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Roman Safiullin of Russia beat top seed and World No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain 6-3 6-4 in the first round of the Paris Masters on Monday, Oct. 31. It was a surprising win for the 43rd ranked player in the world, who has proven his ability to beat higher ranked players in the past as well.
Meanwhile, Alcaraz's underwhelming run continued as the Spaniard has failed to impress since his title triumph at Wimbledon Championships 2023. As a result, there has been a huge dent on Alcaraz's plan to succeed Novak Djokovic as the World No. 1.
Safiullin will face his compatriot Karen Khachanov in the second round on Thursday. Khachanov will be the favourite in that match, but Safiullin is well capable of causing another upset.
On that note, let us take a look at two things that stood out in the match between Alcaraz and Safiullin:
#1. Safiullin made Alcaraz play off his backhand more often:
Safiullin did not allow Alcaraz to dictate terms with his forehand for the majority of the match. He directed a lot of traffic towards the 20-year-old Spaniard’s backhand and made the latter go around his backhand pretty often.
As a result, Alcaraz failed to hit his forehand with the kind of power he would have liked to. Safiullin thus broke Alcaraz in the eighth game of the first set to take a 5-3 lead and then served it out to take a 1-0 lead. The win in the first set gave the Russian the requisite confidence to take the attack to the Spaniard.
#2. Alcaraz rushed the net often, but Safiullin made him pay:
Alcaraz started rushing the net more often as the match progressed, to put some pressure on his opponent. However, Safiullin proved to be equal to the task by passing the Spaniard on a few occasions and also playing the lob really well a few times.
Alcaraz, to his credit, hit a few wonderful return winners to make his presence felt, but it was not enough to topple Safiullin on the day. The Russian got the decisive break of serve in the second set, before holding his serve to finish the match off.
Alcaraz failed to serve well in the match. He was not able to hit a single ace and was broken four times in the match. Moreover, he managed to win only 41% of the points on his second serve, while Safiullin managed a considerably better 60%.
