Mathieu, Gasquet Set All-French Final In Montpellier

For the second straight year, Paul-Henri Mathieu is in an ATP World Tour final, advancing to the Open Sud de France title match with a gritty 7-6(11), 7-5 victory over Alexander Zverev at The Parks & Suites Arena in Montpellier. Mathieu will face countryman and top seed Richard Gasquet on Sunday.

“I’m very happy with the win today,” said Mathieu. “It’s a great satisfaction to be in a final again. The last was in Kitzbuhel. To make another one in a couple of months is great for my confidence. Hopefully I will win tomorrow.” 

The 34-year-old Mathieu downed 18-year-old Zverev in one hour and 55 minutes, claiming three of four break chances and firing 40 winners. After Zverev stormed back from a 0-3 deficit, the first set came down to a riveting tie-break, which featured 24 points. Mathieu would deny three set points and converted on his fourth as a Zverev mid-rally forehand found the net.

In the second set, the German would save a match point with Mathieu serving for it at 5-4, breaking to draw level. But the Frenchman would break back immediately to 15 with a backhand winner and closed out the match in the following game.

Mathieu advanced to his 10th ATP World Tour final and first since reaching the title match in Kitzbuhel last year as a qualifier (l. to Kohlschreiber). He exacted revenge on Zverev after the teenager prevailed in the final of the ATP Challenger Tour event on home soil in Braunschweig in 2014. The German was bidding to reach his first ATP World Tour final and join Borna Coric (Chennai) as teen finalists this year.

Gasquet, meanwhile, became the eighth active player to reach 25 tour-level finals and just the second Frenchman to do so in the Open Era (Yannick Noah), after turning in arguably the comeback of the year thus far. He prevailed 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 over Dustin Brown in one hour and 39 minutes, overcoming 17 aces by the German. Brown burst out of the gates, claiming nine of the first 10 games in 35 minutes, striking 27 winners. But as quickly as he surged ahead, Gasquet snatched the momentum in his corner, rallying from a 6-1, 3-0 deficit with a run of nine of the next 11 games to take the lead for good.

“I’m happy to fight a lot and I am happy to come back here to the final,” said Gasquet. “It was a great match for me to win.” 

The top seed and defending champion will feature in a fourth straight Montpellier final. He previously won the title in 2006 (d. Gicquel), ’13 (d. Paire) and ’15 (d. Janowicz). Gasquet and Mathieu will face off for the eighth time in their FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry, with the former owning a 5-2 edge. It will be the first all-countrymen final on the ATP World Tour this year. There were four in 2015, including two with a pair of Frenchmen.