Ugo Humbert, solid winner of the American Marcos Giron 6-4, 6-3 in the first round on Tuesday, saved the honor of the Blues, until then without success, at the Masters 1000 in Paris and will challenge the world No.9 Alexander Zverev in the next round.
First Frenchman to reach the second round
Seventh Frenchman in the running since Monday, Humbert (25 years old), French No.2 and 26th in the world, is the first to advance to the second round, after the failures of hopefuls Arthur Fils and Luca Van Assche, Adrian Mannarino, Richard Gasquet despite three match points, Benjamin Bonzi and Alexandre Muller. Gaël Monfils, opposed to the Argentinian Francisco Cerundolo at the end of the afternoon, will try to imitate the Lorraine left-hander.
Although he created break opportunities quickly and repeatedly, Humbert only managed to seize Giron’s serve on his eighth chance, in the tenth game of the first set, to pocket it for 6 games. at 4. He firmly kept control of the game in the second set, with an entry break to escape 3 games to 0, and won in less than an hour and a half, on a final game of white service. Before the Paris tournament, Humbert remains in two quarter-finals, in Beijing and at the Masters 1000 in Shanghai, and a semi-final in Basel, which brought him very close to his best ranking (25th in June 2021).