French tennis champion Ugo Humbert is making steady but exciting progress towards the top of his profession. Since entering the Top 100 of the ATP World Rankings in 2018, he has worked up his way up into the Top 25, taking in a fourth-round appearance at Wimbledon, an Olympic quarter-final, and three significant ATP titles along the way. He also has six ATP Challenger titles to his name, a number that is only going to grow in the coming years.
Humbert was born in Metz, France, in 1998. He began playing tennis at a young age, and his talent was soon evident. Aged 12, he began training in Poitiers, some 680 km southwest of Metz. After the seven-hour round-trip on the train became too much, he ended up moving there to pursue his fledgling career. Unfortunately, however, injuries subsequently kept him out of action for 18 months. He regained momentum in 2017, winning his first ITF Futures title and gaining his first victory against a Top-100 player. The following year, he nudged into the Top 100 (at number 99) after winning two ATP Challenger titles.
Humbert played in front of his biggest audience to date when he made it through to the fourth round of Wimbledon 2019, losing only to defending champion and eventual tournament winner Novak Djokovic. The run, however, did his profile and his confidence no end of good and in each successive year he has won more and more titles and moved further and further up the world rankings.