Alex Bolt. A 25 year-old Australian who for most of 2016 had decided to give up on tennis. Fast forward to March 2018 and the resident of Murray Bridge is set to return to the Top 200 for the first time in nearly three years.
Bolt had struggled for some time on the tennis circuit, reaching a career high of No.160. He quit the tour in 2016. Speaking to CNN in 2017, around the time he made his comeback, Bolt said: “It was all getting too much and I just got to the point where, ‘I have to change this and I don’t like what I’m doing.”
Bolt spent part of 2016 working putting up fences. Bolt when reflecting on that time: “I didn’t like it at all, sort of got a taste of what the real world was like.”
Bolt returned in Australian Open Qualifying in 2017 with a ranking of No.632 and defeated Marius Copil and Julien Benneteau to reach the main draw.
This week Bolt won seven straight matches including two as the top seed in qualifying, to win his second Challenger title in Zhuhai, China.
Bolt defeated the in-form second seed Malek Jaziri, as well as eighth seed Alexey Vatutin, Salvatore Caruso, and 4th seed Oscar Otte in the semi-finals. He dropped just one set all week, in the final against young Pole Hubert Hurkacz.
In that final Bolt was forced to come from behind to win 5-7, 7-6, 6-2.
It was a good week all round for qualifiers in Challengers, as No.356 Carlos Gomez-Herrera stunned the field in Santiago, Chile to reach the final. He defeated former Top 100 players Facundo Bagnis and third seed Rogerio Dutra Silva, as well as Jozef Kovalik and Joao Souza.
In the final, Gomez-Herrera made a sensational start, dropping just one game to second seed Marco Cecchinato. His form finally ebbed as he went down 1-6, 6-1, 6-1. Gomez-Herrera will move to a new career-high ranking as a result of his efforts in Chile.
