Martin Klizan won his biggest title since 2018 with a third ITF World Tennis Tour trophy in 2024, triumphing at M25 Valldoreix.

The 34-year-old entered the Spanish event as a qualifier, besting the field including world No. 279 Andrea Collarini in the semifinals and world No. 444 Nicola Kuhn in the final.

After a career where he won six Tour-level titles, most recently Kitzbuhel in August 2018, the Slovakian hung up his racket following 2021 Wimbledon.

Two years on, Klizan returned to tennis and entered qualifying for M15 Antalya in December 2023.

In his fourth event since returning, he won M15 Heraklion as a qualifier in March, before adding M15 Telde for good measure in April.

Now, with three ITF World Tennis Tour titles under his belt, Klizan has climbed from a ranking of No. 1304 at the start of March to one likely inside the Top 600 come the next update on 20 May.

Up next is another M25 event at Reggio Emilia in Italy, with Klizan entering by virtue of a wild card as he seeks back-to-back titles.   

Another player making progress up the rankings is Japan’s Kaichi Uchida, who won his biggest title since June 2022 at M25 Trelew.

The 29-year-old completed a comeback against Chilean top seed Matias Soto to win 4-6 6-1 6-0 and claim the title in Argentina.

After surrendering the opening set, the world No. 566 won 11 consecutive games from 1-1 in the second to triumph indoors.

Prior to this season, Uchida had not won a title since the Oeiras Challenger in June 2022, but has now won M15 Quillota and the Trelew title in the space of a month.

Uchida has toured South America for the past two months, playing events in Paraguay, Brazil, Chile and Argentina.

While he struggled to make inroads at Challenger level, he won both ITF World Tennis Tour events he played.

“It was nothing but tough battles with the challenges on clay,” he said in a post on social media following his triumph in Trelew.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by kaichi uchida 内田海智 (@kaichi1994)

Having peaked at world No. 147 in May last year, Uchida is now set to re-enter the Top 500 in the rankings.

He will hope to harness the momentum of this M25 title to hit his stride at Challenger level and continue his climb.

Elsewhere on the men’s ITF World Tennis Tour, Tunisian journeyman Aziz Dougaz won his second M25 title of the year in his fourth consecutive final, winning M25 Kursumlijska Banja in Serbia, overcoming home talent Stefan Popovic 6-1 6-1 in the final.

Ranked at No. 227, 13 spots off his career-high of No. 214, he plays at home this week at the Tunis Challenger, with the chance of breaking the Top 200 for the first time with a good result there.

Click here for all the latest results on the ITF World Tennis Tour