ATP Paris Masters Outright Tips: Keep an eye on players needing a big tournament

• Stars out to boost ranking ahead of ATP Finals
• Djokovic favourite ahead of Medvedev
• Auger-Aliassime improving fast indoors

Eyes on the ATP Finals ahead of the Paris Masters

The Paris Masters is the last Masters 1000 event on the ATP Tour for 2022, and represents the final opportunity for players to boost their ranking ahead of the ATP Finals (and also could make a difference to Australian Open seeding for the big event in January also).

Of the eight seeds receiving a first-round bye in the French capital, six have already received confirmation that they have qualified for the end of season showpiece, with only Andrey Rublev and Felix Auger-Aliassime seeded players who haven't done quite enough to qualify at the time of writing. The duo are in the box seat for qualification but would be vulnerable to a run to the latter stages from the likes of Taylor Fritz and Hubert Hurkacz, in particular.

In an interesting twist of fate, all of Rublev, Auger-Aliassime, Fritz and Hurkacz were drawn in the top half of the draw, with Fritz versus Auger-Aliassime a potential round three clash, as would be Hurkacz against Rublev.

Medvedev and Djokovic favourites to come through the draw

The outright market doesn't particularly fancy the chances of top seed Carlos Alcaraz either, trading at 8.615/2 at the time of writing on the Exchange, so it's Daniil Medvedev 6.411/2 the favourite from the top half of the draw. Novak Djokovic, at 2.982/1, is overall tournament favourite.

That top half of the draw looks wide open - Medvedev the justified favourite from that section, having won in Vienna this week indoors for his first title since Los Cabos in August, and he dropped just one solitary set en route to that victory, allaying any injury concerns after he pulled up with an injury earlier in October against Novak Djokovic in Kazakhstan.

As for Djokovic, he's won his last three main tour events, although that's a run which stems back to Wimbledon - illustrating how light his schedule has been, for various reasons. However, he's not dropped a set in his last nine matches, so it's not that tricky to see why the Serb is overall favourite here to defend his title - last season was his sixth in the event.

Auger-Aliassime's indoor numbers rapidly improving

We have seen a few pretty unlikely winners in the event though, in recent years, including Jack Sock and Karen Khachanov, while the likes of Jerzy Janowicz and Filip Krajinovic reached the final in the last decade as well, and the success of some of the lesser lights will inspire the players still pushing for ATP Finals qualification.

However, both the players currently in qualification berths should be favourite to get past their potential rivals in round three - Auger-Aliassime's indoor numbers are just getting better and better, and are now pretty impressive but the 21.020/1 about the Canadian is tough to get excited about given the draw - although the likes of the in-form and rapidly improving Sebastian Korda, the big-serving Matteo Berrettini and perhaps even the even bigger-serving John Isner who is making his return to tour could be tough opponents for any of those to get past in the relatively quick conditions anticipated.

Most of the permutations for qualification will be done from the top half of the draw, and with Novak Djokovic seemingly better than the rest by some distance in the bottom half, there's a fascinating dynamic for the week ahead with a heavy favourite in the bottom half, but a wide open top half likely competing for the right to meet Djokovic in the final.

I'll be returning throughout the week to discuss the day ahead in Paris, which promised to be a fascinating end of season event before the showpiece of the year in several weeks time.