The Australian Open is currently taking place in Melbourne with all of the sport’s biggest names, but it’s not the only professional tennis tournament happening just now.
I recently traveled to Scotstoun Leisure Centre to take in the Lexus Glasgow Challenger. These events typically take place at the low levels of professional tennis. If you’ve ever seen Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Challenger’s’ (2024), it takes place at one of these events- but the real deal has an absence of Zendaya and on the whole is significantly less sexy.
The highest ranked player I watched on the day was 215th and has yet to play in a grand slam, but the standard of tennis is still an entertaining one with very evenly matched players.
I thought the 215th ranked Clement Chidekh played much higher than his ranking suggests, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the 24-year-old Frenchman on the ATP tour in the coming years. After Valentin Vacherot’s Shanghai success, anything seems to possible in tennis just now.
The Lexus Glasgow Challenger is currently the only professional tennis event in Scotland, so it would be nice to see Tennis Scotland and the Lawn Tennis Association push for an ATP Tour event in the coming years to further promote tennis in the country that gave us Britain’s greatest ever tennis player.
