Coming from a preliminary tournament during which he seemed to regain good qualities, Benoît Paire (170th ATP) did not manage to continue in the main draw of the Miami Masters 1000, losing Thursday in the first round, against the Japanese Yasuke Watanuki, 123rd and also passed through the qualifications in Florida (6-4, 7-5 in 1h35).
Opposed, a month ago, in the second round of the Challenger ATP 125 tournament in Monterrey, the two men had played a fairly quick match, won by the Japanese (7-6 (2), 6-1 in 1h05). Benoît Paire had been harmless on the return, scoring only seven points on Watanuki’s services.
11 double faults in total
For this revenge against the 24-year-old and 1.80 m Japanese, Benoît Paire, soon to be 34, did not really find the key to recovery, over the whole match. In the first set, he came back from 1-3 to 3-3, before immediately offering a new break on his fifth double fault of the match. Too fragile on his own commitments, not intense enough in his movements and his strikes, the Frenchman gave up his serve at 1-1 in the second set and did not live a single game without having break points to save in this set. Despite his repeated inaccuracies, he did not let go, even coming back from 2-4 to 5-4, but the thread finally let go, at 5-5, when he lost his serve on his doubles fouls 10 and 11.
In the next round, Watanuki will therefore have the opportunity to challenge the American Frances Tiafoe, 14th in the world. For Benoît Paire, the rest of the program is scheduled for the Challenger tournament in Lille next week.
