Ugo Humbert pulls out of Davis Cup tie with France to focus on upcoming indoor tournaments

PARIS (AP) — Ugo Humbert has pulled out of playing for France in a Davis Cup match next month to prioritize upcoming tournaments.

Humbert said the decision to skip France’s first-round qualifier at home against Slovakia on Feb. 7-8 was made with indoor tournaments in mind.

“After discussing this with my team, I’ve made the difficult decision not to participate in the next Davis Cup tie,” Humbert posted on Instagram on Saturday. “To tackle this first part of the season and maintain my goals, I’ve chosen to focus on the upcoming tournaments, especially on indoor hard courts.”

There are indoor tournaments on the ATP Tour next month in Montpellier and Rotterdam, followed by tournaments on outdoor hard courts in Doha and Dubai.

The No. 33-ranked Humbert excels on indoor hard courts. A strong server with an excellent two-handed backhand, Humbert has won four of his seven career titles indoors and made an impressive run to the Paris Masters final in 2024.

Humbert lost to eighth-seeded Ben Shelton in the first round of the Australian Open this week.

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Heavy snow and rainfall over the past three days have killed more than 60 people and injured over 100 across Afghanistan, the country’s disaster management authority said Saturday, as authorities in the impoverished country struggled to open roads and gain access to cut-off villages.

National Disaster Management Authority spokesman Yousaf Hammad said 61 people had died and 110 were injured, while 458 homes had been completely or partially destroyed and hundreds of animals had died in 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. The numbers, he said, could change as authorities gathered more information from the provinces.

Afghanistan is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, with snow and heavy rain that triggers flash floods often killing dozens, or even hundreds, of people at a time. In 2024, more than 300 people died in springtime flash floods.

Decades of conflict coupled with poor infrastructure, a struggling economy, deforestation and the intensifying effects of climate change have amplified the impact of such disasters, particularly in remote areas where many homes are built of mud and offer limited protection against sudden deluges or heavy snowfall.

The country’s eastern provinces are also still struggling to recover from devastating earthquakes that struck last year, in late August and again in November, destroying villages and killing more than 2,200 people.

Those displaced by the quakes are particularly vulnerable to the extreme cold and bad weather conditions. In December, UNICEF said an estimated 270,000 children in the areas affected by the quakes were at “severe risk of life-threatening diseases related to the cold.”

Earlier this month, the United Nations said Afghanistan would “remain one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises in 2026.” The U.N. and its humanitarian partners launched a $1.7 billion appeal to assist nearly 18 million people in urgent need in the country.