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He waited four years for this moment, since his first match on the main circuit at Roland-Garros 2022. On Sunday, July 26, on the Portuguese clay of Estoril, Luca Van Assche clinched his very first ATP title by defeating Belgian Alexander Blockx after a 2-hour 24-minute battle: 6-4, 4-6, 7-5. The 22-year-old Frenchman, ranked 78th in the world at the start of the tournament, enters a new dimension.
A week in a state of grace
Ranked outside the top 100 at the start of the season, Van Assche built his tournament match after match.
Ranked outside the top 100 at the start of the season, Van Assche built his tournament match after match. A surprise quarterfinalist at Roland-Garros a month earlier, he arrived in Portugal with new-found confidence. From the second round, he dismissed Andrey Rublev, world No. 8, in two straight sets (6-3, 6-4). A benchmark success that turned his week around. In the semifinal, he dispatched his compatriot Hugo Gaston without trembling (6-2, 6-4).
The final, however, was anything but a walk in the park. Against Alexander Blockx, world No. 38, the 20-year-old Belgian left-hander who was also aiming for his first ATP trophy, Van Assche first imposed his rhythm from the baseline. A break at 4-4 in the first set, then a first set pocketed 6-4. Blockx reacted in the second by breaking early. The Belgian pushed, attacked, and came to the net. He logically equalized 6-4.
A third set in the old style
The decisive set could have tipped either way at least four times. Van Assche got off to the better start, breaking early, 3-0. Blockx came back to 3-3, saving three balls for 4-1. Did the Frenchman crack? No. At 5-5, he saved a break point on his serve with a backhand passing shot down the line that drew a roar from the Portuguese crowd. In the next game, he broke Blockx to love and closed it out with an ace out wide. His cry, both arms raised toward the box where his coach Yannick Quéré was exploding with joy, will remain the image of the tournament.
"Obrigado Estoril," he scribbled on the camera after the match, in Portuguese, as a nod to this country where he had already won his first Challenger, in Maia, in 2022.
The next generation of French tennis has its third man
Van Assche joins Arthur Fils and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in the circle of French players under 23 who have won titles on the ATP circuit. A trio that embodies the French renewal, three years after the twilight of the Tsonga-Monfils-Simon generation. Unlike Fils, a solid top-20 player who collects titles, and Mpetshi Perricard, a puncher with a monstrous serve, Van Assche builds his tennis on consistency, court coverage, and tactical maturity rare for his age.
His ranking should jump about thirty places, to around the 45th spot in the world. Enough to approach the American hard-court tour — Washington, Montreal, Cincinnati — with potential seed status and transformed confidence. The kid from Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, who arrived in France at age three, never doubted he would make it. On Sunday, on the clay of Estoril, he proved it to everyone.