YOKKAICHI/STARNBERG, November 28, 2022
Yosuke Watanuki succeeded on home soil by winning the 2022 Yokkaichi Challenger hosted by the Yokkaichi Tennis Center. The 24-year-old Japanese defeated Frederico Ferreira Silva of Portugal 6-2, 6-2 in Sunday’s singles final. The city of Yokkaichi with about 315,000 inhabitants is located in north-central of Mie Prefecture, part of the northeastern Kii Peninsula. It stretches the width of Mie Prefecture, and is bordered by Ise Bay on the Pacific Ocean to the east, and Shiga Prefecture to the northwest.
Watanuki, No. 3 seed of the $53,120 ATP Challenger Tour hard-court tournament, booked his spot in the championship match with wins over Zdenek Kolar from the Czech Republic, Beibit Zhukayev of Kazakhstan, Yunseong Chung from South Korea and second-seeded Australian James Duckworth.
The World No. 173 sent down four aces, broke his rival’s serve six times and won 60 per cent of the total points played to secure victory in one hour and 20 minutes.
Second #ATPChallenger title in a row 🔥
🇯🇵 Yosuke Watanuki defeats Ferreira Silva 6-2, 6-2 to win the 🏆 in Yokkaichi! pic.twitter.com/IHgNdpbr8v
— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) November 27, 2022
Following his triumph in front of his home crowd in Kobe last week and another title win in Kobe 2019, Watanuki captured his third ATP Challenger career crown. He pocketed $7,200 in prize money as well as 80 ATP Ranking points.
