It’s Championship Sunday in Bercy, with both the singles and doubles champions to be crowned.
This has been the most notable and memorable week in the career of 26-year-old Ugo Humbert. Having previously only reached three quarterfinals in 33 Masters 1000 appearances, he’s advanced all the way to the championship match at his home Masters. Now the Frenchman looks to claim the biggest title of his career.
Alexander Zverev is already a six-time Masters 1000 champion, though he is still searching for his first title in Paris. He was the runner-up here in 2020, when he lost in three sets to Daniil Medvedev. And a title run in Paris would surely be extra sweet for Sascha, after the heartbreaking loss he suffered in this same city just five months ago in the Roland Garros final.
Alexander Zverev (3) vs. Ugo Humbert (15) – Not Before 2:00pm on Court Central
Humbert has endured a challenging road to his first Masters 1000 final, surviving a trio of three-setters. They came against Brandon Nakashima, Carlos Alcaraz, and Karen Khachanov. Ugo has a stellar 5-1 record in ATP finals, which all came at 250 or 500 level, though he lost his most recent final to fellow Frenchman Arthur Fils, just a few weeks ago in Tokyo.
Fils is also the only player to push Zverev to three sets this week. And having played one less match than Ugo, as Sascha received a bye in the first round, he’ll surely be the fresher player on Sunday. Zverev is now 65-20 on the year, in his winningest season on tour to date. The German is 22-13 in ATP finals, and 6-5 in Masters finals.
They have split two previous meetings, and both were extremely tight. Three years ago in Zverev’s home country on grass, Humbert prevailed 6-3 in the third. And last year in Humbert’s home country, and at this same event, Zverev prevailed in a third-set tiebreak. That match lasted nearly three-and-half-hours, and saw Ugo erase a-set-and-a-break deficit, only to still be narrowly defeated.
Humbert will be looking to avenge that painful loss in Sunday’s final, and the Parisian crowd will be vociferously backing him. However, Zverev has been the better player this week, as well as this season, and he gets my backing to claim his seventh Masters 1000 trophy. Sascha’s been serving excellently throughout the week, only getting broken twice across four matches. A win on Sunday would tie him with Michael Chang for the eighth-most Masters titles since the Masters series began in 1990.
Other Notable Matches on Sunday:
Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic (6) vs. Lloyd Glasspool and Adam Pavlasek – Koolhof and Mektic are playing for their fifth title of 2024, and this is their third consecutive final this fall. Glasspool and Pavlasek are a new team as of this week, and already took out two of the top five seeds.
Sunday’s full Order of Play is here.
