Roman Safiullin claimed the biggest win of his career by defeating second seed Carlos Alcaraz in the second round of the Paris Masters. The Russian won 6-3, 6-4, handing Alcaraz his first opening-round loss of 2023.
Safiullin climbed to No. 39 on the ATP Live Charts after the win, moving into the Top 40 for the first time. The 26-year-old's impressive win over Alcaraz comes after his breakthrough run to the Wimbledon quarter-finals and the Chengdu final in recent months.
Safiullin plays against Alcaraz in round 2 of the Paris Masters (Photo: Getty).
"Since the qualifiers, I haven't played at this level, but when you play against Alcaraz or opponents in the Top 10, Top 20, you have to raise your level and I did that," Safiullin said after the match.
"For Alcaraz, it wasn't his best performance, but I'm still happy that I won. Even if Alcaraz wasn't in his best form, it's very difficult to beat him. So I'm really happy that I did it."
The world number 2's form was very inconsistent in Paris. In the first set, after getting a break in the third game, Alcaraz let his opponent break him in the next game. Safiullin got another break in the eighth game and easily secured a 6-3 victory.
In the second set, Alcaraz took a 3-1 lead with a break in the fourth game, but then the Spaniard had some shaky games as he lost three games in a row and let Safiullin lead 4-3. The Russian went straight to a 6-4 victory after two good service games.
Alcaraz is not in good form (Photo: Getty).
Alcaraz was forced to withdraw from Basel due to left leg and back problems. His participation in the Paris Masters was his first match since losing to Grigor Dimitrov in the round of 16 at the Shanghai Masters 20 days ago.
Alcaraz's second-round defeat at the Paris Masters dealt a heavy blow to his hopes of finishing the season as world number one for the second year in a row. Alcaraz is now 500 points behind world number one Novak Djokovic in the ATP Live Race To Turin, where the Serbian begins his Paris Masters campaign tonight (1 November).
Following Alcraz's defeat, ninth seed Taylor Fritz withdrew, giving his place to Daniel Altmaier. Tenth seed Alexander Zverev struggled to a 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 win over Marton Fucsovics in the first round. Fifth seed Andrey Rublev beat Yoshihito Nishioka 6-3, 6-3 to reach the third round.
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