Paris Masters 2015

Last Masters of the year with Novak winning 5 so far, Murray 2 and Fed 1. Will Paris return to its previous status as the "underdog" Masters or will 2013/14 champ Djokovic reign supreme again?

The draw is out:

http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/scores/current/paris/352/draws

Potential last 16:

Djokovic v Simon
Tsonga v Berdych
Wawrinka v Lopez
Anderson v Nadal
Ferrer v Cilic
Isner v Federer
Gasquet v Nishikori
Goffin v Murray

Big 5 starters:

Djokovic : Gabashvili or Bellucci
Wawrinka: Tomic or Fognini (ouch!)
Nadal: Rosol(!) or GGL
Federer: Seppi or Cuevas
Murray: Coric or Verdasco

R1 To Watch

Tomic v Fognini
Paire v Monfils
Vesely v Dolgopolov

Predictions

Q1: Djokovic - best player in the world by a distance. Monfils in his 2nd match could be tricky but should reach the QF with ease. Dismantled Tsonga with ease in Shanghai and always crushes Berdych. Should cruise to the SF.

Q2: Nadal - could well face Rosol again but have to feel he should handle him better with the confidence gained this week. Think he will have too much for Wawrinka in a potential QF.

Q3: Federer - great draw for Roger. Won't enjoy playing Isner but should get through. Only possible danger is Cilic and I doubt he will get past Ferrer. Federer v Ferrer the easiest call in tennis.

Q4: Murray - assuming he has some focus this week - and the number 2 ranking should mean that he does - should reach the QF easily. Given Kei's questionable current fitness have to pick him to also reach the SF.

Not picking beyond that until I have seen the relative form!

Thanks, BS...

Good work Slippy.

Since Paris court is like mud, I'm expecting more of a same from that guy that a few years back gave up on matches mid way, had silly MTO's, got so breathless etc and turned himself into a God Almighty Stamina rock, all due to him quitting eating bread and gluten (!)

Come on Fed, Andy, anyone out there, save the tennis from him!!!

Vive la France.

Nole to go unbeaten for the rest of the year...

LuvSports! wrote:Nole to go unbeaten for the rest of the year...

If Dr Ivo can get past Berdych and Tsonga, he may cause problems for Djokovic, but it is a long shot.

Difficult to look beyond Djoko for this tournament. Nole has just overtaken McEnroe in weeks at the top (171 and counting).
Still some way to go for Djoko to catch Fed (302 weeks) but it's by no means impossible. I reckon the only player likely to hold him up is Rafa if he storms back in 2016.
I doubt if Djoko will be quite so dominant next year, but he may not need to be to hang on to top spot.

^It's interesting with the "weeks at #1" league table how big a jump there is after McEnroe.

Djokovic now stands at 171 weeks, which places him 5th overall.

To reach 4th place, he has to get past Jimmy Connors' 268 weeks. That's almost 2 more uninterrupted years at #1!

sirfredperry wrote:Difficult to look beyond Djoko for this tournament. Nole has just overtaken McEnroe in weeks at the top (171 and counting).
  Still some way to go for Djoko to catch Fed (302 weeks) but it's by no means impossible. I reckon the only player likely to hold him up is Rafa if he storms back in 2016.
  I doubt if Djoko will be quite so dominant next year, but he may not need to be to hang on to top spot.  

Djoko is certainly favourite; he is rested after Shanghai, he likes Paris and the WTF, he's been the best indoors player for some time and he seems to be playing with a great deal of liberation after picking up the USO, so going unbeaten for the rest of the year is a good bet.

Rafa will almost certainly do better on clay in 2016 than he did in 2015.  If Djoko finishes his career without a French Open he may look back on his Swiss defeats in 2011 and 2015 as the two occasions when the door was ajar.  I'd be very surprised if Nadal manages a bounceback as in 2010 or 2013, but post USO he's finishing this year in better heart than for some time - by contrast to earlier this year it now looks as though it takes a good performance by a real HC heavyweight to knock him out.

That gray outfield though...

So Wawrinka will play Tomic in R2, after Bernard crushes Fognini. Very tough opener for Stan.

Bedene should get Granollers out. 3 MPs. One saved. OH smash and done.

Paire v Monfils is a good match so far. Court looks quicker to me than last year.

Weirdest set ive ever seen. Paire was tanking it, now hes level...

You say that a lot BS.

Fairly sure I said it looked slower last year - it was nearly going backwards after bouncing! I do sense that there has been a general speed increase this year though - certainly in the latter part of the year.

