The other big tournament in Paris
The Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy (POPB) was inaugurated in February 1984 by cyclists from the Paris Six-Day event. It hosted an exhibition tennis match in 1985, and then the first ever Open de Paris, from 27 October – 2 November 1986. The avowed aim of the event was for it to quickly become the biggest and most important indoor tournament in the world. The first winner was Germany’s Boris Becker, at the age of just 18 years and 11 months – by which time he already had two Wimbledon titles to his name. 82,117 spectators flocked to the event over the seven days, making the inaugural Open de Paris a success.
From the beginning of the 1990s, the tournament began to step up a level, with the world’s top players consistently appearing. Guy Forget was the first Frenchman to take the title, in 1991, after an epic five-set tussle over Pete Sampras (USA) in what was maybe the best final in the history of the tournament. The two of them would square off again a month later in Lyon, in an equally storied Davis Cup final.
In 2000, the tournament was rebadged as the Paris Tennis Masters Series. Russia’s Marat Safin was the first winner under the new name, defeating Australian Mark Philippoussis 8-6 in a fifth-set tie-breaker. The following year there was a second French success, courtesy of Sébastien Grosjean. In 2007, Argentina’s David Nalbandian defeated Rafael Nadal in the first "pared-down" final contested over the best of three sets (6-4, 6-0). The following year, a third Frenchman won the title – Jo-Wilfried Tsonga set the crowd alight, overcoming Nalbandian in the final and qualifying for the end-of-season ATP Masters in Shanghai in the process.
Indeed, this is one of the main features of the Rolex Paris Masters – since it is the final ATP Masters 1000 tournament of the season, it invariably decides where the last remaining qualifying spots for the ATP World Tour Finals will go. It can also be a crucial stage in the race for the No.1 ranking in the world: Pete Sampras (1995), Marat Safin (2000), Andy Roddick (2003), Novak Djokovic (2012) and Andy Murray (2016) were crowned world number 1 during the tournament.
The Rolex Paris Masters is run by the French Tennis Federation, with Guy Forget acting as tournament director since 2012. It's attendance record date back 2018, with 141 000 spectators (including qualifiers).
An amazing roll of honour
Since it was first held back in 1986, the Paris Masters has been a happy hunting ground for players ranked No.1 in the world.
Great Britain's Andy Murray won in 2016 after he had been crowned the number one player in the world during the tournament, and Serbia’s Novak Djokovic has the most wins overall, with five (two as a world number 1, in 2014 and 2015).
Two other former ATP No.1s have won the tournament three times – Germany’s Boris Becker, who was the first ever champion, and Russia’s Marat Safin.
Some of the other famous players to have won the tournament over the years include Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi (USA), Roger Federer (Switzerland) and Stefan Edberg (Sweden).
Frenchmen have also enjoyed more success here than at any of the other ATP Masters 1000 events. Guy Forget, Sébastien Grosjean and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga have all triumphed in front of their home crowd, while Gaël Monfils has made the final on two occasions.
FR