After his first two ATP Challenger singles finals last year in Salzburg and Cordenones (Italy), Lukas Neumayer immediately reached his first ATP Challenger doubles final in his first tournament of the season. However, the 21-year-old will have to wait for his first title, at least for the time being: Salzburg narrowly lost the final of the AAT de TCA Challenger 1 in Buenos Aires on Saturday night after CET. Neumayer (ATP Doubles 925) and Dutch left-hander Max Hoeks (ATP Doubles 549) lost to third-seeded Peruvian brothers Arclon (ATP Doubles 181) and Conner Huertas del Pino (ATP Doubles 183) after 1 :11 hours of play with 3:6, 6:3 and 6:10 in the match tiebreaker. With his 30 ATP points, Neumayer will continue to improve in the world doubles rankings by more than 250 places, possibly to No. 673. His best doubles ranking to date has been No. 492.

Neumayer made her first doubles appearance at the ATP 50 Clay Court Challenger tournament in South America since the domestic tournament in Salzburg in mid-July. And he did so with great success: thanks to a slim opening win on match point and two set victories, he was able to reach the final for the first time at this level alongside the Hawks. There they got off to a poor start, having to drop serve just after 40:30 to make it 0-2 and wasting two break chances in the next game – there were no more. In the second set, both teams took advantage of the only opportunity to break serve to make the score 2-1, ensuring the lead and forcing a tiebreak in the match. There, the Hawks/Newmayer turned a 2-0 deficit into a 6-2 run, but then never won a point. The only thing missing is a happy ending. In the singles competition, Neumayer was unfortunately eliminated in the round of 16 after wasting a match point.

He will continue next week with another ATP 50 contender in the same location. Neumayer (ATP 233) is seeded sixth and opens in the first main round against Bolivian Morkel Alejandro Delian Velasco (ATP 306), whom he defeated in the doubles quarterfinals this week.