It's a small feat that the young Aixois Sascha Gueymard Wayenburg achieved by winning the Quimper Open against Pierre-Hugues Herbert. In sixteen editions, he is only the second player from qualifying to win the South Finistère challenger.
The big leap forward
Before him, only Andrey Rublev had achieved it in 2016 against Paul-Henri Mathieu. But at the time, the Russian, then aged 19 and a half, was already ranked N.210 ATP, while Sascha Gueymard Wayenburg was in 470th place when he arrived in Quimper.
Pointed, because in the ranking that the ATP will publish this Monday, Sascha Gueymard Wayenburg will climb to around 250th in the world. A big leap forward that the person concerned, winner of four Future tournaments for nine finals contested from 2022 to 2024, was still struggling to achieve after the awards ceremony.
“It’s incredible. It often happens to have qualifiers who reach the semi-final of a tournament, but from there to winning it… When the table came out, few people expected my performance. Pierre-Hugues was scheduled. Not me.
In the final as in his six previous matches this week in Quimper, Sacha Gueymard Wayenburg showed a lot of solidity in different sectors of play and not only with his serve which he is capable of sending at more than 200 km/h (12 aces in the final).
“Not overheating
“What's interesting is that he wasn't overheated, never seemed on the edge, with a rather complete game. For a (player born) in 2003, it's promising, notes former Quimper Tennis player and press relations manager Charles-Antoine Brézac.
I played my best match of the week, but he really knew how to raise his level of play from the second set onwards by being hyper present at every moment. I could only admit defeat,” adds Pierre-Hugues Herbert, deprived of a third title in Quimper after his successes in 2014 and 2024, but already ready to return next year in a tournament that 'he loves it.
-“I changed a lot of things”
I let go of my shots more than in the semi-final where I was more tense. We will say that the semi-final served me well for the final,” explains the winner who changed a lot of things in his game by joining Jean-René Lisnard’s Elite Tennis Center in Cannes.
“We changed the strategy of my game. Physically, we also did a huge job, which allowed me to keep up the pace this week. And I will now be more likely to pick up my points on the fly. »
In front of his parents who arrived specially from Marseille (via Paris) at noon, Sascha Gueynard-Wayenburg therefore took on a new dimension in Quimper where he did not think he would go so far in the picture.
“I'm leaving for India on Tuesday for a tour of three Challengers (Chennai, Delhi and Pune), but I'm still going to have to go back to Cannes by express to pick up some stuff, because I hadn't taken enough, thinking I'd be eliminated more early. » Another life can begin for him.
France
Tennis
