Bari Challenger: Pieri beats Martin Manzano for first title

Samuele Pieri has won the Bari Challenger. In the final he beat Juan Cruz Martin Manzano 6-4 6-1 to lift the first Challenger title of his career, at the first edition of the Apulian event, a Challenger 50 on clay.

It was an all-Italian final, played on Sunday 4 October on the center court, closing a week of five rounds. Pieri won in two sets and dropped only five games to Martin Manzano in the whole match.

The title is worth 50 ATP points, the amount the draw assigns to the champion. The finalist takes home 30, the semifinalists 18, the quarterfinalists 10. For two players in the lower part of the rankings, these numbers move a lot.

Pieri is now No. 320 in the ATP ranking with 174 points. Compared with 9 September he has climbed 83 places, a jump that comes almost entirely from this week. Behind him is Guy Den Ouden (No. 321, 173 points); ahead are Carlo Alberto Caniato and Enrico Dalla Valle, both on 174: at this level the ranking is a long line of players separated by one point or none.

The road was anything but a stroll. In his opener Pieri beat Andrej Martin 6-4 6-4. In the round of 16 he eliminated Laurent Lokoli with two tie-breaks, both won 7-6(2). Lokoli had already played the longest match of the whole week, 34 games against Pol Martin Tiffon, decided 6-7(5) 6-3 7-5.

In the quarterfinals Pieri met Carlos Taberner and won 6-4 4-6 6-3: one set dropped, but the third firmly in his hands. In the same part of the draw, Gianluca Cadenasso stopped against Vitaliy Sachko at 4-6 6-2 3-0 for the Ukrainian, who thus reached the semifinals.

The semifinal against Sachko, the eighth seed, was the turning point. The Ukrainian took the first set 7-5, but Pieri answered with 6-4 in the second and 6-2 in the third. It was one of the five matches of the tournament that went to a deciding set, out of 22 played.

On the other side of the draw, Martin Manzano reached the final more easily. He beat Jay Clarke 6-4 6-4 in the round of 16, Dalla Valle 6-1 6-2 in the quarterfinals and Matthew William Donald 6-3 6-2 in the semifinals, without dropping a set before the final. Born on 15 December 2004, at 21 he was playing his first Challenger final, like Pieri.

The final had a special flavor for Pieri. On 21 September, at the Genoa 2 Challenger, he had lost to Martin Manzano 6-4 6-2 in the first round, as SuperTennis recalls. Their head-to-head is now level, one win each within two weeks, and the second one, the one that weighs more, belongs to Pieri.

On Sunday the revenge came in two sets. Pieri took the first 6-4 and in the second pulled away to the final 6-1, giving Martin Manzano no chance to get back into the match.

Pieri's recent season, looked at closely, tells a story of growth. At Biella, in the September Challenger 50, he had beaten Gabriele Piraino 5-7 6-2 7-5 before stopping in the round of 16 against Alex Barrena 6-1 6-3: 5 points. In Genoa he went out in the first round, for a single point. In Bari he made 50 in one week, far more than the two previous events put together.

In his last eight matches followed by the site Pieri has six wins and two losses, a balance of +4. The last five, in order, carry the names of Andrej Martin, Lokoli, Taberner, Sachko and Martin Manzano: five opponents beaten one after the other, from the first round to the final.

Martin Manzano, for his part, leaves Bari with a better ranking: he is No. 381 with 138 points, 60 places higher than on 9 September. In his last nine matches he has five wins and four losses. At Biella he stopped in the quarterfinals against Barrena (6-3 6-4), at Genoa 2 in the round of 16 against Lukas Neumayer, after beating Pieri.

The tournament had a strong Italian accent. Of the 23 players in the draw, from 14 nations, seven were Italian, the most represented nation. Pieri and Martin Manzano reached the final, Dalla Valle and Cadenasso the quarterfinals, Massimo Giunta and Lorenzo Giustino the round of 16, Federico Arnaboldi the first round.

The Bari Challenger has no roll of honor yet: this is the first edition, and Pieri's name is now the only one at the top of the list. The event saw five tie-breaks, a single set ending 6-0 and two retirements: Cadenasso against Sachko and Giustino against Donald, at 6-7(1) 6-3 3-1 for Donald.

And now? With 174 points Pieri enters a band of the ranking where every following tournament matters, because few points separate one position from the next. The Bari title guarantees nothing, but it gives a concrete fact to carry into the next draws: five straight wins and a trophy.

For Martin Manzano too the road is clear: with 138 points and a positive recent record, the next goal is to consolidate the position won in Bari. The site will follow both in the coming tournaments: their profiles update after every match.