“He is full of confidence, like me”: Moise Kouame ready to win Paris over (again)

It is a very rare precaution among tennis players, and rarer still among teenagers. Moise Kouame uses it as often as he deems necessary. If a question does not seem clear enough to him, he looks the person asking in the eye, narrows his own and asks: “Could you be more specific?” He did it again on Monday: “What do you mean, ‘details’?” The question was how he handled the pressure of playing in front of his family and loved ones. The answer, in essence: he loves it.

The first few times Kouame asked for a question to be rephrased, the prevailing theory was mistrust. He had just won a round at Roland-Garros. He had just entered French living rooms and seemed aware of it. His status was changing, and he knew it. People imagined him on the defensive, busy avoiding traps. Perhaps PR people had briefed him.

Not at all. It is a personality trait.

Kouame has an exceptional physique for his age (1.91m, 73kg), which should take him into the top 100 within a few weeks, as looks inevitable, and keep him on Rafael Nadal’s pace in terms of progress. His ball-striking is already phenomenal for a 17-year-old. But more than that, he has the personality of champions, of those who set themselves no limits and see their next opponent for what he is: two arms, two legs, a will equal to their own, but certainly not an obstacle he would be too young to take on.

Kouame and the dream of 25 Grand Slams

This personality trait played tricks on him two weeks ago. On the sidelines of the ATP 250 in Lyon, in an interview with Univers Tennis, the Frenchman let slip: “My biggest dream is to hold the Grand Slam record. The record is 24, I would need 25.” One more than Novak Djokovic, the record holder since his US Open title in 2023. Many wondered what had possessed the young player from the Paris region to put such pressure on himself at such a young age.

During the few minutes of his meeting with the international media in Paris on Monday, Kouame was not asked about it. But he could not help making it clear that, however young he may be, however drained by his surprise title at the Brest Challenger on Sunday, he arrived at La Défense Arena unfazed, determined to set the court alight against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, the 13th seed. “It’s a good match. Alejandro is full of confidence… Like me,” he said, when reminded that Davidovich Fokina had just won a Masters 1000.

And when it was pointed out that he was sending the ranking counters into overdrive, he smiled first: “You always have to do better. What I’m doing is very good, but I always want more.”

It is not overconfidence, nor recklessness. It is a personality trait that could allow him, if things go his way, to repeat at least part of what he achieved at Roland-Garros. As a 318th-ranked wildcard, he beat Marin Cilic (7-6 (4), 6-2, 6-1), then Adolfo Daniel Vallejo after a 4h56 marathon (6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 2-6, 7-6 (8)), before falling in the third round to Alejandro Tabilo (4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (9)).

Bercy, Gaston and Alcaraz’s 5-0 lead

Like every young French player, Kouame knows all about the Rolex Paris Masters’ ability to lift its own. On 4 November 2021, aged 12, he was one of the 15,000 spectators at Bercy who derailed Carlos Alcaraz against Hugo Gaston. The Spaniard led 5-0 in the second set before losing seven games in a row, in a Davis Cup atmosphere (6-4, 7-5).

It is his most vivid memory of the tournament. “A legendary match. I remember screaming with all my strength for Hugo to win.” Deprived of matches with that level of emotion last year for its first edition, La Défense Arena is waiting for this kind of encounter. And Kouame, like Arthur Fils, is one of the players this tournament is made for.

Brest, a train and a wildcard

He had no time to savour it. On Sunday, Kouame saved two points from defeat in the third set against Damm, in front of 3,400 spectators at the Brest Arena. Then everything moved fast: photos, some press, the physio, a long train journey, a night’s sleep. “I knew I shouldn’t think about it too much, because tomorrow I’m on court.” He still admits his legs are heavy. “They always are after a tournament, a little less after a win. I had some physically tough matches, and mentally too.”

The craziest part had played out two days earlier. Invited to the Paris qualifying, which started on Saturday, Kouame was still alive in Brest. He was going to have to choose between Brittany and Paris. On Friday, a few hours before the draw, Jakub Mensik’s withdrawal changed everything: Quentin Halys entered the main draw directly thanks to his ranking, and his wildcard went to Kouame. “An hour before the match, I found out that I had the main-draw wildcard after all. Above all, it freed my mind.”

Had he been forced to choose, Brest would have won: “I would just have kept playing my tournament. If I hadn’t been able to play qualifying at ‘Bercy’, it would have been for next year or another year.” As for the pressure of a first Paris Masters in front of his own people: “There’s no extra pressure on my shoulders. It’s a joy to play here, in France, in Paris.”

Van Assche: “It wasn’t normal”

Luca Van Assche, 22, who also won his first-round match on Monday against Mariano Navone (6-3, 7-5), saw the phenomenon long before anyone else. The two players crossed paths at the Paris regional committee, when Van Assche was 13 and Kouame 8. “At 8, he was already sliding to the right, sliding to the left, which wasn’t normal at that age,” Van Assche recalls. “His coach at the committee told me that an 8-year-old moving like him wasn’t normal.” Nine years later, the general impression is still not that this young player is anyone ordinary.