Rolex Paris Masters 2024: Results & updates

Highlights

Day two: Draper outlasts Fritz for sixth career top 10 win

Jack Draper is through to the third round of the Rolex Paris Masters after knocking out world No.6 Taylor Fritz 7-6(6), 4-6, 6-4 in two hours and 21 minutes.

A sixth career top 10 win for the young Brit comes off the back of his biggest title win in Vienna just a few days ago.

“I thought I did a really good job of competing really hard,” he said. “Taylor’s always a tough battle, he competes really hard, serves very well. He’s one of the best players on the tour. Really happy with the win today and proud of my fight.”

Draper will take on ninth seed Alex de Minaur in the next round for a spot in the quarter-finals.

Fritz hadn’t played a competitive match for 18 days coming into a battle with last week’s Erste Bank Open champion and the American got off to a slow start. Draper capitalised on some sloppy errors to break on only the third game of the match.

The American quickly brushed himself off and proved incredibly solid from the baseline during the second half of the set. Draper showed his first signs of trouble late in the opener, suffering his first break of the tournament while serving for the set at 5-4 as Fritz forced him to a tie-break..

The British No.1 led throughout the tie-break – producing sensational on-the-run winners off both wings. Despite missing on two set points at 6-4, he finally closed out the set on the third time of asking after 56 minutes.

Fritz had to dig deep serving at 3-2 down in the second – a game that ultimately swung the set in his favour. In a game lasting over 12 minutes, the American staved off six break points to hold and then went on to break the Briton to love on the following game.

Draper had lost their previous two meetings this season in third sets, but the 22-year-old made sure it wouldn’t happen a third time.

Having lost the second set, Draper quickly settled back into his rhythm on serve and pushed Fritz all the way until he finally cracked serving to stay in the match. At 5-4, 30-30 the world No.6 hit a double fault before pushing a forehand wide into the tramlines – extending Draper’s winning run to seven straight matches.

Doubles

In the men’s doubles – next season’s all-British pairing of Neal Skupski and Joe Salisbury went head-to-head in the opening round.

Skupski and New Zealand’s Michael Venus pulled off a comprehensive 6-1, 6-0 victory over Salisbury ad Dutchman Jean-Julien Rojer to set up a second round clash against top seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos.

Lloyd Glasspool and Adam Pavlasek made a winning start against Sander Gille and Joran Vliegan – beating the Belgian’s 7-6(2), 6-4.

They will play fifth seeds Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori in the second round.

Last week’s Swiss Indoors Basel champions Jamie Murray and John Peers bowed out to French duo Arthur Fils and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard 7-5, 7-6(6).