In a dramatic final, the American Jack Sock prevailed against surprise finalist Filip Krajinovic at the Rolex Masters in Paris and secured his first ever participation in the ATP World Tour Finals in London in addition to his first Masters title.
The last ATP tournament before the World Tour Finals is over and ended with a bang. The opponents of the final wrote a little personal tennis fairy tale in both respects. Filip Krajinovic entered the final at his fifth Master’s main draw. In the current season, the Serb played mainly on the Challenger Tour. With a lot of passion and fighting spirit, for example, he cleared Sam Querrey or in the semi-final thriller John Isner’s path – and destroyed the hopes of both of them to make it to the finals in London.
Speaking of London: Final match opponent Jack Sock played himself into pole position for his first participation in the finals by dropping out all his direct rivals for the last place in the O2 arena in London. With the 1000 points for winning the tournament in Paris, the American would still be able to get past Pablo Carreno-Busta and squeeze the Spaniard into the reserve position.
And Sock showed from the beginning that he wanted to take advantage of this opportunity. The giant serve went into the match focused and held his emotions in check. Krajinovic, however, was apparently unimpressed and unagitated in his serve. Sock returned his Serbian opponent’s serve far behind the baseline to buy more time. Krajinovic often used this time to storm the net and shorten the point. The 17,000 spectators in the AccorHotels arena got to see fast and dynamic hard court tennis, in which Krajinovic used his first chance to break for a 4-2 lead. Sock, however, rebounded and got the immediate re-break. With eight points in a row, the American equalled to 4:4. In a tight first half, the underdog was more active and scored the first set 7-5.
At the beginning of the second set the Serbian forces slowed down a bit and Sock quickly took the lead with 4:1 and a double break. Krajinovic took the last reserves from the tank and fought his way to 3:4. The American, however, failed to maintain a solid service record and evened out with a 6:4 in the sets.
The decisive round started with an eight-minute service game by Krajinovic to 1-0 for the 25-year-old. Sock then showed his whole class and won the break with two enchanting passers-by 2-1. The American’s girlfriend and the spectators were thrilled to see it off the seats. Another sensational winner gave Sock the second break to the 4:1 lead. The American finally turned his first match point into a 5:7,6:4 and 6:1 final score after scarcely two hours of play.
For Sock it is the first participation in the tournament of the best eight players of the season and completes the field as the last player. The 25-year-old will now face Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Alexander Zverev, Dominic Thiem, Grigor Dimitrov, Marin Cilic and David Goffin for the unofficial World Championship title.