Paris (AFP)

Rising from the top 100 to the top 20 in four months, at only 18, Félix Auger-Aliassime climbed the ladder of world tennis at great speed.

A month to celebrate his 19 years, the young Canadian, who shares his birthday with Roger Federer (August 8), plays Wimbledon only the second Grand Slam tournament of his career, after the US Open 2018.

Winner successively of his compatriot Vasek Pospisil (187) and Corentin Moutet (84) in London, the youngest player in the men's table of the 2019 edition attacks Friday another Frenchman, Ugo Humbert (66th), the last hurdle that separates it from the second week.

For the Quebec player, born to a Togolese father and a Canadian mother, everything accelerated in late February, when he reached his first final on the ATP circuit, on the clay of Rio. He lost it but was rewarded by his entry into the top 100.

Since then, have followed a first semifinal in Masters 1000 in Miami, accompanied by a place in the top 50, then two new finals, on ocher in Lyon, and its very first tournament on grass in Stuttgart recently. At the end of May, he became the youngest player to make a place among the top 25 in the world for twenty years (Hewitt in 1999). He is now 21st.

- "Not a dice" -

Auger-Aliassime, however, located the turning point a few weeks earlier, in early February, during the first round of Davis Cup between Canada and Slovakia, during which he brought to his country the point of qualification in the fifth match.

"It's a great moment for me, at the level of personal confidence and my tennis, after that, I managed to tie the matches in Rio, I gained more confidence, my level of play has become more more constant, I knew how to ride this wave, "he explained to AFP late May, identifying a mental switch.

"Since Rio, I'm in the right perspective, at the beginning of the year, there was sometimes this fear of losing, not to get it in. In South America, and in Indian Wells and Miami, I really arrived with a strong desire to win and a weak fear of losing.I rather wanted to play forward, to get the matches that defend what I had, "developed the great Montrealer (1.93 m).

"What's good is that I feel it's not a dice, it's really a state of mind that I put in place," he said.

- Character -

Even earlier, Auger-Aliassime, whose rackets are branded "FA2" by his Lyon equipment manufacturer Babolat, had accustomed to distinguish himself by his precocity: first player born in the 2000s to score ATP points in March 2015, also first to win a match on the main circuit, early 2018 at Indian Wells.

Enough for the country of hockey king, the current "21st racket world", led by two French, Frédéric Fontang and Guillaume Marx, is gaining notoriety, also carried by a Canadian tennis booming.

"Of course you have to know how to handle the new attention, the fact that people recognize you when you come home, but do not see it as something that would be binding, I try to to draw energy, "he says in a calm and calm voice, barely tinged with a hint of accent.

"And I think I have the character that will allow me to navigate all that," he adds.

If Auger-Aliassime believes that it does not make him turn his head, his meteoric rise gives ideas to the British bookmakers, who make him the sixth favorite of Wimbledon. What the main interested judge "a little exaggerated" and even "a little crazy": "I'm already faster than the majority and we want me to go even faster, which is sometimes unrealistic".

He summarizes his ambitions of the moment of a formula: "no elevated expectations, but no limits either".

? 2019 AFP