Napolitano with the large prize after his triumph within the dafaNews Bengaluru Open on February 18, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Sudhakara Jain
Stefano Napolitano capped a wonderful week by capturing solely his second ATP Challenger title with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Seongchan Hong within the ultimate of the dafaNews Bengaluru Open on the KSLTA courts inside Cubbon Park right here on Sunday.
The triumph will make the Italian richer by $18,230 however extra importantly the 100 factors earned will propel the 28-year-old — who final gained a Challenger greater than seven years in the past — into the 160s (from No. 204 on the earth).
At the beginning, there was little to separate the 2. The first 5 video games noticed three breaks of serve, and solely when Hong held to 4-1 (to love) did the competition seem to settle. Napolitano’s was the heftier stroke, however Hong scurried all around the turf, redirected his opponent’s tempo and appeared omnipresent as he took the primary set 6-4.
But the 26-year-old relaxed a tad at first of the second and very quickly Napolitano was up 4-1. Hong continued to impress with his court-coverage and even ran up a break-point within the seventh sport with a miraculous angled move off a low ball that was about to be devoured up by the courtroom.
Napolitano, nevertheless, didn’t dial down on his aggression and duly levelled the match, with an outstanding scissored volley to get to set-point the stand-out shot.
The decider witnessed a repeat-act; Napolitano went up 3-1 just for Hong to relentlessly sustain the chase. The latter even dug himself out of a gap twice — from 0-30 within the fifth sport and from 15-30 within the seventh.
But the stress lastly informed within the ninth as Napolitano got here up with three crunching winners to finish Hong’s resistance.
