Ugo Humbert was proud of himself after suffering a straight-set loss against Alexander Zverev in the final of the Paris Masters on Sunday. Despite a 6-2, 6-2 loss in the final, the Frenchman had an encouraging week while playing in his country’s capital.
The 15th seed also defeated Carlos Alcaraz in the round of 16 and that win must have given him a lot of confidence. But Humbert could not bring his best in the summit clash against the German as he was totally dominated from the get-go.
“It was a beautiful week, despite my defeat today. My feeling is that I gave it my all, I have no regrets,” Humbert said. “He was stronger than me in every aspect of tennis. I couldn’t recover from yesterday’s match enough, but congrats to him.”
Humbert added he gave his best until the end but Zverev didn’t give him a lot of chances throughout the match.
“It was tough. I tried until the end to be faithful to myself, to my values, to put up a battle until the end. When it’s not over, there’s still hope, and with this public, it’s crazy,” Humbert said. “He missed two points only, the first two shots. And then he never missed afterwards. I believed in it until the end. I hoped that I would level the scores, but ultimately the scores were quite painful for me. So I fought until the end, and this is what I want to keep in mind.”
Meanwhile, Humbert defeated Karen Khachanov in the semifinals on Saturday and admitted he was tired when he woke up on the final match day.
“Physically, when I woke up this morning during the warmup it was not easy. I was tired. But I accepted that it was the way it was. Mentally, I also felt that I was less composed,” Humbert said. “As for him, his serve was amazing during the first set. I had no free points during the second set. Sometimes I could have some free points, but also, his forehand I thought that I could try to get something, but he gave me nothing. The only point I could get is when he had a crosscourt backhand. Otherwise nothing.”
Humbert took a jump by four places and he is now in 14th place in the PIF ATP rankings.
