Before his match against Stanislas Wawrinka at 3e round of Roland-Garros, his trainer had said to Hugo Gaston: “Stan has two arms, two legs like you, give it your all and you’ll see. Have fun, have no regrets ”, told the 20-year-old Toulousain after his feat on Switzerland on Friday October 2, by sticking a bubble in the 5e set (2-6, 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-0). We imagine that Marc Barbier gave him the same advice before facing Dominic Thiem on Sunday for a place in the quarterfinals.
The Austrian certainly also has two arms and two legs, but unlike the Swiss, in doubt after a new series of injuries, he presented himself with a sizeable asset in his bag. The confidence of the player who has just won his first Grand Slam, the US Open, in mid-September, and remains on two finals in a row Porte d’Auteuil.
Whatever, since the beginning of the fortnight, the young Hugo Gaston repeated that he was not afraid of anything or anyone. “What is important is to think about victory when I enter the field”, he said. Sunday, October 4, neither the status of his opponent nor this gigantic Central court that he discovered moved the tricolor revelation of the tournament. For 3:30, the 239e world player stood up to number 3, to yield only by a hair (4-6, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, 3-6).
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Vary, vary and still vary
On the Philippe-Chatrier court with its roof on after only twenty minutes due to downpours, we quickly told ourselves that Dominic Thiem was going to recite his tennis without forcing. The Austrian made the little thousand lucky spectators drawn by lot admire all his tennis artillery, rewarding them with a few strokes of genius (including a prodigious winning combination of tweener-backhand long line). His forehand and backhand cannonballs made the French visit the court. Conversely, the latter answered him gently with subtle cushioning.
Thiem tweeners + RG They just go together 🥰 #RolandGarros https://t.co/zEmbWH22UR
But the small (1.73 m) left-handed was sometimes impatient and a bit too greedy. This time, his jumped backhands à la Marcelo Rios were not always rewarded. Despite the loss of the first two rounds, the French, invited to the big table by the French Tennis Federation (FFT), did more than resist, under the eyes of his first supporter, President Bernard Giudicelli.
Coming out of the phlegm that he had displayed until then in the tournament, the boy encouraged himself and harangued an audience won over to his cause. The last French survivor of the men’s table intended to reproduce the tactics that had worked so well against the Swiss. Vary, vary and still vary, its hallmark. “I don’t have the template to make three aces per game, so I have to find solutions”, Gaston said after his victory at 2e round, Wednesday, against the Japanese Nishioka. On Friday, the Toulouse elf had turned his brain so much that when he left the court, Wawrinka no longer knew his name.
“Its amortizations come from another planet”
Facing Thiem, Gaston made a level playing field with him. Taking advantage of a jump in concentration from his opponent, he took control of the 3e set. It took all the talent of the Austrian (and the help of the net) to save three set points and momentarily reframe the impudent, impossible to overflow in return.
Gaston then took his magic boot out of his bag of tricks, cushioning it, systematically trapping a Thiem entrenched far behind his baseline. “I had not seen for a long time a player with such a touch of the ball, his amortizations come from another planet”, this one will say afterwards. After an hour and a 5e set point, Gaston’s audacity was rewarded.
Gaston # RG20 (🎥 @ Eurosport_RU) https://t.co/THN9cfEIaw
On his momentum, he no longer made a single fault, unlike his opponent, who, under pressure from the French, let go of his throw-in. On the verge of nervous breakdown and asphyxiation, the Austrian wasted two balls to catch up. As against Wawrinka two days earlier, the uninhibited plague saw the poison creep slowly but surely into the head of his opponent. And here he came back to two sets everywhere.
Dominic Thiem was without solution: his crossed backhand slaps did not manage to overwhelm the Frenchman and his sense of anticipation, who threw himself on his smashes and all his cushionings. On the other side of the net, the latter was still using his secret boot (in total, he will attempt 58 depreciations for 72% success). Until she derailed at the worst time of the match, at 4-3 in the 5e set for Thiem, who got a break point on one of them, remained in the net. It took him almost ten minutes and two more match points to get out of the trap.
“To be in the world’s 100 fastest”
“If he continues like this, he will be a very great player. I failed to find a solution on its amortizations but I was lucky to win ”, conceded the Austrian. His victim of the day leaves the tournament by the front door.
Before this autumn Roland Garros, no one would have bet that the Toulouse troublemaker would be the thinning of a dying French tennis court. “There is obviously a little disappointment but I have no regrets, I come out of this match with my head held high. I gave everything, it did not go far today. Playing against great players on big courts always makes you grow. The objective now is to be in the world 100 as quickly as possible ”, reacted Gaston, who received the public ovation when he left the Central.
And now ? The Toulousain goes “Return to the Challengers circuit”, the second division of tennis. It’s only a good bye. France may no longer have a men’s representative in the tournament, but there is hope again for French tennis.
