the USTA Pro Circuit is Lexington, Ky., the second leg of the Wild Card Challenge. The final tournament of the Wild Card Challenge will be in Aptos, California on August 10.
South Africans Dean O’Brien and Ruan Roelofse upended Americans Daniel Nguyen and Dennis Novikov, winning 6-0, 7-6 in the doubles final to become the third South African duo to win the LG&T Challenger doubles title.
