“They said 158 means genius… I don’t see myself that way”: Terence Atmane's intelligence on show on and off the court at Cincinnati Open

At the Tennis Channel desk after his breakthrough run at the 2025 Cincinnati Open, Terence Atmane could hardly stop smiling. True to his word, he told the hosts earlier in the week that he’d be back—and after defeating Holger Rune to reach the semifinals of a Masters 1000 for the first time, he kept his promise.

“I said to you, I want to see you again after the round of 16,” Atmane laughed. “And I kept my promise and here I am, so happy.”

His quarterfinal against Rune was a statement. Atmane looked calm, composed, and in control from start to finish. “That match with Holger, it was such exceptional tennis, all the way start to finish,” the interviewer told him. “You looked like you had been there so many times before. Holger didn’t really have any answers for you out there. What do you attribute your performance to?”

“Being the underdog helps a lot, of course, for doing this kind of performances,” Atmane explained. “But, you know, I was just trying to be there, enjoy the moment. Being here in the quarterfinal of a Masters 1000 for the first time in my life, that was pretty insane for me already. So I was just, you know, just going there with a good mentality, just trying to do my things, trying to play my tennis. And yeah, it really helped me to reach the semifinal, I guess.”

Coming off a match earlier in the week against Taylor Fritz, where his top-100 breakthrough triggered huge emotions, Atmane admitted the Rune match felt different. “You talked about the previous match with Fritz, where you knew you were going to get in the top 100, so you could see the emotions after the match. Here, it didn’t seem like there were any nerves towards the end. I mean, you were just firing rockets in that last game,” the interviewer noted. “Yeah, that was pretty crazy with the new balls. My gosh, I was going full insane. It was nuts.”

So how did he stay so composed with so much on the line? “The work of my coach is to try to calm me down after reaching the top 100,” Atmane said. “They say, OK, now you’re top 100, but you’re still in the quarterfinal, you’re still in the tournament, so you have to lock in and continue. So we’re just trying to get on the match, trying to be as aggressive as possible. As previously, I showed that that was the way that I’m the best on my game with that. And yeah, I was just trying to do my things once again, as I have done the entire week. So yesterday, I was coming there with full confidence, obviously, and it worked.”

Atmane’s big win wasn’t the only thing that sparked conversation. Afterward, he left fans scratching their heads when he signed the camera lens with “Fermi’s paradox.” “In the midst of making your first semi at a Masters 1000, please explain to me how that entered your mind to sign,” the interviewer asked. “That’s a very good question. I don’t even know how,” Atmane admitted. “But, you know, I was there, I was sitting on my chair, and they proposed me a pen to sign something. And I was like, you know what, I learned something last week about Fermi’s paradox. And I was like, why not sharing with everybody what I was learning about, about the universe and everything. And I was like, yeah, it could be cool just to put this like that. And just to see if people are going to search about the meaning of this. And if I can make some people research like smart things like this about the universe, about the world that we’re living in, to me, it’s a bonus.”

That intellectual curiosity isn’t out of character. When asked about his IQ, Atmane confirmed the reports.

“Are we serious about almost 160 IQ? 158?”

“158,” he confirmed.

“So you’re basically like a genius.”

“I don’t consider myself as a genius, because I don’t want to pretend cocky or to say, you know, I’m a super smart guy,” Atmane said. “But yeah, I did this very long test of, it was 14 hours of test during an entire week for the French Federation of Tennis. I needed some IQ test. And when I’ve done that, the result was 158. So they said that this is considered as a genius or whatever. But at the end of the day, it helps me because I’m thinking different, you know, than some people.”

That difference, he said, has also shaped his development on court. “It gives me also some answers about some kind of behaviour that I could have on court, because I was very nervous before and trying to calm down, trying to control my emotions was a very, very hard work for me. But now at 23 years of age, I realised that my mind is stronger than my emotions. And I think that this is also very important to keep because I have a lot of emotions, a lot of thoughts, a lot of things going on in my head all the time. And this is a, yeah, this is a very, sometimes it’s very difficult to deal with. Because sometimes I have reactions like a bit, not very proportional to a problem. But in the other hand, when there is like a little something positive, I can bring it to something extra, extra positive. So there is a good and the bad side of every single thing in the world. But yeah, it’s like that.”

With his intelligence, many wonder why Atmane chose tennis at all. His answer is simple: his mom. “My story is very simple. I play a lot of video games on my free time, especially when I was younger. And I started tennis when I was six because I was playing a lot of video games by myself. And one day my mom came to my room, very mad at me. And she said, OK, you know what? No more video games. I’m going to bring you to a tennis court and you’re going to do something.

“I was playing soccer in one club in my in my hometown. And there was this tennis club nearby. So I was doing some some football lessons and I was like, OK, why not trying tennis, you know, because my mom wanted me to do something else. So I said to my mom, OK, let’s try tennis. And this is how I start.”

Now, Atmane’s attention turns to world No.1 Jannik Sinner in the semifinals. “Semifinals, as good as it gets, you’re going to get the world number one next. Am I going to see you again?”

“We’re going to see Saturday, I guess,” Atmane said. “I don’t want to predict anything because Yannick is like I think the most incredible player that we have pretty much ever seen in our entire lifetime. So it’s going to be very interesting to see also to to be able to play someone like him, to play someone that is bringing so much crazy things to the tennis world. So it’s going to be very interesting. It’s going to be a new challenge for me. And yeah, I was just still trying to do my things once again. It doesn’t matter the ranking, you know. But yeah, it’s going to be a very good one. And I’m very happy and very proud to be able to share the court with Yannick for tomorrow.”

As he signed off, Atmane kept his focus on the journey, not the destination. “That’s the most important thing,” he said, “not to relax myself and keep working.”