Tennis: Alcaraz first time at the Paris Masters, now the Finals

Carlos Alcaraz's first time at the Masters 1000 in Paris. The Spaniard takes the Parisian tournament by beating Ben Shelton in the final (7-6 7-5) and his fifth success of the year is a small revenge: on the American, who had beaten him at the US Open, and on previous editions. "Coming here every year, without being able to express my best tennis, didn't make me happy - said Alcaraz after the final - But I never gave up. I suffered very painful defeats here, but I always said to myself: let's try again". Now, assures Alcaraz, "with my team we have found a way to win indoors too, on these fast courts".

And it's a message in view of the ATP Finals, starting next Sunday in Turin: the world no.3 came from the success at the ATP 500 in Vienna, and the Masters won tonight is his ninth in his career. After canceling four match points from Taylor Fritz in the quarterfinals, Alcaraz reiterated his propensity for tennis resilience in this final too: at 1-2 in the first set, he took a big risk by conceding four break points but retained his serve thanks to an error from Shelton at the end of a game that lasted seven minutes. Despite both troubling their opponent in their respective rounds of service, the first set had to go to a tie-break. An error by Shelton at 4-4 gave the Spaniard two set points. The first faded on the tape, the second was scored with a forehand error by the American.

At 2-2 in the second set the first break of the match arrived, in favor of Shelton; but Alcaraz counter-broken, bringing the match back to a draw at 4-4, thanks to "top ten" reflexes on his opponent's fast serve.

Then when the American went to serve to bring this set back to a tie break, he gave in and Alcaraz closed the match with a backhand winner.