Benoît Paire qualified for the second round on Monday evening, beating another Frenchman, Grégoire Barrère. The Frenchman, seeded sixth, won in two sets 6/4 7/6(1) and 1h17.
For his seventh participation, Benoît Paire arrived in Marseille with a Top 20 status (20th). The Frenchman, a finalist in Auckland at the beginning of the season, is therefore very close to the best ranking of his career (18th), which he reached in 2016, also the year of his semi-final in Marseille.
For his part, Grégoire Barrère, who benefited from a wild card for this 28th edition, remained on a second round here in 2019.
In the second round, Benoît Paire will face Alexander Bublik, winner of the last match of the evening.
" I feel capable of winning the tournamenthe explained after his victory. I'm 20th in the world and I'm very happy with what happened in my first match. It was a very good serve, and I think that if I serve like that, I won't get broken very much. So my goal is clearly to win, I have the ability to do that. If I don't think that, there's no point in coming. There are some very good players in this draw, but I feel I can beat any of them... or lose to any of them! We'll see how it goes. "