Only Monfils could have lost this match by the way! Will be a great win for Paire.

That's quite something. Paire was 4-0 down in the second and quite literally just smacking the ball out of court so he could get off.. How it turned out that way I'll never know.

great article

all the right coverage

i can't see all the big 4 reaching the semi...although admittedly it's hard to pinpoint where exactly they might lose..I'll say either Murray or Nadal will lose before the SF

Nadal just played Rosol in Basel, and now possibly again in Paris. Someone seems to have Nadal's GOAT.

Born Slippy wrote:Fairly sure I said it looked slower last year - it was nearly going backwards after bouncing! I do sense that there has been a general speed increase this year though - certainly in the latter part of the year.

The surface seems to be "Hard, Acrylic on Wood". I do not think this is accurate. In theory, this is not Greenset on Boards, but it looks similar to Rotterdam as it is now. It is definitely slower than Basel, Cincy, Dubai, etc., perhaps a shade slower than Shanghai, which just says "Hard".

I would imagine Aljaz Bedene will be considered for British Davis Cup duties next year, while Andy Murray will focus more on extending his singles career.

Aljaz Bedene reaches second round of the Masters while having come through two qualifying rounds.

Bedene played pretty well. He seems to have a nice FH, but prone to mistiming. The BH is a standard DHBH.

Interesting that on the ATP website Federer is talking about playing on into 2017. Well, why not. He's going to finish in the top four this year and his form and fitness are holding up well.
He's only around 20 wins away from catching Lendl at number two for the most victories on the tour and only six off Ivan's 94-title total. So still plenty to go for.

Looks a better day of matches today (although Simon v Paire was good yesterday).

All of the big 3 are against players who have caused big shocks against them in the past. Cilic v Dimitrov also has good potential.

Nore Staat wrote:I would imagine Aljaz Bedene will be considered for British Davis Cup duties next year, while Andy Murray will focus more on extending his singles career.

Aljaz Bedene reaches second round of the Masters while having come through two qualifying rounds.

Has Bedene had the judgement against him playing DC for GB overturned then? My understanding is that he is ineligible having previously played for Slovenia(?), and that his change of nationality and citizenship makes no difference to this.

IIRC he was arguing that he was in the process of changing nationality before the ATP / ITF decided the 'one nation only' eligibility rule, and therefore it should not apply to him.

His appeal is just before the DC final apparently. So, currently, he remains ineligible.

Cilic has been easily the better player, has created 10 break points to Dimitrov's 0 yet currently trails 67 55. If he loses this set he will be fuming!

Dimitrov wins. Cilic had his chances (10/10 )

Gasquet will leak a set the way he is playing, but should prevail against Mayer.

Mayer gives it up.

Murray thrashes Coric 6-1 6-2 in under an hour.

I dunno about Coric, sure he moves very nicely and seems to have a decent tennis brain, but for me he just doesn't have enough penetration with his shots, particularly the BH and serve. Today he hit just four winners, including one ace (down at 57% of first serve points won too), and none off the BH side. Just felt whenever Murray got him pinned in the BH corner there was no way back.

Murray was good. Served well with good variety (don't think Coric even made it to deuce r 30-30), hit the BH nicely, destroyed Coric's second serve (mid-20's points won). Nothing spectacular, but a good, professional performance to see off a potentially dangerous opponent. Next up, Goffin, in a dress rehearsal for the DC final.

Court looked slower today, but still quicker than last year. May have been due to having two excellent movers on court, but definitely wouldn't class the court as "fast".

Coric has had an outstanding year for an 18-year-old and may be the long season caught up with him today. Doubt whether he'll be winning only three games against Murray in the future.

How far does Murray need to go to guarantee number 2 for the o2?

ok I got it. If Fed wins hed need to make the final. As a semi final is worth 360, and hes 620 ahead, so hed be 3rd by 20 points.
A final is worth 600 so for Fed its the title or nothing...

Pretty sure they are on the same side of the draw. So only one can make final. Could meet in semi.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:Murray thrashes Coric 6-1 6-2 in under an hour.

I dunno about Coric, sure he moves very nicely and seems to have a decent tennis brain, but for me he just doesn't have enough penetration with his shots, particularly the BH and serve. Today he hit just four winners, including one ace (down at 57% of first serve points won too), and none off the BH side. Just felt whenever Murray got him pinned in the BH corner there was no way back.

