London (AFP)

One has taken years to do, the other only one month: Benoit Paire, 30, and Ugo Humbert, 21, do not have the same trajectory on the grass, but both are fans , and will play Monday a round of 16 at Wimbledon, their best result in Grand Slam.

A pair (32) will face Spain's Roberto Bautista Agut (22), whom he has never beaten in six comparisons. Humbert (66th) will play him against world No.1 Novak Djokovic, the biggest challenge of his young career.

- Benoit Paire the convert

He did not like it, but not at all. The Avignonnais took time to tame this so special coating for a native earth (he won three tournaments all on clay, Lyon and Marrakech in 2019, Bastad in 2015).

And for years, once the land season ended, the next month and a half on turf was lived like a nightmare by the Frenchman. After first steps not necessarily so clumsy, including a semifinal at S'Hertengobosch in 2012, the black hole. A white year in 2014, not much better in 2015 with only one small victory on the circuit.

After two knock-outs at Hertogenbosh, then Halle in 2015, he had tweeted all his aversion to the grass: + Happy to go home !!! Tired of this shitty surface that hurts !! Really not looking forward to being at Wimbledon !!!

He did not like grass courts, but Wimbledon and his traditions either. "Wim," I do not like, once I took a thousand dollars for saying "shit." Here they only like that, put in fines, "he told the press in 2013.

And then in 2017, the click. After an apprenticeship with his friend Stan Wawrinka, who taught him to move better on this complicated soil, the results have arrived. And the speech has changed. A semi-final in Stuttgart and especially his first round of 16 at Wimbledon helped him a bit. After his defeat in the third round last year against Del Potro, he confessed to become a follower: "I like this surface".

Confirmation this year. Even Wimbledon and his environment conquered him. "I said I did not like it at all here, it was always complicated for me the traditions all that ... But with the experience, the maturity, I tell myself that it is a beautiful place, that it's nice, "he explained.

- Ugo Humbert the gifted

A month ago, he had never played on grass, in tournament at least. The 21-year-old Messin discovered the grass at the Subiton challenger in early June. Four defeats and two wins later, he has three wins at Wimbledon, he who had never passed a second round of Grand Slam. An express learning, almost unknown, reserved for those who have the green thumb.

"I think my game is good on this surface, I felt like it was good at the first training session, I thought it was faster (...), but I like it," he said. -he explains. This ability to adapt is quite rare. Even Roger Federer recalled that he lost in the first round the first two times at Wimbledon (1999, 2000).

In any case, he is already assured of joining the top 50 at the end of the tournament, whereas he was pointing beyond 300th place almost a year ago (308th in April 2018) . His progress is less violent than some on the tour, as for example the Canadian Felix-Auger Aliassime (18, 21st) he beat in the third round in three sets, but it is nonetheless impressive.

So much so that his future opponent, Novak Djokovic, ensured that he was one of the "Next Generation Leaders". To have...

? 2019 AFP