Paris (France) (AFP) – The boss of the circuit is already out: the German Alexander Zverev lost at the start of the Masters 1000 in Paris for his first match as world No.1, beaten Wednesday 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 in the second round by the Italian Lorenzo Musetti (24th).

Published on: 04/11/2026 - 16:27

Long considered the best player in history to have never won a Grand Slam tournament after three lost finals, the 29-year-old German broke the glass ceiling this year with two triumphs at Roland-Garros then at the US Open.

But barely inducted, criticism arose in the specialized press about the lack of legitimacy of Zverev, who won his two titles without facing the two ogres of the circuit Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, who missed a large part of 2026 due to injury.

“I feel like I'm the only world number one in the history of tennis who has to explain why it's normal for me to be world number one. I think I deserve to be where I am, even if I lost today,” insisted the German at a press conference.

And added, annoyed: “I don’t think anyone has ever had to justify themselves so much.”

Already, he is not the only active player to have lost his first match as world No.1: in September 2022, the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz also fell in the first round of the ATP 500 tournament in Astana, taken out by the Belgian lucky-loser David Goffin (66th in the world at the time).

On Wednesday, the 30th player at the top of the hierarchy since the introduction of the ATP ranking in 1973 nevertheless looked like bad days on the center court, shy and far from his baseline.

“One of the worst matches”

“To put it simply, he played very well and I played very badly,” the German commented dryly.

“I think it wasn’t a very good match on my part, perhaps one of the worst in recent months,” he continued.

The match was fought until the tie-break, during which Zverev took the upper hand for a while, leading 5 points to 2. But the Hamburg colossus then sank, losing the next five points which allowed Musetti to delight the public with his long-line backhands.

In the second set, the German completely disappeared, giving in twice and committing five times more direct errors (10-2) than his opponent. Musetti concluded the match with a shutout in 1h40.

The 24-year-old Italian, just titled in Lyon (ATP 250), has won four of his last 25 matches against members of the top 5 and each time, it was against Alexander Zverev (Olympics-2024, ATP 500 in Vienna in 2024, Masters 1000 in Rome 2025 and Masters 1000 in Paris 2026).

In the round of 16, he will face Frenchman Luca Van Assche (47th) on Thursday.

As for the German, he will be able to concentrate on the end-of-year Masters in Turin (November 15-22), where he has already secured his ticket as N.1 in the Race. With already areas of work to improve between now and then: “after today, probably on everything,” he quipped.

© 2026 AFP

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