Zero out of four: with Richard Gasquet’s loss to world No. 12 Tommy Paul 0-6, 6-2, 7-6 (8/6) despite having three match points, none of the four French players in the first round of the Paris Masters 1000 on Monday made it through.
Before Gasquet, Adrian Mannarino, ranked 25th in the world and the top French player, who won in Astana in early October, and young Luca Van Assche (69th) suffered the same fate just minutes apart earlier in the day. Alexandre Muller (83rd) had lost first.
It is now up to the other four players competing on Tuesday, namely Gaël Monfils, promising Arthur Fils, Ugo Humbert, and Benjamin Bonzi, to avoid a similar scenario.
In a last-ditch effort to avoid a zero out of four on Monday evening, Gasquet (68th) came within a point of pulling off the feat against Paul, who still has a chance to qualify for the end-of-season Masters event in Turin, Italy in mid-November, albeit needing favorable circumstances.
In a suddenly electrifying finish to the match, the 37-year-old Biterrois, trailing 5-2 in the third set with a double break in favor of his American opponent, first managed to equalize at 5-5. Then he even took a 6-3 lead in the decisive tiebreak. But a nasty double fault on his last opportunity to win ultimately denied the Frenchman the victory, despite the loud support from the Bercy crowd who celebrated him with a wave at the second-to-last changeover. Two points later, Paul emerged as the winner, taking advantage of a slightly long return.
Much earlier, Gasquet had a fantastic start, winning the first set 6-0 in 27 minutes before Paul regained his composure.
Facing Dutchman Botic Van De Zandschulp (60th), Mannarino (35 years old) lacked serenity, which is unusual for him. This is evident from the racket he smashed at the end of the second set. In that second set, he managed to erase a break deficit twice, leveling the score at five games apiece, but a final unforced error cost him the set and the match, 6-4, 7-5.
“It was a bad match,” Mannarino said. “I missed pretty much everything… I think this is one of the first underperformances I’ve had here. I’m very frustrated and disappointed to lose in the first round.”
A few moments later, on the more modest Court No. 1, Van Assche eventually succumbed to Serbian player Laslo Djere (34th), 6-7 (6/8), 6-4, 6-4.
After making a comeback from being down 5-1 in the first set, the 19-year-old French hope seemed to have done the hardest part when he took a comfortable 3-0 lead in the second set. However, Djere found the resources to turn the situation around.
Van Assche will now have to wait until 2024 to secure his first victory in a Masters 1000.
Fils, slightly older than Van Assche, already has three such victories (one in Rome, two in Shanghai). Ranked 36th in the world, following his first title in Lyon and a recent final appearance in Antwerp, he will face German player Daniel Altmaier (54th) on Tuesday.
Monfils will start his campaign against Argentine Francisco Cerundolo (21st), Humbert (26th) will face American Marcos Giron (59th), and Bonzi (77th) will play against Serbian player Dusan Lajovic (48th).
Earlier in the day, Muller was defeated 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 by Russian qualifier Roman Safiullin (45th), who will be the first opponent of world No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz on Tuesday evening.
