M1000 Bercy 2024 – Ugo Humbert: “I burned myself out a bit wanting to do too many tournaments”

“I feel tired, but when you’re in France…“If the season ended elsewhere, Ugo Humbert would perhaps be in a different state of mind. But here, with Bercy this week then Metz, at home, immediately, he wants to give one last push A final effort to try to finish on a good note, with one, or even two last satisfactions. Then, he will take the time to learn the many lessons from this 2024 campaign.

Finishing well, Ugo Humbert knows how to do it. Last year, he was certainly eliminated in the second round by Alexander Zverev, but after a huge fight lost 7-6 in the last set. Then he was titled at the Moselle Open. He dreams of shining at the Accor Arena. “I really wanted to win in Metz, but now that it’s done, it’s Bercyhe said at a press conference on Sunday. I saw Jo-Wilfried Tsonga win when I was young. It’s a special tournament. The best atmosphere of the year, because the French public is hot.”

But whatever happens in this final stretch on French territory, Humbert, who could cede his honorary chair as French number one in favor of Arthur Fils, is already thinking about what comes next. According to him, if he wants to go even higher, the first thing to do will be to progress… off the court, in the way he thinks about his season. “I need to manage my calendar a little better next year.“, admits the Lorraine left-hander.

“I burned myself out a bit by trying to string together too many tournaments. When there were weeks where I played well, I immediately wanted to continue“, specifies Ugo Humbert. “You feel good, at the limit you feel invincible, buthe continues, after a while you realize that you are burned out because when you get to the end of tournaments, it still requires a lot of mental energy“.

One wonders if his euphoric period in February was not a blessing in disguise. Titled in quick succession in Dubai and Marseille, a 500 and a 250, the leader of French tennis for many months now made a bit of a mistake. “As I had started the season well, I really had the objective of getting into the top 10, of qualifying for the Masters. Except that by thinking about it too much, I lost a lot of energy in my head.“, he laments.

Humbert agrees, he was probably too impatient. “If I was a little less in a hurry to want to get into the top 10… That’s why I played every week and why I perhaps managed my schedule less well. Without that, I might have been able to get into the 10“esteems the Messin who swears”having learned this in 2024“. Before applying the lesson, it remains to finish this season well which, despite certain frustrations and errors, has not been entirely negative, far from it.