“I’ve known Ugo since we were kids. I’m going to cry because I was watching him cry.”
Alejandro Davidovich Fokina had just won a crucial point in a tense first-round clash on Wednesday at the Open Sud de France – Montpellier when a misstep from his opponent Ugo Humbert led to the Frenchman suffering a nasty fall. Despite the heat of the moment, the Spaniard’s only concern was the welfare of his long-time friend as he immediately rushed to Humbert's side.
“I’ve known him since we were kids and I know him very well. It’s never easy to see a friend like this,” said a visibly emotional Davidovich Fokina in his on-court interview after Humbert was forced to retire with the resulting injury to his right leg. “He just flew on the court, and I was like, ‘Something happened’, because he was crying and [it was] tough.
“Then the match was over. He fought [very well], with all the crowd... I was doing my best. I wanted to play the third set, but it is never easy to play injured.”
"I'm going to cry because I was watching him cry"
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) February 8, 2023
Everyone needs a friend like @alexdavidovich1 ❤️ pic.twitter.com/U2hJkIZ7Pf
The home favourite Humbert had claimed the first set 6-1 but trailed 1/3 in the second-set tie-break when the incident occured. Humbert courageously tried to play on, but after Davidovich Fokina went on to claim the second set, the 24-year-old was not fit to continue.
“I hope that he will recover and will play next week, but now he has to focus on recovering,” said Davidovich Fokina of Humbert, the World No. 85 who won two crucial singles points for France in the Davis Cup Qualifiers at the weekend. “He’s playing very good… He’s coming back [up the rankings] for sure.
“The first set he was killing me. I went to the bathroom, and I just said, ‘OK, he wants to fight, I will fight, let’s see what happens’. I was growing my game every game, I was fighting, hoping that he would do some mistakes. He did it and I took the second set.”
Davidovich Fokina, who reached the quarter-finals in Montpellier in 2021, will play Quentin Halys in the second round in southern France.
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Gregoire Barrere followed his countryman Humbert onto court at the Sud de France Arena and immediately cheered up the home crowd with a dramatic 6-4, 6-7(12), 7-6(3) upset of defending champion Alexander Bublik.
Despite Barrere letting slip three match points in a second-set tie-break that he ultimately lost, the World No. 75 kept his cool in the decider to seal a hard-earned two-hour, 28-minute win against the third seed. Barrere entered the tournament off the back of lifting his sixth ATP Challenger Tour title in Quimper last week, and his reward for an impressive opening showing in Montpellier is a second-round meeting with Nikoloz Basilashvili.
Earlier on Wednesday, seventh seed Emil Ruusuvuori eased to a 6-4, 6-0 victory against Mikael Ymer to book his second-round spot. It was the pair's second meeting of 2023, after Ymer prevailed in three sets at the Adelaide International 2 in January, but Ruusuvuori converted five out of seven break points in southern France to take a 3-2 lead in his ATP Head2Head series against the Swede.
Jannik Sinner advanced to the quarter-finals after his opponent Marton Fucsovics withdrew from the pair’s second-round clash with a foot injury. The second-seeded Italian, who is chasing his first match win on his third appearance at the indoor hard court event, will play Lorenzo Sonego or Filip Krajinovic in the last eight.
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