MADRID, 30 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz will begin his journey this Tuesday in the Paris-Bercy tournament, the ninth and last Masters 1000 of the season, and in which the final stretch of a great year 2023 begins that will culminate with his presence in the Finals of the ATP of Turin (Italy).
The Murcian, current number two in the world, arrives in the French capital looking to continue fighting to finish for the second consecutive campaign at the top of the ranking, a fierce fight with the Serbian Novak Djokovic, who returns to action in this event after a few weeks of rest after winning the US Open and playing the Davis Cup.
The one from El Palmar seeks to end a year in the best possible way on the Parisian indoor court, in which he has had a small downturn in recent months, also weighed down by physical problems from which he has not fully recovered, although he has recovered enough to reach as far as possible in this last Masters 1000 where in 2022 he was precisely injured in the quarterfinals against the Danish Holger Rune.
Thus, Alcaraz has not tasted a title since his great conquest at Wimbledon, and since then he lowered his spectacular performance somewhat with only one more final, the sensational one at the Cincinnati Masters 1000 against ‘Nole’. From there, the semifinals in New York and Beijing have been the best results for the Spaniard, who in the last Masters 1000, in Shanghai (China), lost in the quarterfinals against a great Grigor Dimitrov.
Subsequently, he withdrew from the Basel (Switzerland) tournament and will now try to be among the best again in an event where he will debut, already in the afternoon-night session and not before 7:30 p.m., against a dangerous rival , the Russian Roman Safiullin, 45 in the world, who has never been measured and who will arrive with more rhythm after beating the Frenchman Alexandre Muller this Monday (7-6, 6-3), although the Murcian also refined his set-up with a level training with Djokovic.
If he surpasses his debut, the path in Paris-Bercy will become tougher with another Russian, Karen Khachanov, as a possible rival in the round of 16, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas or the German Alexander Zverev in the quarterfinals, and the Russian Daniil Medvedev, in great form and his executioner in the US Open, in a hypothetical semifinals.