Hugo Gaston rewarded with first call up to France's Davis Cup team

PARIS: Hugo Gaston has been rewarded for some impressive performances at last week's Paris Masters with a first call up to France's Davis Cup team on Wednesday.

Gaston reached the quarterfinals at the indoor event and lost to No.2 Daniil Medvedev after having set points in the first set. The 21-year-old Gaston, who has an array of tricky shots and is a strong service returner, jumped up 36 places in the rankings to No.67.

He is playing this week at the ATP Next Gen tennis tournament in Milan. Veterans Richard Gasquet and Adrian Mannarino were also selected for singles, with Grand-Slam winning partners Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut in doubles.

"Hugo did magnificently well at the Paris Masters in reaching the quarterfinals, playing an exceptional level of tennis. Adrian has found a good level of form again after impressive wins against Andrey Rublev in Moscow and Nikoloz Basilashvili at the Paris Masters. I'm counting on them to help France qualify for the quarterfinals," France captain and former world No.4 Sebastien Grosjean said.

Arthur Rinderknech is also selected and can play in both categories. Ugo Humbert is sidelined after taking the decision at the end of October to end his season early to focus on 2022. France is in Group C with Britain and the Czech Republic for the November 25-December 5 tournament, which is being played on indoor hard courts in the cities of Innsbruck, Madrid, and Turin.

France won the last of its 10 titles in 2017 against Belgium and lost the final the following year to Croatia.