Challenger
Orleans Challenger turns 20, celebrating mix of tennis, artwork and French delicacies
Every day, a unique chef works within the Orleans kitchen & each champion receives a portray
September 26, 2025
Co’Met Orléans Open
The Co’Met Orléans Open, an ATP Challenger Tour 125 occasion, is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this week.
By Grant Thompson
The Co’Met Orléans Open is extra than simply one other cease on the ATP Challenger Tour, which final yr boasted greater than 200 occasions stretched throughout the globe.
Celebrating its twentieth anniversary this week, the indoor hard-court occasion in Orleans has been a showcase of tennis, tradition, and French custom. This anniversary milestone displays the event organisers’ fame for going above and past to supply a world-class expertise for each gamers and followers.
“I want I used to be 20! But it surely’s the event that’s 20 years previous,” mentioned event director Didier Gerard with a smile, talking in French in a video posted on the Co’Met Orléans Open YouTube channel. “I by no means thought I’d achieve this many tournaments. It’s so difficult to organise an occasion like this, however because of the workforce, we managed to placed on an amazing event yearly.”
From the event’s earliest days, Gerard envisioned one thing distinctive. Relatively than merely staging a tennis competitors, he sought to craft an occasion that left a long-lasting impression, with French gastronomy woven into the event. Every day, a famend chef steps into the kitchens to arrange top-quality meals for gamers and patrons. Among the many distinguished culinary figures this week embody Bernard Vaussion — a former government chef of the Élysée Palace — who cooked for six French presidents throughout 4 many years.
No marvel almost 26,000 spectators flock to the Co’Met Orléans Open every year. But the fan-favourite occasion was not with out its early rising pains, based on Gerard.
“[In 2005], on the primary day at 2 p.m. after I went to see my spouse, Séverine, I instructed her that the event isn’t going to work,” he recalled. “In my head, I didn’t assume I’d even handle to finish the event on the finish of the week as a result of the boat was taking in a lot water. Every little thing wasn’t going properly regardless that I believed I had ready every little thing upfront, however an occasion is totally totally different if you handle it than if you had been a tennis participant.
“One other reminiscence that I like is on the ultimate Sunday night when my first companions instructed me, ‘It was nice, can’t watch for subsequent yr!’ So I had water and fireplace in the identical week.”
Moreover, artwork has additionally been central to the event’s distinctive identification. As a substitute of a standard trophy, each champion receives a portray commissioned from a neighborhood artist. Gerard was decided to create a prize that may not be forgotten and saved away in a dusty trophy cupboard.
Jubilation for @jakefearnley01 🎉🏆#ATPChallenger | @the_LTA pic.twitter.com/QEbz1CNWu3
— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) September 29, 2024
Initially staged on the classic Palais des Sports activities, with its Nineteen Seventies appeal, the Orleans Challenger moved places in 2023. The Challenger 125 occasion, for which former No. 4 Sebastien Grosjean is a event ambassador, is now staged on the fashionable Enviornment Co’Met.
The Orleans Challenger has routinely welcomed a powerful roster of stars, together with World No. 2 Jannik Sinner, who competed there as an 18-year-old ranked No. 128 within the PIF ATP Rankings in 2019. Jack Draper was a finalist in Orleans in 2023. Daniil Medvedev reached the Orleans quarter-finals in 2016, the identical yr that Andrey Rublev made a semi-final run as a fortunate loser. House favourites Richard Gasquet, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Ugo Humbert have stuffed the stands.
In 2010, a memorable championship match happened between Nicolas Mahut and Grigor Dimitrov, the Bulgarian who was 19 years previous on the time. Mahut saved a championship level and ultimately received in a deciding-set tie-break.
Past thrilling matches like that 2010 closing, the Co’Met Orléans Open has carried a novel identification that has impressed gamers for the previous 20 years.
“Inevitably, when the gamers come right here to Orleans, they assume they’re at an ATP 250 and even 500,” mentioned Gerard. “As [Denis] Shapovalov mentioned final yr, ‘Minimal 250’. And David Goffin, a former champion and former High 10 participant who’s used to the largest venues on the earth, instructed us that it was the extent of an ATP 500.”
