ATP Masters Paris-Bercy: Ugo Humbert - enough strength for the first home win since 2008?
Ugo Humbert is the last remaining Frenchman in the field of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Paris-Bercy. Where there was the last victory of a local hero twelve years ago by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga .
by Jens Huiber
last edit:
Nov 06, 2020, 09:16 am
The announcement of the field of players for the ATP Tour 250 tournament in Munich is traditionally celebrated with a big press round. Patrik Kühnen, who has been tournament director of the BMW Open for over a decade, presents the philosophy behind the top stars' commitments (such as Andy Murray in 2015 or Alexander Zverev in recent years) on these occasions, but also whets the appetite for the next generation of ATP professionals .
Like 2019. Kühnen then praised Ugo Humbert in the highest tones that the then still 20-year-old was a man of the future. What at least did not apply to the same event in Munich, because Humbert flew against Taro Daniel in round one rather unadorned from the tableau. After all: towards the end of last season, Humbert won a Challenger tournament in Brest - and beat eventual winner Jannik Sinner in the group stage of the #NextGen finals in Milan.
Humbert always over the full distance
The man from Metz took this momentum with him into the new season, celebrating his first tournament victory at the ATP Tour level in Auckland at the beginning of 2020. The second was added just a few days ago in Antwerp, now Humbert is in the quarter-finals of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Paris-Bercy. With the greatest possible effort: Against Casper Ruud, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Marin Cilic, the French had to go the full distance, the first two matches were only decided in the tie-break of the third set.
So it is quite possible that Humbert will run out of strength a little today against Milos Raonic, the experienced Canadian knows how to exploit the weaknesses of his younger colleagues. And Raonic has already been able to convince at tournaments in the Paris category this year, reaching the final in Cincinnati / New York, which he lost to Novak Djokovic.
Tsonga last French winner in Paris-Bercy
Ugo Humbert can look forward to a new career high in the ATP charts: Should it go wrong against Raonic, the 22-year-old will be ranked 30th on Monday. In the event of a win, it would initially be in 25th place. In addition, Humbert could also achieve something that has not existed in Paris-Bercy since 2008: a home win.
At that time, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga prevailed against David Nalbandian in the final, before that it was Sebastian Grosjean who won 2001 as a local hero against Yevgeny Kafelnikov. And only the very old tennis fans will remember the epic victory of Guy Forget, the current tournament director, in 1991 against Pete Sampras. The last French finalist was also Tsonga, who lost to Roger Federer in 2011. In the previous two years, Gael Monfils had fought for the tournament victory on Sunday, but lost to Robin Söderling and Novak Djokovic .
Here the single tableau in Paris-Bercy
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