ATP Challenger Monza: Federico Cinà challenges Raphael Collignon at Villa Reale Tennis

The event starts with a bangATP Challenger Atkinsons Monza Open 25 on the clay courts of the Royal Villa Tennis. The main draw held yesterday in fact reserved the Belgian Raphael Collignon, the number 1 seed and 92nd player in the world, the wild card Federico China, eighteen-year-old from Palermo and highly anticipated protagonist after the brilliant results of the last few weeks. Son of Francesco, former historic coach of the top ten Roberta Vinci, he has shown exponential growth with the final in the Challenger of Hersonissos and the second round in the Masters 1000 of Miami, where he beat the Argentine Francisco Comesana before surrendering, without making a bad impression, to Gregor Dimitrov. Many consider him a predestined one, the competent public of Monza is curious to see him in action.

There are good chances of progressing to the next round for Federico Arnaboldi: the host crosses the Croatian Matej Dodic, the more difficult the challenge will be Jacopo Vasami to the British Paul Jubb, while from the tricolour challenge between Matteo Gigante e Pietro Fellin a sure Italian will be promoted to the second round. In the meantime, the tournament is enjoying a tasty preview with the first matches related to the qualifying table: twelve matches are scheduled starting at 10, with twelve Italians out of twenty-four present. With such a high number of participants, derbies are inevitable: so we will witness four clashes with Travaglia-Iannaccone, Pilgrim-Mirarchi, Romano-Dalla Valle e Maestrelli-Picchione.

The presence of arouses great curiosity Marco Cecchinato. The thirty-two-year-old Sicilian, who has sunk below the 350th position in the world, is no longer the tennis player who reached the semifinals at Roland Garros in 2018, however with great humility he is trying to climb back up the slope and the Brianza stage could represent a new springboard for his aspirations. His adventure will begin against the Bulgarian Dmitry Kuzmanov. It is also looking for a revival Giulio Zeppieri. The Lazio player had arrived in 2024 close to the threshold of the top-100, then a serious problem with his left wrist forced him to miss the second part of last season. Returning from a few tournaments, he is not yet in top condition and needs to put together a few games to regain confidence and above all form. In this sense, the debut with the Belgian Michael Geerts could help him. They complete the panorama Jacopo Berrettini-Sels (wave) and Fausto Tabacco-Poljicak (Cro).