Carlos Alcaraz was not fond of losing opening matches at an ATP tournament until he met the fearless Russian ball striker Roman Safiullin at the Paris Masters.
Alcaraz, playing his first match since a round of 16 exit at the Shanghai Masters over two weeks ago, was overpowered by Safiullin, who clearly took advantage of a subpar performance by the Spaniard to earn the biggest win of his life.
The result sets Safiullin on course to break the world's Top 40 for the first time, highlighting the immense work he's done over the last six months in which he reached a maiden Grand Slam quarterfinal at Wimbledon and his first Tour-level final in Chengdu.
The scoreline was a shock in many quarters, but not the man who pulled it off, who knew he had to raise his level to beat one of the world's best players. It was the first time Alcaraz had lost his opening match at an ATP tournament this year.
Alcaraz has played 16 tournaments on the ATP Tour in 2023 and earned 63 match wins - the second-most behind Tour leader Daniil Medvedev. Remarkably, he has made the semifinals or better in 12 of those tournaments. Alcaraz's 86.3% win rate is also the second-highest on tour behind Novak Djokovic (90% win rate in 2023).
Prior to Paris, the earliest defeat in Alcaraz's 2023 campaign came in Rome where he lost to Hungarian qualifier Fabian Marozsan, just a week after winning the Madrid Masters for the second time. But unlike in Rome (where he was able to bounce back pretty quickly at Roland Garros), his latest defeat signals a mini-crisis.
It is also the first time this year Alcaraz has lost back-to-back matches. The last time it happened was in August 2022. He'll play one final tournament at the ATP Finals, hoping he'll still have the chance to reclaim the No. 1 ranking, but his chances have almost vanished.
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