Auger-Aliassime maintains late-season form at Paris Masters, riding 17 aces to Round 1 win
Alex Zverev, Hubert Hurkacz also victorious and remain in hunt for ATP Finals spots
Montreal's Felix Auger-Aliassime continued his impressive season-ending run of form with a 7-6 (3), 6-4 first-round win over Germany's Jan-Lennard Struff on Tuesday at the Paris Masters tennis tournament.
Auger-Aliassime, ranked 19th on the ATP Tour, had 17 aces and saved all three break points he faced as he improved his 2023 record to 23-18.
The first set went to a tiebreak after both players held serve throughout. Auger-Aliassime roared out to a 6-0 lead in the extra session and won it on his fourth set point.
Auger-Aliassime picked up the only break of the match to go up 2-1 in the second set, then capped the victory in just under one hour 39 minutes by winning a 19-shot rally on his second match-point chance.
It was the first meeting between Auger-Aliassime and Struff, No. 27 in the world, since they split a pair of matches in 2020.
Auger-Aliassime, coming off a successful defence of his Swiss Indoors title last week, picked up another convincing win over a quality opponent. He defeated No. 6 Holger Rune in the semifinals and No. 11 Hubert Hurkacz in the final last week in Basel without dropping a set.
WATCH | Auger-Aliassime advances to 2nd-round match against Tsitsipas:
Auger-Aliassime next faces a familiar foe in the seventh-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, who had a first-round bye.
Tsitsipas holds a 5-3 career record in matches against Auger-Aliassime, but the Canadian won their last meeting in the final of last year's Rotterdam Open.
Zverev, Hurkacz rally past opponents
Alexander Zverev and Hurkacz stayed in contention for the three remaining spots at the ATP Finals by advancing to the second round.
The 10th-seeded Zverev rallied past qualifier Marton Fucsovics 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, while Hurkacz overcame Sebastian Korda 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3.
"It was definitely a rollercoaster," the 11th-seeded Hurkacz said on court. "I tried to reset, I tried to bring all my energy into the third set. I knew how important this match is for me, and I just gave it absolutely all I had out there."
Before the Paris Masters, Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Jannik Sinner and Andrey Rublev had already qualified for the ATP Finals, the season-ending tournament for the top eight players on tour that will be played in Turin from Nov. 12-19.
Hurkacz jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the opening set. The Shanghai Masters champion then hit an overhead shot to break Korda in the seventh game of the second set but failed to serve out the match at 5-4. Korda saved three break points at 5-5 to force a tiebreaker.
An emotional Hurkacz threw his racket to the ground after missing those opportunities, and then squandered a match point at 6-5 in the tiebreaker with a forehand that sailed long. Korda won the second set after another forehand error from Hurkacz.
In the decisive set, Korda netted a backhand to give Hurkacz a 5-3 lead. Hurkacz converted his second match point with an ace, finishing the match with 36 winners to 30 for Korda.
Zverev, the 2020 runner-up at the Paris tournament, double-faulted to drop the opening set. But the German hit a smash winner to break for a 6-5 lead in the second set and leveled the match when Fucsovics sent a forehand into the net. Zverev then won the last three games, clinching the victory with a service winner.
In other first-round matches, lucky loser Dusan Lajovic beat wild-card entry Benjamin Bonzi 7-5, 6-3 while Tomas Martin Etcheverry outlasted Miomir Kecmanovic 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-4 to set up a meeting with top-seeded Djokovic.
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.
With files from The Associated Press
