Russia's Daniil Medvedev won a pitched battle Sunday against Alexander Zverev to win the Paris Masters 1000, his first title of the season.

The Russian, fifth player 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 tackle the London Masters with full confidence, which will take place from November 15 to 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 a seven-game winning streak to win the second set and break away 4-0 in the deciding set.

Too far for Zverev to come back.

Cascading victories

So far, the 23-year-old German had lost just once in six encounters with 24-year-old Medvedev at the Masters 1000 in Shanghai last year.

The Russian had an exceptional season with a Homeric final 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 the eighth in Roland Garros.

He had never passed the quarters at Bercy.

A performance achieved in 2018.

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.

The tormented private life of Alexander Zverev

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 medical camera: "A lot of people will try to erase the smile of my 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.

With AFP and Reuters

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