By Scoop Malinowski
Benoit Paire may be mired in the worst slump in ATP history.
The volatile and talented French 32 year old suffered through a dreadful 2021, sporting a 14-32 overall record including first round losses in his last five tournaments. Paire lost first roune 21 times total in 2021. “It was a shit year last year,” Paire said at the Australian Open.
The misery of 2021 carried over to 2022, as Paire lost both of his first round matches in Melbourne to Henri Laaksonen 64 36 25 RET and then in Adelaide to Thanassi Kokkinakis 46 06. Then at AO he beat Thiago Monteiro and Grigor Dimitrov, before falling to Stefanos Tsitipas in four tough sets.
Then it was back to the tennis torture chamber for Paire. Cordoba first round loss to Jaume Munar 46 57. Buenos Aires first round loss to Dusan Lajovic 64 46 67 (blew three match points serving for match). Rio de Janeiro first round loss to Francisco Cerundulo 36 64 26. Acapulco first roun loss to Daniil Medvedev 36 46.
This week in Indian Wells, pushed his agonymeter to another threshold of extreme pain as he lost to Dominic Koepfer 62 57 46 (Paire had also lost to Koepfer in Geneva last year 76 67 46).
If you can bear the gruesome details of this latest catastrophic loss by Paire, Paire had four match points at 53 in the second set. At 5-5 in the second and up 40-love Paire then lost nine straight points to Koepfer.
Paire is now 2-8 in 2022, including seven first round losses. So since January 2021 Paire has lost first round at 28 tournaments.
But the most excruciating aspect of this disastrous losing streak by Paire is in many of the matches he’s been very competitive and so close to victory but over and over and over he’s managed, in the moments of truth, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Oh, the terrible cruelty of tennis…
Babolat · Benoit Paire · BNP Paribas Open
Doug Day · March 13, 2022 at 11:02 am
Very entertaining melodrama by the most talented team thats been major-winless since Noah. Speaking of which Naomi sited her Joan of Arc, Serena, condemning fans after her melt down last night. Oh the pity.
Doug Day · March 13, 2022 at 12:49 pm
!!FREE JUICY!!
(aka Jussie Smollett)
Angela Davis’s best friend’s son
Scoop Malinowski · March 13, 2022 at 5:17 pm
Brooksby is a future no.1.
Cory · March 21, 2022 at 3:14 am
Looks like a pic of Marcel Granollers above…?
Paire is a guy everybody roots for… love his passion, adroit skill… he’s got top 10 talent but of course never puts it together. One of the worst mental games ever seen. You can make a fortune betting against Paire, especially if he wins the first set.
Scoop Malinowski · March 21, 2022 at 8:16 am
Yes there is something very likeable about Paire, on court he suffers too much and can play magical beautiful tennis and off court he’s a very nice person. We want to see him catch lighting in a bottle for a couple weeks and get that darn guerrilla off his back.