Auger-Aliassime maintains late-season form at Paris Masters, riding 17 aces to Round 1 win

Montreal's Felix Auger-Aliassime continued his impressive season-ending run of form with a 7-6 (3), 6-4 first-round win over Germany's Jan-Lennard Struff on Tuesday at the Paris Masters tennis tournament.

Auger-Aliassime, ranked 19th on the ATP Tour, had 17 aces and saved all three break points he faced as he improved his 2023 record to 23-18.

The first set went to a tiebreak after both players held serve throughout. Auger-Aliassime roared out to a 6-0 lead in the extra session and won it on his fourth set point.

Auger-Aliassime picked up the only break of the match to go up 2-1 in the second set, then capped the victory in just under one hour 39 minutes by winning a 19-shot rally on his second match-point chance.

It was the first meeting between Auger-Aliassime and Struff, No. 27 in the world, since they split a pair of matches in 2020.

Auger-Aliassime, coming off a successful defence of his Swiss Indoors title last week, picked up another convincing win over a quality opponent. He defeated No. 6 Holger Rune in the semifinals and No. 11 Hubert Hurkacz in the final last week in Basel without dropping a set.

WATCH | Auger-Aliassime posts straight-sets win in Swiss Indoors final:

Auger-Aliassime next faces a familiar foe in the seventh-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, who had a first-round bye.

Tsitsipas holds a 5-3 career record in matches against Auger-Aliassime, but the Canadian won their last meeting in the final of last year's Rotterdam Open.

Alexander Zverev and Hurkacz stayed in contention for the three remaining spots at the ATP Finals by advancing to the second round.

The 10th-seeded Zverev rallied past qualifier Marton Fucsovics 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, while Hurkacz overcame Sebastian Korda 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3.

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