Murray was good. Served well with good variety (don't think Coric even made it to deuce r 30-30), hit the BH nicely, destroyed Coric's second serve (mid-20's points won). Nothing spectacular, but a good, professional performance to see off a potentially dangerous opponent. Next up, Goffin, in a dress rehearsal for the DC final.

Court looked slower today, but still quicker than last year. May have been due to having two excellent movers on court, but definitely wouldn't class the court as "fast".

They were saying on Sky Sports yesterday that the court is really slow.

Nadal playing himself back into form. As long as he doesn't injure himself he should be able to get himself back into the top four and at a stretch top two within the next eight months.

Getting a proper look at this hc for the first time... is it REALLY that fast? It looks like the slowest indoor court I have ever seen...

The court is very much slower and has been getting slower and slower every year. This reminds me of Miami.

Coric is only 18, which to be frank in these times is the 80's equivalent of been 13

Good tennis so far this tournament. Anderson saves MP and wins against Thiem. 14 of the 16 seeds through (Dimitrov and Troicki the interlopers). Setting up nicely.

Very surprised that Lopez lost. He seemed to be very upset at the very tail end of the match. He just walked away from the MP serve.

well I made a mess of that one. Thought Murray-Goffin was at 10:30 UK time rather than French time, so promptly switched on 2 minutes ago to see Murray serving it out at 6-1 5-0

Murray played well in that last game, with two lovely DLBH winners and a nice volleyed winner too, but hard to judge much based on one game obviously. Anyone watch the full banger and care to give me a quick summary? Was Murray just awesome or Goffin poor?

Either way a mightily impressive start to the week for Murray, just four games dropped over two matches

Ouch! Total demolition job by Murray. Goffin looking lightweight on a slow court and got bullied by Murray, particularly on 2nd serve. A nice little marker put down for Davis Cup.

Murray must feel great after two dominant displays so far this week. Showed excellent controlled aggression throughout and was making the running in the majority of baseline exchanges, while making very few cheap errors. In this form and on this surface he has to be strong favourite against either Nishi or Gasquet in the next round.

Are the courts really that slow? Anderson piled down 30 aces yesterday. I did a quick calculation on first serve points won yesterday and over the first two rounds it was at 73.7%, compared to 73.9% in Basel over the same rounds. Bearing in mind Dr Ivo played two matches in Basel compared to one in Paris that suggests to me they are around the same speed?

Imperious from Murray by the way. All the big 4 looking dialled in so far. Ruthless destructions all round.

When Murray is well focussed he has always had an ability to dispatch all players with ease except the top three: Djokovic (Mk II), Nadal, Federer, where he, in general, comes a cropper. There was a glimpse of a Murray MkII Lendl DJMix, but sadly that seems to now be extinct.

Slightly weird confession time: I actually prefer Murray playing like this to the Lendl version. Sure, Lendl helped him win some slams, which was great. But he did so by turning him into a fairly boring player IMO, by focussing purely on the FH and turning it into a dominant weapon. His BH became mostly a rallying shot, he wasn't driving into it so much, particularly cross court. Obviously some of this may be down to injury, but... Since he teamed up with Mauresmo I think he's returned to some of what made him so exciting to watch originally. His FH has slipped a little, and it's resulted in more struggles against the top players, but from a purely tennis perspective I still prefer his game now.

Nishikori-Gasquet is very entertaining to watch right now. Both players using lots of angles and the full dimensions of the court. No breaks yet at 5-5 in the first set.

Nore Staat wrote:When Murray is well focussed he has always had an ability to dispatch all players with ease except the top three: Djokovic (Mk II), Nadal, Federer, where he, in general, comes a cropper.  There was a glimpse of a Murray MkII Lendl DJMix, but sadly that seems to now be extinct.

Murray's standard of Tennis this year is arguably better than at any point in his career. The Lendl phase is way over-estimated - there actually was far more limited play as Lendl wanted him to shorten points and be more aggressive. It was great to see the results, but not as great to watch as previous versions

Now he has a lovely combination of all aspects of his game, so I don't really go with this view or impression given that he is worse

He's come up against Novak who would simply have been unplayable in 2012/13 and also a Roger Federer at Wimbledon who loved the fast conditions that Friday produced. The US Open defeat was annoying, because part of the reason for him not been at his best was his daft scheduling, which he's now admitted

i.e. a fully flowing Murray is playing better than he ever was

10 breaks of serve so far in 18 games - Djokovic v Simon.

Simon winning 40% points on his own serve; 48% on Novak's - comedy. 6-5 in the 2nd set to Novak who will serve for it. One hold each in this set so far.