ATP Paris Masters Day Two Tips: Draper with opportunity to continue career progress

• Draper to continue climbing the rankings
• John Isner to prove a tricky customer
• Keep an eye on Holger Rune

Fritz continues Finals chances

Taylor Fritz did what was needed on day one in order to continue his chances of ATP Finals qualification, beating Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in straight sets, while we also saw the exits of veterans Marin Cilic and Andy Murray on day one.

Another veteran, John Isner, did make it through though, and the big-serving American will be a tricky opponent for Andrey Rublev in round two today with Rublev needing to win for his own ATP Finals chances.

Rublev could be tested by Isner

For this, Rublev is 1.374/11 which even considering Isner's recent fitness issues looks quite short-priced.

In recent years, Paris has played very slightly quicker than the average indoor hard court, and Isner's giant serve should be tough to break - leading to the potential for this match to be high variance and decided by fine margins, such as the odd break point and tiebreaks.

Fils with repeat of qualifier against Fognini

At the other end of the age curve, home player Arthur Fils, who is still yet to break into the top 300 after reaching the boy's singles final at Roland Garros in 2021, faces a repeat of his qualifier with Fabio Fognini after the Italian got into the main draw as a lucky loser.

Fils is 2.3411/8 to get the win - a bit shorter than the 2.809/5 he was in qualifiers and it's very difficult to predict how Fognini will play in terms of his level. It should be an interesting match.

Rune showing huge improvement of late

Another young v old match today features the 19-year-old Holger Rune, who faces Stan Wawrinka, 18 years his senior. As Wawrinka's career draws to a close, he's still been capable of the odd strong performance, beating Casper Ruud in Basel last week and Daniil Medvedev in Nice in September, so any thought of writing him off should be forgotten.

However, Rune will be a very tough opponent. The talented Dane has reached the final of his last three indoor events, winning in Stockholm and beating two top ten opponents there in the process, and was runner-up in Basel last week as well.

That's possibly the only issue for Rune here, having reached finals in two consecutive weeks and potentially having to deal with some fatigue as a result. He's 1.594/7 to defeat the Swiss veteran here.

Draper to progress against Rinderknech

Finally, I want to focus on the clash between two young players who are both at their career-best in terms of world rankings - Arthur Rinderknech and Jack Draper. Draper is the 1.625/8 favourite to progress into round two.

Both players have nice upside but I rate Draper much higher currently, and think the Brit could be a real flier up the rankings in 2023 - he's currently just inside the top 50, but I think top 20 should be a realistic target for him next season.

Draper's last two losses have been three-setters against Carlos Alcaraz and Hubert Hurkacz, so he's clearly already challenging the best players on tour, and the Brit's record indoors in Challengers is quite something - winning his last three events, and picking up four indoor titles in six events on the lower tour this season.

As you might anticipate, Draper's numbers in those matches were truly outstanding (109% service/return points won combined) and give confidence that he can be a well above-average player indoors on the main tour already at this point of his career, with plenty of room to improve further in the future.