Family Affair II: Vacherot will face his cousin again after 1st-round win at Paris Masters
PARIS (AP) — Valentin Vacherot set up another match against his cousin by beating 14th-seeded Jiri Lehecka 6-1, 6-3 in the first round of the Paris Masters on Tuesday.
The 40th-ranked Vacherot will face Arthur Rinderknech in the second round on Wednesday — a little more than two weeks after beating him in the Shanghai Masters final. Vacherot made an against-the-odds run from qualifying in China to win his first career tournament and soar up the rankings.
Preparations will be a little different this time.
“We’ll stay in our own bubbles. We’re cousins, yes, but we’re not on the same team so we’re not going to have dinner together tonight,” said Vacherot, who is from Monaco.
“In Shanghai we had breakfast together, we warmed up together, because we were far from everyone and everywhere,” Vacherot added. “He came to see my matches, I would come and watch his matches, and we had no one else to rely upon. (This time) all our families are here so we’ll stick to our sides, and I hope that we’re going to deliver a wonderful match.”
Later Tuesday in the second round, top-ranked Carlos Alcaraz took on Cameron Norrie; fourth-seeded Taylor Fritz played Aleksandar Vukic, and fifth-seeded Ben Shelton was up against Flavio Cobolli.
In remaining first-round play, there were wins for ninth-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime and No. 11 Daniil Medvedev.
New venue
The indoor tournament moved from its long-standing home at the Bercy Arena — which hosted the men’s and women’s basketball finals at last year’s Paris Olympics — to La Défense Arena. The multisport venue is home to a rugby team and fans here witnessed swim star Léon Marchand’s gold-medal rush at the Paris Games, as well as a Taylor Swift concert in May last year.
No. 2 Jannik Sinner, who plays Zizou Bergs in the second round Wednesday, appreciates it.
“It’s much more comfortable. Bigger center court and also court 1 and court 2 (are) great courts,” the four-time Grand Slam champion from Italy said. “We have some great facilities where we can practice with a great gym and everything set up in a perfect way.”
Third-ranked Alexander Zverev finds it a little noisy.
“If you’re (practicing) on one of the outside courts, you have noise from Court 1, you have noise from the speakers of (the main) court,” the big-serving German said. “There’s a lot going on.”
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