World No 2 Carlos Alcaraz suffered a shock defeat to Roman Safiullin at the Paris Masters as he lost his opening match of a tournament for the first time in 2023.
The two-time Grand Slam champion was beaten 6-3 6-4 by the world No 45 in what was the players’ first meeting on the ATP Tour, with the Russian helped by Alcaraz’s 27 unforced errors.
Safiullin converted four of eight break points – two in each set – and saved two of the four break points Alcaraz managed to engineer as he recorded his biggest victory to date.
The 26-year-old has emerged as a force in 2023, reaching the quarter-finals at Wimbledon before losing to Jannik Sinner and finishing runner-up to Alexander Zverev at the Chengdu Open.
Safiullin said after beating Alcaraz: “Against Carlos and these top-10, top-20 guys, you have to lift up the level. I managed to do it.
“For Carlos, it was not his best performance, but still I’m happy that I can win. Even if he’s not in the best shape it’s tough to beat him, so I’m really happy that I made it.
“Everything against these guys [is important]. Tactical, physical, the mental part. [It’s key] to stay focussed from the beginning to the end. Who can make it longer is going to be the winner.”
Alcaraz was playing for the first time since his last-16 defeat to Grigor Dimitrov in Shanghai 20 days ago and looked rusty as he slipped to an opening-match defeat in a Masters 1000 event for the first time since going down to Tommy Paul in Montreal last year.
Alcaraz broke early in the first set before being pegged back, while he then opened up a 3-1 advantage in the second set only for Safiullin to reel off five of the next six games to clinch victory.
Alcaraz’s loss to Safiullin dents his hopes of ending the season as world No 1 for the second straight year.
Novak Djokovic, who currently holds that ranking, begins his Paris Masters campaign against Tomás Martín Etcheverry on Wednesday.