Kevin Blandy tells how he shaped the physique of Hugo Gaston and Léolia Jeanjean for Roland-Garros.
The two French attractions of the first week of the Paris tournament trained in Toulouse with the physical trainer.
At Roland Garros,
From Toulouse to Paris, from the shadow of the Pink City to the spots of the City of Light, Léolia Jeanjean and Hugo Gaston, who are competing this Saturday in the 3rd round of Roland-Garros, have built their success with the same torturer.
We exaggerate a bit because Kevin Blandy is rather the nice type and above all proud of the results of his protégés.
"We work for that and we are happy when there are convincing results", appreciates the 35-year-old physical trainer behind the good surprises of 2022. In charge of a group of pros at the Stade Toulousain tennis section, he also takes care of young graduates of the Occitanie League.
He tells us how he forged the physique of two darlings of the French public.
The encounter
Pure Toulouse native, Kevin Blandy has known Hugo Gaston since his first baby bottles, or almost.
“I met him when he was 7 years old.
He was about as high as the net.
And even if he was able to evolve in other structures, we never lost sight of each other, ”says the physical trainer with a smile.
With Léolia Jeanjean, relations are not so old.
If he had met the revelation of Roland-Garros in his youth "she went out with one of my players when she was 14", Kevin Blandy had not worked with her before September 2020.
“We saw each other in June during a training course organized by the Ligue Occitanie in La Grande-Motte.
She was returning from the United States where she had gone to study.
Physically, she was not the best.
She had the idea of resuming the main circuit a bit, but it was not yet well defined.
This is how she came to settle in Toulouse in September.
»
Work
By working from the start with Gaston, the physical coach has clearly participated in the construction of the 21-year-old player.
“We went through all the stages with Hugo.
That's what's so interesting about him.
I saw him grow.
We almost know each other by heart.
Both of us were able to work on all aspects of performance at the physical level of a tennis player.
“A job that the player has always appreciated.
“We work very well, we work what I need and what I have “acquired”, even if nothing is acquired.
It does me a lot of good.
He knows that I need to work by doing quite playful "exos", Hugo Gaston told
20 Minutes
after qualifying for the third round.
With Jeanjean, who took a break from high-level tennis for almost ten years, the work was very different.
“Physically, she was not at her best.
In the beginning, the biggest problem was the volume of training where you had to increase the dose.
At first, we did substantive work, prevention and then we really focused the work on the trips where she had deficiencies, particularly in the ability to reproduce the efforts.
»
Objective achieved according to the player.
“I worked a lot physically.
In the United States, I had still lost a little physical condition, I had gained a little weight, it was not easy to come back.
This is where I did the most work, ”appreciates Léolia Jeanjean.
Areas of progress
At 21, Hugo Gaston still has plenty of room for improvement physically.
“He must progress everywhere.
We need to strengthen his qualities of ground cover, movement, support work on which we have worked a lot in recent years and which he is doing better and better on the ground.
»
For Jeanjan, the work is mainly at the level of the hygiene of life.
“She needs to get back into the mindset of a pro tennis player but she's not there yet.
She's not organized like a pro at all.
She has a lot of talent but in terms of preparation, there is still a lot of work to do, ”says Kevin Blandy.
The future of the relationship
If with Hugo Gaston, it's a bit life and death given the duration of their relationship, we are not at all in the same pattern with Léolia Jeanjean.
While the player was supposed to prepare Roland-Garros with Blandy, she planted her physical trainer ten days ago without telling him officially.
Class.
Our Roland-Garros file
“I learned via social networks that she was in Paris with other coaches.
I tried to contact her but I think she is avoiding me.
I hope that we can communicate differently and that we can have an explanation at the end of the tournament, ”concludes the physical trainer with a touch of bitterness in his voice.
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