OSTRAVA/STARNBERG, April 30, 2022

French qualifier Evan Furness continued his great run of form this week at the Ostra Group Open 2022 by Moneta by reaching his first championship match on the ATP Challenger Tour. The 23-year-old emerged victorious from Saturday’s semi-final with his compatriot Constant Lestienne, winning 7-6(3), 6-2.

Furness, who beat in the main draw Slovakia’s Lukas Lacko, No. 3 seed Chun-hsin Tseng of Chinese Taipei and Zdenek Kolar from the Czech Republic en route to the stage of the final four, converted three of his seven break-point chances to prevail after one hour and 37 minutes.

Later in the afternoon at the SC Ostrava, which is hosting the €45,730 clay-court event for the 19th straight year on the circuit, Ryan Peniston rallied past Czech young gun Dalibor Svrcina 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. The World No. 227 from Great Britain won 53 per cent of the total points played to advance after two hours and seven minutes.

Both players are bidding for their maiden Challenger crown. Furness, a winner of eight singles title on the ITF Pro Circuit, won the only previous meeting between the two at an ITF World Tennis Tour event in Heraklion, Greece in November 2020. Peniston has lifted four trophies at ITF level.

Erler/Miedler triumph in doubles

In other action, Alexander Erler and Lucas Miedler were crowned doubles champions. The top seeds from Austria defeated US-American Hunter Reese and Sem Verbeek from the Netherlands 7-6(5), 7-5. The encounter lasted one hour and 34 minutes.

By winning their fourth ATP Challenger career team title and first of the season, Erler and Miedler split €2,670 in prize money and earned 80 ATP Doubles Ranking points.