Paris (AFP)

Missiles in service, followed if necessary by bursts of laser shots from the baseline: Russian Daniil Medvedev won a pitched battle Sunday against Alexander Zverev to win the Masters 1000 in Paris, his first title of the season.

The Russian, 5th in the world, who had never gone beyond the second round of the Parisian indoor tournament, won 5-7, 6-4, 6-1.

This victory will allow him to climb to 4th place in the ATP ranking on Monday, ahead of Roger Federer, and to approach the London Masters with full confidence (November 15-22).

A good part of the match was played on serve, the two men, known to have two of the biggest first balls on the circuit, multiplying the face-offs beyond 200 km / h.

The first to break was Zverev who avoided the decisive game in the first set.

The German then held the shock for much of the second set, including several break points to 1-1.

But the Russian's grazing strikes gradually eroded his defense.

At 4-4, Medvedev went on 7 winning games in a row to win the second set and break away 4-0 in the deciding set.

Too far for Zverev to come back.

- Zverev's troubles -

Until then, the 23-year-old German had lost only once in 6 games with Medvedev (24), at the Masters 1000 in Shanghai last year, while the Russian had an exceptional season (with a final Homeric at the US Open against Nadal and his first two titles in Masters 1000, Cincinnati and Shanghai).

Unlike Medvedev who had not won a tournament since Shanghai last year, Zverev remained on two consecutive titles in October in Cologne where two tournaments have been played in two weeks, that is to say 12 matches won consecutively, since his defeat in 8th to Roland Garros.

It does not matter if you are looking for something.

The troubles Zverev encounters in his private life, and in particular the accusations of violence made by an ex-girlfriend whom he denies outright, do not seem to have a negative effect on his game.

At the end of the match on Sunday, he himself returned to the subject on the court, in the middle of a room in Bercy desperately empty because of the closed medical session: "A lot of people will try to erase my smile. face, but under my (sanitary) mask I have a broad smile, I feel amazingly good on the court, the people I love are with me. I will soon be a father, everything is going very well in my life! " , he said.

This fatherhood is however another source of trouble for him since he is separated from the future mother.

He will also be at the Masters Tournament in London alongside Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Dominic Thiem, Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Andrey Rublev and Diego Schwartzman.

© 2020 AFP