Hugo Gaston was born on September 26, 2000, in Toulouse, France, to Thierry and Fabienne Gaston. Both his parents work for plane manufacturer Airbus. He began playing tennis as a two-year-old at Fansorbes Tennis Club, where his father was the president. His idol growing up was Rafael Nadal.
Gaston was a very accomplished junior player. He won the 2018 Australian Open boys’ doubles alongside his fellow countryman Clement Tabur. At the 2018 Youth Summer Olympics, he was the flagbearer for France, before claiming bronze medals in the men’s doubles with Clement Tabur and the mixed doubles alongside Clara Burel.
The Frenchman spent the early stages of his singles career competing on the ITF Futures Tour. In 2019, he reached a substantial eight finals on this circuit, winning four of those. This led to Gaston steadily climbing into the Top 300 by the end of 2019.
At the 2020 Roland Garros, Gaston was awarded a wildcard, which led to him having a shock run at this event. He progressed all the way to the fourth round, beating the 2015 champion Stan Wawrinka in the third round. Gaston then almost upset two-time Roland-Garros runner-up Dominic Thiem, but narrowly missed out on the quarterfinal after a loss in five sets.
2021 saw Gaston rise up the rankings very quickly. A big part of this was reaching his first ATP Tour final at the Swiss Open in Gstaad in July. His run included dramatic final-set tie-break victories over Federico Delbonis and Cristian Garin. He lost the final 3-6, 2-6 to Casper Ruud.
The Frenchman’s best moment at the Grand Slam level in 2022 was reaching the third round of the French Open, losing to Holger Rune at that stage. He also made a third-round appearance at the Masters 1000 event in Miami, where he was knocked out by Cameron Norrie.
Gaston has struggled for consistency since then, although he did claim his first Grand Slam main draw victories at the US Open in 2023 and the Australian Open in 2024.
