Toby Samuel encouraged by French Open experience despite early exit
Toby Samuel will leave Paris hugely encouraged by his first grand slam experience – even if it has been a tough week for the Southampton fan.
The 23-year-old’s French Open adventure ended with a first-round loss to eighth seed Alex De Minaur after he claimed three victories in qualifying.
It was a huge step up given Samuel had never faced a top-100 player before and he acquitted himself well in hot conditions in a 6-4 6-4 6-2 defeat.
Samuel’s success has provided solace to his Southampton-supporting family after the controversial decision to throw them out of the Championship play-offs amid a spying scandal.
“It’s been horrible,” said Samuel. “My dad was talking about wearing a ‘Free Southampton’ shirt to the match – we’re joking, but that has been tough.
“We’ve been doing so good as a club but obviously things happen so we’ve got to move on from that.”
Happily for Samuel, who grew up in Dorset and now trains at the University of Bath, his own sporting season has been going significantly better.
He had the biggest ranking rise of any male player last year, leaping from 1,867 in the world to 266, and he could break into the top 150 after this tournament, which will almost certainly be enough to earn him a Wimbledon wild card.
“Going into the grass now, it was a great week for me here to qualify and get into the main draw, and I just want to put myself in the best position possible for the main draw wild card,” said Samuel, whose only previous grand slam experience was in qualifying in SW19 three years ago.
He looked nervous initially against De Minaur but settled into the contest and began to trouble the Australian with his big serve and forehand, briefly moving 2-0 ahead in the second set.
His backhand clearly needs work but Samuel has been buoyed by the knowledge he is not as far away from the world’s best as he thought.
“I’m super happy to be able to make it to the main draw and play such a great player as Alex,” he said.
“It was an amazing experience and I sort of couldn’t wish it went any different. Maybe done a little bit better in the match but it was so cool playing that first round today.
“I think he brings a level of stress on me that I haven’t really faced before. He didn’t give you any time to relax or be able to play your own game as much.
“A couple of months ago I wouldn’t have thought I’d be playing someone like Alex De Minaur. Especially last year, I was (ranked) outside 1,000.
“I was miles off these guys, but it really isn’t as big a gap as I thought, and this week’s definitely shown that to me and I know that I can try and compete at this level.”
This is also by a distance Samuel’s biggest career pay day, with players losing in the first round collecting 87,000 euros (approximately £75,000) – which is over half his entire career prize money up until now.
