Paire Rolling In Metz

Third seed Benoit Paire continued his outstanding season on Friday at the Moselle Open in Metz, marching into his fourth ATP Tour semi-final of the year with a 7-6(3), 6-4 victory over fellow Frenchman Gregoire Barrere.

The veteran showed impressive resilience on Court Central. He fought back from a 1-4 deficit in the opening set and also rallied from being down a mini-break in the first-set tie-break. The 30-year-old scored the lone break of the second set in the final game to advance in 79 minutes.

Paire has lifted titles this year in Marrakech (d. Andujar) and Lyon (d. Auger-Aliassime), in addition to finishing runner-up in Winston-Salem (l. to Hurkacz). He now looks to reach his second Metz final, having finished runner-up in 2017 (l. to Gojowczyk).

Awaiting him on Saturday is Slovenian Aljaz Bedene, who reached his first ATP Tour hard-court semi-final since 2016 Chennai by defeating Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta 6-4, 7-5. Bedene scored the lone break in each set and didn’t drop serve, winning 93 per cent (38/41) of his first-serve points.

The 30-year-old Bedene is 2-4 in his FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry with Paire, but defeated him last month in a fifth-set tie-break at the US Open.