Cincinnati Open star with IQ close to Einstein's picks shock best tennis player ever

A tennis player who claims to have an IQ rivalling that of Albert Einstein has named his choice for the greatest player of all time. Terence Atmane has made it through to the semi-finals of the Cincinnati Open, where he will face Jannik Sinner. He recorded surprise wins over the likes of Joao Fonseca, Taylor Fritz and Holger Rune on his way to the last four.

Atmane's fairytale run to the semi-finals might have been helped by his impressive brain power, given that he claims to have an IQ of 158. It would put him just two behind Einstein's rumoured score of 160, making him one of the most intelligent athletes in the world. He should, therefore, know exactly what he is talking about when it comes to his opinions on rival players.

Ahead of his match against Sinner, the 23-year-old raised eyebrows by describing the Italian as the best player the sport has ever seen.

Speaking to Tennis Channel, he said: "I don't want to predict anything because I think Jannik is the most incredible player that we have pretty much ever seen in our entire lifetimes.

"It's going to be very interesting to be able to play someone like him, someone that is bringing crazy things to the tennis world. It's going to be a new challenge for me.

"I will just try to do my things once again, it doesn't matter the ranking. 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 Jannik."

Atmane spoke about his impressive IQ score earlier this week, claiming that it helps him to gain a mental edge over rivals on the court.

"I don't consider myself as a genius, because I don't want to pretend to be cocky or to say, you know, I'm a super smart guy," he explained.

"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 an IQ test and when I did that, the result was 158.

"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.

"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 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 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.

"Sometimes it's very difficult to deal with because sometimes I have reactions like a bit, not very proportional to a problem. But on the other hand, when there is a little something positive, I can bring it to something extra, extra positive."

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