Mika Brunold is the new Roanne Challenger champion. On Sunday 18 October, in the indoor final of the French event, the Swiss player beat Matteo Martineau 2-6 7-6(5) 6-1, coming back after clearly losing the first set.
It is Brunold's second title of 2026. In Tulln, on clay, he had already won another Challenger 100 by beating Joao Lucas Reis Da Silva 6-4 6-3 in the final. The Roanne event, which began on 12 October, awards 100 ATP points to the winner and 60 to the runner-up.
The points show up straight away in the rankings. Brunold, 22, is now No. 187 in the ATP rankings with 318 points and has gained 149 places since 9 September. Keegan Smith (No. 186) is just ahead with the same 318 points, and Felix Balshaw (No. 188) just behind with one fewer: a list this tight changes with every tournament.
The final had three faces. In the first set Martineau took control and closed it out 6-2, leaving Brunold few chances. The second was decided in a tie-break, which Brunold won 7-5 for the 7-6(5) that put everything back in balance.
The third set was one-sided, but in the opposite direction: 6-1 for Brunold, who after the tie-break gave Martineau just one game.
The road to the title was anything but easy. In the round of 16 Brunold beat Benjamin Bonzi 6-2 2-6 6-4, in the quarter-finals Felix Balshaw 6-3 2-6 6-3: two three-setters, both after dropping the second set. In the semi-finals he got past Jerome Kym 7-6(2) 7-6(3), winning two tie-breaks with room to spare.
Martineau, for his part, reached the final by beating Max Schoenhaus 6-2 7-6(5), Sascha Gueymard Wayenburg 6-3 6-4 and, in the semi-finals, Nicolai Budkov Kjaer 7-5 7-6(4). Three matches finished in two sets: none of his opponents took a set off him.
For Martineau, 27, it is still a week to remember. With the 60 points for the final he moves up to 270 points, No. 222 in the rankings, and gains 20 places since 9 September. Last year in Roanne he stopped in the semi-finals, worth 36 points: he improves on the same event by 24 points.
The head-to-head between the two is now perfectly level: 1-1 in two meetings. But Brunold is the player with the momentum. In his last ten matches he has won nine and lost one; Martineau, over the same stretch, is at five wins and five losses.
Looking further back, Brunold has won 13 of his last 16 matches, a balance of +10. At Roanne in 2025 he stopped in the quarter-finals with 20 points: he had 20 to defend and won 100, so the net gain from this edition is 80 points.
Tulln is the common thread of Brunold's season. On Austrian clay he had beaten Gustavo Heide 6-2 6-1 in the quarter-finals and Vitaliy Sachko 6-0 6-2 in the semi-finals, before the final against Reis Da Silva. In Biella, in the Challenger 50 in between, he went out in the quarter-finals to Carlo Alberto Caniato, 6-0 3-6 6-4, collecting 10 points.
Martineau's recent French tournaments had been up and down. In Mouilleron-Le-Captif he lost in the third round to Clement Tabur, 7-6(4) 6-7(5) 6-3; in Saint-Tropez, at the Challenger 125, he lost in the round of 16 to Daniel Masur, 6-3 5-7 6-3, after getting past Tristan Schoolkate 7-6(4) 6-7(6) 7-6(6). Roanne is his best recent result.
The tournament in numbers tells of a balanced week. There were 25 players from nine nations in the draw. 23 matches were played, with 13 tie-breaks and eight matches going to a deciding set. There were no retirements, but one walkover: Dominic Stricker's in the quarter-finals, in favour of Kym.
The longest match of the tournament was Balshaw-Gauthier Onclin, 6-4 6-7(3) 6-4, for a total of 33 games. Balshaw, later eliminated by Brunold in the quarter-finals, thus played two long, hard-fought matches in a few days.
France was the most represented nation with 12 players, but it stopped at Martineau's final. Switzerland had five, and one of them finished with the trophy: Brunold. Norway, with Budkov Kjaer alone, reached the semi-finals.
The tournament lost its defending champion early. Otto Virtanen, winner in 2025 with a 6-1 3-6 6-3 victory over Hugo Gaston in the final, was in the draw with 100 points to defend and went out in the round of 16 against Stricker, 7-5 5-7 6-3. Gaston, last year's finalist with 60 points expiring, stopped in the quarter-finals against Budkov Kjaer, 6-1 7-6(7).
Neither of the two 2025 finalists therefore repeated the result. Brunold won, having stopped in the quarter-finals twelve months ago, while Martineau, a semi-finalist in 2025, went up a step.
The Challenger circuit starts again as every week. For Brunold, at No. 187 in the ATP rankings, the task now is to confirm his recent results and defend the position he has just won; the site's live rankings will show how the points change from tournament to tournament.
Test yourself
3 questions on what you have just read.
1. What was the score of Brunold's final win over Martineau in Roanne?
2. Who won the Roanne Challenger in 2025?
3. What ATP ranking does Brunold reach after the title?