PETE ZIEBRON
Benoit Paire, like Nick Kyrgios, plays his best tennis when the stadium is full, energized and enthusiastic. Without being able to feed off fan support, the result of the match can be disappointing.
Paire squares off against Nikolai Davydenko in Cincinnati, 2013
photo by Karl Corbett (c) Tennis Acumen
This May in Madrid, Paire elaborated: "When you play in front of people, the thing change a lot.....when the people are coming and watch the match, they support me and that's what I like."
Last night in Cincinnati, Paire converted his 4th match point to defeat #6 seed Denis Shapovalov to advance to the 3rd round. The victory was Paire's first top ten win since 2017.
While waiting for French press to arrive in Cincinnati in 2015, I had the opportunity to conduct a seven minute one-on one interview with Paire. He was most appreciative and I asked him about the fact that he not only played, but won a Futures event, a Challenger event as well as an ATP tour level event earlier in the year. The Frenchman smiled and elaborated on the fact that he felt he needed more match play at the time.
When he won the Futures event in Bressuire, France in January of 2015, Paire's ranking was #135. In February, he won the Bergamo, Italy Challenger to improve to world #121. A run to the Cherbourg, France Challenger Final as well as winning the Quimper, France Challenger in late February and early March lifted Paire's ranking to #85 but more importantly, he was getting the match play he needed.
Entering the Bastad 250 event in July with a ranking of #62, Paire won the event and reached #42 in the world as a result.
My favorite Paire memory: crushing a live ball out of Grandstand in Cincinnati when he was Match Point down in 2016.
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