Jules Marie, a unique YouTube career at the Australian Open: “I landed 1,300th in the ATP rankings”

2024-01-07 14:08:18

It’s a familiar place, but with painful memories. Jules Marie knows Melbourne Park. It’s 2015 and here he is in this southeastern Australian island-continent city hoping to compete in the Australian Open qualifiers. The tennis player is training on the courts for the first Grand Slam tournament of the year. With the desire to play it for real. “I was waiting for a player to get injured to join the table,” he remembers. The hoped-for packages will not come. The door slams in his face, two places down in the ATP rankings. A few months later, at only 23 years old, he drew a line under his professional career, tired.

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Nine years later, the Norman returned to Australia. With this time, the ticket in his pocket to try to get out of qualifying and reach the main draw of Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz or Jannik Sinner. Jules Marie, who faces Benoît Paire in the first round, on the night of Sunday to Monday, ended the year 2023 in 226th place in the planetary hierarchy by chaining the Future and Challenger tournaments, the third and second division of tennis. Confidential outings? Not in his case. Because the Frenchman has a community of 107,000 followers on his channel YouTube.