For Benoit Paire the alarm bells must already be ringing. After a good start to the year in Chennai, where he reached the semi-finals, losing to Stan Wawrinka, Paire’s game has gone completely off the rails since. Ranked inside the Top 20 at the start of the year, Paire has only dropped down to No 21 this week, but omens do not look good.
Since his run in Chennai Paire has only registered a solitary win, and that against 679th ranked Michael Venus who is ostensibly a doubles player. Defeat to Lukas Rosol was disappointing, but losses to Noah Rubin, Paul-Henri Mathieu and Ivan Dodig is indicative more of his 2014 form than his stellar 2015 season. The loss to Rubin in the first-round of the Australian Open in straight sets is perhaps the most concerning, as was ranked outside the Top 300 and looked off the pace, easily dispatched by Pierre-Hugues Herbert in the second round.
Paire is a very streaky player, nigh unplayable against many when his confidence is high, but is capable of disturbing lows. He struggled through much of 2014. Between the Monte-Carlo Masters and the Washington Open, Paire managed just two wins from total of eight tournaments, exiting in the first round of eight events including Wimbledon. He fell out of the Top 100 and even played a Futures in early 2015. It eventually turned into a excellent year but there were still lapses. He suffered defeats to No. 339 Marco Chuidinelli, No. 198 Tim Puetz, and No. 472 Rogerio Dutra Silva in consecutive events, before a stunning run saw him defeat Kei Nishikori twice, Grigor Dimitrov, Gael Monfils, Nick Kyrgios, and Philipp Kohlschreiber. At this point in the season Paire is defending few points – he will lose the ninety points he won at a Challenger last year as a result of his first round loss to Dodig in Rotterdam, but the real concern will be the post-Wimbledon part of the season, where Paire will have to defend nine hundred and forty points, with the majority coming in Bastad, where he is the defending champion, the US Open, and Rakuten, where he reached the final.
This clip shows the outstanding level that Paire is capable of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i66mAZIqnM
Highlights of Paire’s recent defeat to Paul-Henri Mathieu in Montpellier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKvRw5U8N6Y
Paire is immensely talented, but lacks the consistency to produce a high level on a regular basis. His game is high risk, and mentally he can leave matches. When Paire starts throwing poor drop-shots into the bottom of the net, his game is gone.
A comparison can be made between Paire and the mercurial talent that is Ernests Gulbis. The Latvian had a career year in 2014, reaching the semi-finals of Roland Garros by defeating Roger Federer and Tomas Berdych. He picked up ATP titles in Nice and Marseille, and reached the semi-finals of Rotterdam, reaching his to date career ranking of 10 in June, after the French Open.
Gulbis’ 2015 however, was nothing short of abysmal. He lost in the first round of his first eleven events of 2015 including defeats to Thanasi Kokkinakis, Jiri Vesely, Jeremy Chardy, and Andreas Haider-Maurer. He recovered a little before the end of the season, but his ranking fell outside the Top 100 before climbing back to no. 80. He had started the year ranked no.13.
So for Paire there is precedent both within his career and others for a drastic loss of form to see him fall from grace. It’s not something that is enjoyable to see but it does happen, and more frequently than some recognise. Paire is not an ageing star whose conditioning is slowly ebbing away, but should arguably be at the peak of his physical powers. Like Gulbis, Paire’s mental fragility ensures that more secure opponents can attempt to stay the course against him.
