2023-04-25 18:09:27
Luca Van Assche during qualifying for the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, April 9. Dubreuil Corinne/ABACA
The 18-year-old prospect, who stole a set from Novak Djokovic last week, is the youngest member of the Top 100.
If, among the under 20s, the prodigies Carlos Alcaraz, world number 2, and Holger Rune, number 7, are already in another dimension, two Frenchmen occupy the 3e et 4e places in the hierarchy of young shoots. The future of French tennis will go through Arthur Fils, but probably also through Luca Van Assche. A year ago, rated beyond the 350e world place, Van Assche surveyed the second category tournaments. Last week in Banja Luka, Bosnia, he shook the world number 1, Novak Djokovic, by embarking him in a match in three sets (6-7, 6-3, 6-2). Here he is, at 18, in the top 100 (86e). “We pull ourselves up, especially for a year or two, Arthur Fils whispers about his boyfriend. We train almost all the time together. In the standings, once I’m in his retro, once he’s in mine. It would be crazy to play the Davis Cup and the Olympics together one day.
Winner of Junior Roland-Garros in 2021… against Arthur Fils in the final, the Belgian by birth (in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, suburb of Brussels), who arrived in France before he was 4 years old, experienced spectacular progress last season in brilliant on the challengers tournaments (second division). After losing his first three finals (in Lisbon, Brest and Valencia), he unlocked the counter in Maia, Portugal, last December. This year, he won the Challenger de Pau (on hard) and that of San Remo, on ocher, his favorite surface, on which he started tennis at the age of 4, in Aix-en-Provence.
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Yannick Quéré’s protege also played his first Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open last January (loss on 1is round). The licensee of the Tennis Club de Paris is not the type to rail against his clan at the slightest difficulty encountered on the court. In everyday life, he remains very discreet on social networks. He follows, when his schedule as a pro player allows it, that is to say less and less, training in mathematics and computer science at the University of Paris Dauphine. A few months after his title in the junior event of Roland-Garros 2021, he confided to us, during a day dedicated to the Team Jeunes Talents BNP Paribas, from which he comes: “I passed my philosophy baccalaureate the week after Roland-Garros, but I’m not too literary. I love math. I am continuing my studies at Paris Dauphine. It’s a big rhythm. I try to take the time to study when I’m at home but also when I travel. I go to college to work and learn other things besides tennis and to exercise my brain. I know a lot of players quit after high school, but for me that’s not an option. We don’t know how my career will evolve. Maybe it will stop soon…”
Get into the opposing brain
His first successful steps on the big circuit must have reassured him. On the court, this well-made head overhanging a small size (1.78 m, 70 kg), likes to enter the opposing brain with its variations, its angles found… He whose idol is Roger Federer does not qualify as a defender. Even if we can see him as a “new Gilles Simon”.
In his apprenticeship at the highest level, he rubs shoulders with regulars of winning. Teddy Riner had congratulated him at the edge of the court during his coronation at Roland-Garros. Anything but a coincidence. Van Assche is part of T&T Global Management, founded by the double Olympic judo champion and Tony Parker, the former French basketball star. A support and accompaniment agency for top athletes in several areas: financial, daily life and mental assistance. “With Tony and Teddy, we talk to each other. We can only learn from legends of French sport.
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