Paris: The last two tickets to the World Tour finals are still to play for at the Paris Masters tournament starting on Sunday, with Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko and Spaniard Fernando Verdasco ideally placed to grab them.
Six players have already booked a place in the Nov. 22-29 season finale in London featuring the world’s top eight players.
As of Friday, ten players are still battling for the two remaining spots with Davydenko, a runner-up last year when the event was held in Shanghai, and Verdasco holding on to the seventh and eighth positions.
Other contenders include Swede Robin Soderling, Chilean Fernando Gonzalez and Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who won the title in Paris last year and can bank on support from the crowd at the Bercy hall hosting the last event in the showcase Masters 1000 series.
Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Juan Martin del Potro and Andy Roddick have already done enough to book their places in London.
All but maybe Roddick, nursing the knee injury that forced him to retire from the Shanghai Masters last month, should be in Paris, where world number one Federer, who returns for the seventh time, will look to advance beyond the quarter-finals for the first time.
The final tournament of the regular season had suffered from high-profile withdrawals over the past few years but can rely this year on a first-class field.
“A few years ago we were missing players and spectators but today, the best players are here,” tournament co-director Jean-Francois Caujolle told reporters. “Of all the top 10 players, the only doubt is Andy Roddick, who has just resumed training.
“The fact that the season’s finale is now in London and no longer in Shanghai makes it easier for us,” Caujolle added. “It was neither simple nor useful for those who had already qualified to come to Paris before going to China.”
The tournament reached a depressing low three years ago, when many leading players pulled out and just 55,000 tickets were sold.
Caujolle and fellow co-director Cedric Pioline, who took over then, managed to inject new momentum and 125,000 tickets have already been sold for this year, with the indoor hall fully booked from Wednesday.
Bureau Report