Julien De Cuyper is a happy man. And reassured. Currently 1858th in the world rankings, this young 25-year-old Frenchman, threatened with losing his only ATP point – acquired in November 2023 during a $15,000 tournament in Thailand – benefited from a fortunate alignment of the stars. Initially registered for several tournaments in Chinehe had to give up participating due to an ATP rule that he had neglected. This unexpected setback ultimately propelled him to the Challenger 50 in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. Taking advantage of a favorable draw in a tournament at a particularly low level, Messin was able to seize the opportunity. He shares his incredible adventure on the microphone of Tennis News.
Video – Julien De Cuyper after his incredible African adventure
Accustomed to tournaments in South-East Asia, how did you find yourself competing in this Challenger 50 in Brazzaville?
This was not at all planned. I live in Bangkok, Thailand, I was in Taiwan the week before and had an Asian tour planned. I signed up for the Challenger in Africa just to see! I’m always interested in taking a look at the tables, and when I received the Challenger email, I signed up. Except that I didn’t know an ATP rule: when you enter a Challenger, even before the withdrawal deadline, they clear you everywhere. And so they released me from Asia. My plan A was to stay in Asia, I live there, the tournaments are good, and I had no interest in coming to Africa, 12,000 kilometers away! If I wanted to play this week, I had no choice but to come. So I said to myself “okay, let’s come” and I registered straight away in Mozambique. The lists were abnormally weak. So I said to myself that maybe an opportunity would present itself to me.
“I don’t think I can win 4 points with such ease in the next few rounds”
Finally, destiny smiled on you since you won a match there, synonymous with 4 ATP points. The jackpot, right?
This is the first time in ten years that I really had a favorable draw (smile). And he fell well. It’s true that for 4 ATP points, it was almost a gift. 4 points is a half in $15,000. I don’t think I can win 4 points with such ease in the next rounds. Basically, I had to play the qualifiers. And it even suited me because we were playing for three points, especially since the level of the qualifiers was really very low. In the end, I said “bye” and “bye”, I found myself directly in the final table. And then, I said to myself, it’s the lottery. And I got the wild card (Dhruva Mulye, unranked and beaten 6-0, 6-3), so it worked out very well.
Can we talk about a small robbery?
There, these are 4 points which are gifts, yeah. Well now we had to come. Two days before leaving, I wasn’t sure I would come. It was actually rather no. It’s really because I got kicked out of my tournaments in China (where he had registered before checking Brazzaville, Editor’s note). Basically, I wasn’t very happy to come to Africa (smile). With Calvin (Hemerybeaten in the quarterfinals in Congo), we said to ourselves that we were not going to play Challengers like that every day.
De Cuyper lost in the second round against Romanian Jianu (n°1) 6-1, 6-3
Jianu 6�’�⃣-1�’�⃣ De Cuyper inâ ³ 25 minutes
No time to waste for the Top seed on a mission for a QF spot#ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/2CUNbMXjEV
— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) October 31, 2024
“They released the tournament three weeks ago. So a lot of players missed it”
Have you ever seen a Challenger tournament of such low level?
No, never. What happens quite often is that at the level of the last 3-4 entrants, it drops. Even if the table is very strong, at the end of the list, sometimes it can fall. But at this point, no, I had never seen that. But the reason is simple. They released the tournament three weeks ago, or a month ago. And it just worked out well for me because in the evening I was on my emails, and I saw the Brazzaville tournament, so a lot of players missed it, didn’t see the tournament.
How did you find the infrastructure?
I was pleasantly surprised. It was the only part of the world I had never been to before. I had heard a bit of everything, I had also seen everything on the networks. But they have put the resources in place for this tournament. There was a lot of labor, the clay was decent, it wasn’t crazy clay, but it wasn’t fields either. Frankly, they put in the resources, there was music… Ultimately, it’s a very good tournament. The people are nice, the hotel is nearby, there are shuttles often. I have no complaints.
You will move up 543 places in the world rankings to find yourself in 1295th place in the world at the next ranking update. What will this change for you?
Where it fell well is that in winter in Asia, the lists are packed. This will ensure me to be seeded in qualifying, to choose my programming the way I want to choose it and to enter some tables. It assured me for the next 6 months, that’s why I’m happy to have made this choice. But I’m not getting carried away, 4 points isn’t even the start of a walk, so I’m relieved.
