‘A Legend Of Tennis’: Gaston Relishing Coach El Aynaoui's Influence

Corinne Dubreuil//ATP Tour

“I was a kid when [he was on Tour], but I saw some videos of him on YouTube.”

Hugo Gaston may be too young to have witnessed the charismatic Younes El Aynaoui in his ATP Tour prime, but the 22-year-old Frenchman is well aware of the legacy of the man who has joined his coaching team for the 2023 European clay-court season.

“He is a legend of Moroccan tennis, African tennis, and tennis in general, so it’s nice to have some advice from him,” Gaston told ATPTour.com on Wednesday at the Mutua Madrid Open when asked about working with the former World No. 14. “He knows tennis, for sure, he was at the top for 20 years. He’s a really good guy, a really good player and a really good coach. So I’m happy with him.”

Gaston and El Aynaoui joined forces at the beginning of April at the Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakech, where Gaston promptly secured his first tour-level win of 2023 against Jan-Lennard Struff. The World No. 106 believes that more time spent with the five-time ATP Tour titlist El Aynaoui can only boost his bid to rise back up the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

“The relationship is pretty good for the moment, we will continue until Roland Garros and then we will see, but there is no reason to stop,” said Gaston, who defeated countryman Jeremy Chardy 6-3, 6-4 on Wednesday in Madrid to reach the second round. “We have a really good relationship. I feel good with him, I think he feels good with me as well, so it’s good and we can see what we can do.”

Gaston will hope to build on his opening win when he takes on 17th seed Borna Coric next at the clay-court ATP Masters 1000 event in the Spanish capital. The former World No. 58 can also look to some recent success on the ATP Challenger Tour for confidence: He holds an 8-3 record at that level this year, including a run to a championship match on clay in Vina del Mar, Chile.

“The Challenger Tour is really difficult now,” said Gaston, who competed at the 2021 Next Gen ATP Finals. “We can see that a lot of players that won a lot of matches on ATP Tour won a lot of matches on Challenger Tour too.

“It’s a different Tour but really difficult. In South American I played a lot of Challengers. I think that’s really helped me a lot. Now I’m really happy to win one match in Marrakech, one here [in Madrid], and I hope I can continue like that.”