The round of 16 matches at the Paris tournament were held today (Thursday), with world number 1 ranked Mokkad Carlos Alcaraz already securing his place among the last eight, 37-year-old Gilles Simon playing his last career match and Novak Djokovic also had no difficulty against Karen Hatz Anov is on the way to the quarter-finals.
Novak Djokovic – Karen Khacharov 4:6, 1:6
The Serbian, ranked sixth in the competition, struggled for 50 minutes in the first set, in which he broke twice and was also broken, but the second set was one-sided – the Russian survived another thriller to avoid a break in his first service game, but then he was broken in two consecutive games and it ended in 4: 6, 1:6 crushing of Nola in 1 hour and 25 minutes. This is the 11th victory in a row for Djokovic who will meet the Italian Lorenzo Mozetti in the semi-finals.
Carlos Alcaraz – Grigor Dimitrov 1:6, 3:6
The number 1 ranked in the world, the winner of the United States Championship from a little over a month ago, had no difficulty against the 31-year-old Bulgarian, he recorded a second victory in Paris over the zero and in the quarter-finals he will face Holger Rona, the 19-year-old Dane who is ranked 18 in the world who surprised the Russian Andrey Rublev. Back in El Carras, the Spaniard broke twice on the way to an extremely fast 0:3 and a 1:6 victory in the set in 29 minutes, also in the second set he immediately broke and went up to 0:3, but also broke back and needed another quarter of an hour to decide the set and the entire match.
Kasper Road (3) – Lorenzo Mozetti 4:6, 6:4, 6:4
The third ranked player in the competition ended his journey unexpectedly when he dropped a game advantage and lost to an Italian who is ranked 23rd in the world. The Norwegian Rod first won 4:6 thanks to a break in the tenth and last game of the first set, but Mozetti rewarded him in a similar way when he broke him in the ninth game of the second set. In the third and decisive set, Mozetti for the first time kept all his serves, broke in the fifth game and advanced to the quarterfinals, where he will meet Novak Djokovic.
Gilles Simon – Felix Oger Eliasim 6:1, 6:3
The French tennis player announced that he would retire at the end of the year, so this was the last match of the 37-year-old Gilles Simon. After surprising Taylor Fritz in the previous round and also passing Andy Murray, Simon (188 in the world) could no longer face the eighth-ranked Canadian. Eliasim broke Simon’s first service game on the way to 1:6 in 37 minutes in the first set and then the Frenchman tried to fight with his last strength, but at 3:3 he was already broken, broken twice in a row and it ended in victory for the Canadian, who apparently ended his way of Simon on the tour after 20 years during which he won 14 ATP titles, won 504 ATP matches, at his peak ranked fifth in the world in January 2009 and never made it past the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam.
Additional results:
Holger Rona (18, Denmark) – Andrei Rublev (7, Russia) – 4:6, 5:7
Alex De Minor (25, Australia) – Fernandes Tiafou (21, USA) 6:3, 7:6 (5)
Corentin Motte (64, France) – Stephanus Tsitsipas (5, Greece) 6:3, 7:6 (3)
Pablo Carreno Busta (14, Spain) – Tommy Paul (31, United States) 6:4, 6:4