Who was the youngest player to win an ATP challenger tournament?

Question

Who was the youngest ever player to win a tournament on ATP Challenger Tour?

We had similar question about ATP World Tour. I thought that knowing answer to a similar question about challengers might be interesting, too.

Answer 1

As far as I'm aware - the youngest Champion of a Challenger Tour event was Michael Chang when he won a Challenger event in Las Vegas in 1987 when he was 15 years and 7 months old. Not that surprising considering he also won the French Open at 17.

From what I remember hearing also - Richard Gasquet was pretty young when he started winning Futures and Challengers as well - while he was 16 I think.

I'll try to find some sources to back up my claims and come back here and edit this answer afterwards.

Two sources found by Martin (in the comments)

1. http://www.menstennisforums.com/showthread.php?t=239122

2. http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2014/07/28/Challenger-Weekly-Spotlight-7-July-2014.aspx (snapshot in Wayback machine)

Answer 2

Youngest ATP Challenger winners

1. Michael Chang, 15 years 7 months, 1987 Las Vegas
2. Richard Gasquet, 16 years, 2002 Montauban
3. Bernard Tomic, 16 years 4 months, 2009 Melbourne
4. Kent Carlsson, 16 years 7 months, 1984 Neu-Ulm
5. Marcos Ondruska, 16 years 7 months, 1989 Durban
6. Rafael Nadal, 16 years 9 months, 2003 Barletta
7. Félix Auger-Aliassime, 16 years 10 months, 2017 Lyon
8. Novak Djokovic, 17 years, 2004 Budapest
9. Paul Dogger, 17 years, 1988 Porto
10. Juan Martín del Potro, 17 years 1 months, 2005 Montevideo

References

• Challenger Weekly Spotlight: 17-Year-Old Zverev Wins Maiden Title, 7 July 2014
• Auger-Aliassime makes history with Lyon Challenger title, 18 June 2017 (Wayback Machine)
• Challenger #NextGenATP First-Time Winner: Felix Auger-Aliassime, 18 June 2017 (Wayback Machine)
• Is Felix Auger-Aliassime Canada's newest tennis sensation?, 19 June 2017, (Wayback Machine)

Answer 3

The following list contains the youngest Challenger winners since 1991 including one colum denoting how many main draw tries (i.e. qualifications are not counted if the player did not qualify for the main draw) the player needed.

Winner                  Age     Try Year    Tournament
Richard Gasquet         16.04   1   2002    Montauban CH
Bernard Tomic           16.34   3   2009    Melbourne CH
Rafael Nadal            16.8    9   2003    Barletta CH
Felix Auger Aliassime   16.84   10  2017    Lyon CH
Novak Djokovic          16.99   2   2004    Budapest CH
Juan Martin Del Potro   17.1    9   2005    Montevideo CH
Alexander Zverev        17.17   7   2014    Braunschweig CH
Jimmy Wang              17.26   7   2002    Fergana CH
Nicola Kuhn             17.31   2   2017    Braunschweig CH
Rudolf Molleker*        17.58   3   2018    Heilbronn CH
Casper Ruud             17.69   1   2016    Seville CH
Evgeny Korolev          17.71   14  2005    Aachen CH
Tomas Berdych           17.82   9   2003    Budaors CH
Nick Kyrgios            17.83   2   2013    Sydney1 CH
Borna Coric             17.83   8   2014    Izmir CH
Mario Ancic             17.85   13  2002    Belgrade CH
Denis Shapovalov        17.89   9   2017    Drummondville CH
Nicolas Almagro         17.89   2   2003    Olbia CH
Mikhail Youzhny         17.89   7   2000    Samarkand CH
Taylor Harry Fritz      17.94   2   2015    Sacramento CH
Donald Young            17.98   15  2007    Aptos CH

* added manually

The fantastic dataset by Jeff Sackmann is used (available here). Last Update of this list: 21.05.2018