Petits As
French junior tennis tournament
title: "Petits As" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["junior-tennis-tournaments", "hard-court-tennis-tournaments", "indoor-tennis-tournaments", "tennis-tournaments-in-france"] description: "French junior tennis tournament" topic_path: "sports" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petits_As" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary French junior tennis tournament ::
Les Petits As – Le Mondial Lacoste (English: Little champions – The Lacoste world championship) is a junior tennis tournament for players aged 12–16, held in Tarbes, France. This tournament is one of the five Super Category tournaments in the U14 circuit of the Tennis Europe Junior Tour, and it is universally recognized as the world's leading indoor U14 competition. The tournament is traditionally held at the end of January, although the 2020 and 2021 editions had to take place in September due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The event has seen a number of its champions go on to become Grand Slam winners later on, including Rafael Nadal, Michael Chang, Martina Hingis, Kim Clijsters, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Jeļena Ostapenko and Bianca Andreescu. Due to the relatively restrictive age range, few players have won the title more than once, although Hingis and Timea Bacsinszky have both done so. Most recently, Spanish player Carlos Boluda became the first boy to do so.
Format
The tournament is played on indoor GreenSet (hard) courts. Roughly 7,000 players enter the pre-qualifying tournaments held across France, with that number being narrowed down to 350 for the final qualifying stage, and 64 for the final tournament. This event welcomes 45 000 visitors each year in Tarbes and garners over 125 000 live-stream viewers across 151 countries yearly. The event is regulated by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and has businesses such as Head, Eurosport, Coca-Cola, and Peugeot amongst its portfolio of partners.
Notably, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray faced each other for the very first time in the quarterfinals of the 2001 edition, which was won by Murray 6–0 6–1. In the 2017 edition, the 13-year-old Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune played together in the doubles competition. In 1994, future No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero produced one of the competition's most unexpected triumphs when he won the tournament without a ranking.
Results
Boys' singles
::data[format=table]
Girls' singles
::data[format=table]
Exhibitions
The tournament often features retired and/or active players making appearances in exhibition matches in the evening preceding the final day of play. It is common for upcoming and veteran French players to be present. In recent tournaments, players present have included:
- 2004: Yannick Noah and Henri Leconte.
- 2005: Juan Carlos Ferrero (a former champion) and David Nalbandian, who replaced compatriot and French Open champion Gastón Gaudio at the last minute.
- 2006: Rafael Nadal and Fabrice Santoro.
- 2007: Richard Gasquet and Gaël Monfils.
- 2008: Fabrice Santoro and Marc Gicquel, after Paul-Henri Mathieu and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga withdrew. Mathieu, who had injured himself at the 2008 Australian Open, signed autographs instead.
References
References
- (18 November 2019). "Les Petits As - Le Mondial Lacoste promoted to the Super Category!".
- "Super Category".
- (29 September 2020). "'Les Petits As' 2021 to take place in September".
- (15 January 2023). "Ces célèbres joueurs de tennis ont joué à Tarbes dans leur jeunesse: des pépites d'archives".
- (21 January 2011). "Tennis. Les Petits As de Tarbes: machine à champions".
- "CHAMPIONS - Les Petits As".
- "INTRODUCTION Logistic and Budget".
- (1 September 2018). "First Asian in Les Petits As".
- "Partners".
- (30 January 2011). "Open d'Australie: Murray face à Djokovic, 10 ans après".
- (29 January 2011). "Au bal des prétendants".
- (14 January 2019). "Djokovic fait le buzz en évoquant les Petits As de Tarbes et son 1e match face à Murray".
- (2 June 2022). "When Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune played doubles together in junior tennis".
- "The winners of Les Petits As".
- (25 January 2022). "Tennis. Les Petits As : le palmarès complet du tournoi".
- (2006). "Ontario Girls Win in Europe". Ontario Tennis Association.
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::