Raphael Collignon has turned a string of Challenger successes into a structured preparation for bigger stages.

The 24-year-old has been the No. 1 seed at two Challenger events this year and won both. In February he successfully retained his title in Pau. This week he completed a run in Monza without dropping a set, finishing with straight-set victories over Martin Landaluce and Dino Prizmic. The results have helped the world No. 68 refine the parts of his game he wants ready for Grand Slams.

At the BNP Paribas Open Collignon welcomed the chance to hit with a top player and focused on the intensity of that practice. “You see what he’s doing in training, you are very close to him. And you see what he tries to do, always puts pressure on you,” he said. “Every point counts. Tries to goes forward, not just putting in the volley. Trying to practice like he’s playing a match to be ready.”

After losing his inaugural main-draw match to Joao Fonseca, Collignon found momentum again in Miami. He saved a match point to defeat Grigor Dimitrov for the second time this season and then knocked out 14th-ranked Flavio Cobolli, bringing him to 4-2 against Top 20 opponents.

“I’m a guy who doesn’t like to lose. I try to fight every ball, this is my mentality,” he said. “I will never lose the intensity. That’s why I think I’m playing good.”

Collignon has alternated between tour-level events and the ATP Challenger Tour across his past six tournaments, with a Davis Cup appearance for his country included. He sees being top seed at Challengers as a specific test. “When you are ranked like me, you can be first seeded. You can try to figure out the pressure more because everybody is thinking you’re gonna win everything. It’s a good exercise on the court,” Collignon shared. “The Challenger Tour is a very good circuit. The level there is very high.”

Born in Rochester, Minn. shortly before his family’s relocation to Belgium, Collignon is closing in on a full set of major main-draw debuts with Roland Garros approaching. Off court he also enjoys fashion shoots and magazine work. “I like the pictures. I did a very famous magazine in Belgium,” he says of his experience with Le Vif. “I like to post something of myself with good clothes. I do it with pleasure.”

When Jakub Mensik was a junior his father Michal built a simple analytics platform to log serves, returns, plus-one shots and court zones. “You would be surprised!” Mensik joked in Miami. That homemade scouting helped him move from juniors into the early professional ranks. “I’m not saying my father did it better,” Mensik smiled. “But yeah, when I was a junior and basically starting to play pros, that was one of the most basic and necessary things that I needed.”

Today those basic ideas have grown into far more advanced systems. ATP Tennis IQ, relaunched and upgraded after new investment, aims to broaden access to high-quality performance data for players on the ATP Tour. “One of the things we’re most proud of with ATP Tennis IQ Powered by PIF is putting high quality data insights into the hands of more players—enabling easy access to information that can genuinely impact their careers,” said Ross Hutchins, the ATP’s Chief Sporting Officer. “Working with PIF has accelerated that progress—scaling faster, supporting more players, and delivering one of the biggest technological step changes in the sport.”

The platform offers serve patterns, rally lengths, shot placement graphics, shot quality metrics and integrated wearable data for physical measures. A point-by-point video analysis tool is in development and Challenger and doubles coverage are planned. Coaches and players suggest new features; a serve-speed-by-placement breakdown is expected later this year.

Serve maps are the most-viewed section. “From a tennis perspective that makes super sense. Basically 70% of the rallies are zero to four (shots), so that means it’s serve, return, one or two strokes, and that’s it,” he said. “(Knowing the opponent’s) serve placement makes it easier, because in tennis the serve is the only stroke that you can take your time and really think about where you will go. When you have the advantage over the opponent of knowing which side is weaker for him, then you just simply go where it’s most effective for you.”

Players vary in how deep they dive into numbers. “I trust (the stats) a lot,” she said. “Numbers can’t lie, right? I rely on that (information) a lot and I keep it in my mind when I play. A lot of times, in the key moments, it makes a big difference.” “I have a separate service that I use,” the American explained. “I’m not the one reading the stats. My coaches are… It’s not something I like to get down all the way into the details in, because I feel like it can overcomplicate things in my head.

“Something I pay attention to more so especially where my opponents like to serve I think is the most stat thing I like to know before I go on court.”

Former Olympic gold medalist Monica Puig offered a caution: “It’s a fine line. If you’re really responsible with the information that you receive you can kind of just treat it as it is, which is a number,” and “If you’re the type of player who gets a little bit too obsessed with the numbers, hand it off to your team, like I did, and have them kind of make the adjustments. Then you just kind of go along for the ride.”

Film study still matters. “After the match, I definitely looked at all the film I possibly could,” Quinn said of his loss to Carlos Alcaraz in Barcelona last year. “Just watching what Alcaraz does with a tennis ball is pretty special…

“And it’s funny, watching the film and seeing how it actually looks, versus how I felt playing the match. It’s a really good assistant coach, basically, being able to look over film and stuff.”

Looking ahead, teams are exploring AI-assisted scouting and real-time tools, but the sport’s competitive core remains human.

Jannik Sinner reclaimed the ATP No. 1 ranking after capturing his fourth consecutive Masters 1000 title in Monte Carlo. The move sends Sinner from No. 2 back to No. 1 and swaps places with Carlos Alcaraz, whom he defeated in the final.

The results gave Sinner his 67th career week at No. 1, surpassing Alcaraz’s 66 weeks and moving him into the 12th spot on the list of most weeks at the top since the ATP rankings began in 1973. He also reached a personal milestone by topping 13,000 ranking points for the first time, rising from 12,400 before Monte Carlo to 13,350 after the tournament. Sinner previously passed 10,000 and 11,000 points for the first time in 2024 and reached 12,000 for the first time in 2025.

The pair’s recent form has produced a striking statistical gap. Between them, Sinner and Alcaraz now hold more ranking points than the rest of the ATP Top 8 combined, 26,590 to 26,030. With Alcaraz set to defend only finals points in Barcelona this week and neither player defending points in Madrid, their combined advantage could widen in the coming weeks.

There were several notable ranking breakthroughs further down the lists. Valentin Vacherot rose from No. 23 to No. 17, marking his Top 20 debut; ranked No. 204 six months ago, he became the first Monegasque to reach the ATP Top 20. American Ethan Quinn made his Top 50 debut, moving from No. 54 to No. 50. Croatia’s Dino Prizmic entered the Top 100 for the first time, jumping from No. 106 to No. 87 after reaching the final of a Challenger in Monza.

On the WTA side, Austrian teenager Lilli Tagger cracked the Top 100 for the first time, moving from No. 117 to No. 97 after reaching her first WTA 500 quarterfinal in Linz.