Home crowd lifts Humbert to upset win over Alcaraz at Paris Masters

PARIS (AP) — Frenchman Ugo Humbert harnessed the energy of the home crowd and produced one of his best career performances in beating Carlos Alcaraz 6-1, 3-6, 7-5 to reach the quarterfinals of the Paris Masters on Thursday.

A flurry of forehand and backhand winners had Alcaraz 5-0 down in a first set so one-sided that Alcaraz — a four-time Grand Slam winner — ironically waved his racket and grinned to the crowd after holding in the sixth game.

“There were some incredible points, I think I have just experienced one of my greatest moments on a tennis court,” Humbert said. “I don’t want it to end here.”

The second-seeded Alcaraz controlled the second set but, after missing chances during the third set, served to stay in the match. The crowd jeered a replayed point but Alcaraz was unperturbed and held comfortably for 5-5.

Sensing a big upset, Humbert got the Bercy Arena crowd going in the next game.

The 26-year-old left-hander looked like he was about to do a lap of honor after a brilliant forehand pass down the line at full stretch and earned ovations following a superb angled volley and a booming winner that flew past his Spanish opponent.

A rattled-looking Alcaraz trailed 0-30 in the 12th game. Umpire Richard Haigh intervened several times to calm down the crowd, urging them not to cheer when Alcaraz made a fault on serve and then said in English “Guys, you’re affecting both players.”

Serving again to stay in the match at 15-40, Alcaraz saved one match point but returned long on the next as the 15th-seeded Humbert set up a last-eight contest with Australian Jordan Thompson.

Later Thursday, eighth-seeded Grigor Dimitrov needed to beat Arthur Rinderknech to have an outside chance of reaching the season-ending ATP Finals. Dimitrov is in 10th race and must reach Sunday’s final in Paris. The Bulgarian veteran was runner-up here last year to Novak Djokovic.

Earlier, Alexander Zverev won the serving battle and silenced the raucous home crowd, beating French prospect Arthur Fils 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.

The third-seeded German compiled 16 aces compared to nine for the 20-year-old Fils in their first indoor meeting on a fast court suiting heavy servers with big forehands. He improved to 3-1 overall against Fils.

“I am happy I hung in there today. It was a great match,” Zverev said. “He is a great player and has improved a lot this year. I am looking forward to the next few battles we are going to have.”

Zverev, the French Open runner-up, saved three break points in serving for the match at 5-3 with the crowd cheering hard for Fils.

“The atmosphere here is a lot louder than at Roland Garros,” the 27-year-old Zverev said. “It feels the court is smaller and the crowd is on top of you. It is something we don’t get a lot on tour but I love it.”

He next plays 10th-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas in their 16th career meeting, with Tsitsipas 10-5 up.

The big-serving Greek earlier rallied to beat Francisco Cerundolo 6-7 (1), 6-4, 6-2 to stay in contention to qualify for next month’s Finals in Turin, the year-end tournament gathering the season’s top eight players.

Although Tsitsipas was typically strong on serve, hitting nine aces and saving all three break points, he was not as clinical on Cerundolo’s serve and converted three of his 11 break-point chances.

In other third-round matches, ninth-seeded Alex De Minaur kept up his chances of reaching the Finals with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-3 victory against Britain’s Jack Draper, the U.S. Open semifinalist, and 2022 champion Holger Rune edged out lucky loser Arthur Cazaux 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Also, 2018 champion Karen Khachanov won 7-6 (5), 6-4 against Alexei Popyrin and Thompson advanced to the first Masters quarterfinal of his career by beating veteran Adrian Mannarino 7-5, 7-6 (5), saving two set points in the second set along the way.

“It’s what we’ve been working towards, these big results at big tournaments,” Thompson said. “It got a little bit squeaky at the end there, but I did well to turn it around.”

Top-ranked Jannik Sinner pulled out of the Paris Masters as did the record seven-time champion Djokovic.