Paris, Nov 4 (IANS): Russia's Daniil Medvedev did a lot of good to his faint hopes of preventing Novak Djokovic from taking the year-end No 1 spot in the ATP world rankings, by securing a hard-fought win against Ilya Ivashka of Belarus in the Paris Masters.
Medvedev squandered a commanding first set lead and was forced to work harder than he wanted on Wednesday night as he remained on course for the title. The reigning US Open champion has a faint hope of denying Novak Djokovic a record seventh finish as year-end No. 1 in the ATP Rankings. At a minimum, by winning the Paris title the World No. 2 can ensure that Djokovic won't clinch World No. 1 honours before the ATP Finals in Turin. Medvedev needs to win at Paris and in ATP Finals and hope that Djokovic does poorly in both.
Medvedev, the defending champion in Paris, had three set points and a 5-1 lead before allowing the Belarusian to claw back to even terms in the opening set at 5-all. But after doing all the hard work to push back into the match, Ivashka, the World No. 46, sprayed four unforced errors to drop serve to love to cede momentum back to Medvedev, who would eventually claim a 7-5, 6-4 victory.
"The last time we played he beat me at Davis Cup. I've known him since the Futures and I knew t'at he's a great player on the rise, so I knew it would not be easy," Medvedev said. "At the beginning of the match [my level] was good but in the middle of the match, there were some things I could do better. The most important thing is victory.
"It doesn't matter how you play in the first round. The one who raises his level throughout the tournament is the one who will win it."
Medvedev will next face American Sebastian Korda, who defeated last week's St. Petersburg champion Marin Cilic 6-2, 6-4. Korda did not face a breakpoint and dropped just seven points on serve.
"It's always exciting to play someone for the"first time," Medvedev said. "We've never even practised together. He just had a great win over Marin who is coming off a tourname't win, so I'm very excited to play him tomorrow."
In other matches, lucky loser Alexei Popyrin of Russia advanced third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas after the Greek retired with an injury with the score 4-2 in the first set.
Taylor Fritz of the United States beat fifth seed Andrey Rublev of Russia; fourth seed Alexander Zverev of Germany beat Dusan Lajovic of Serbia 6-3, 7-6(5); Sixth seed Casper Ruud of Norway defeated Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan 6-4, 6-0.