We’re heading into the quarterfinals at the Rolex Paris Masters, and we’ll be watching the 8th meeting between Alcaraz and Fritz. We’re also covering the late match: Casper Ruud vs. Nuno Borges, with our predictions and best bets.
Carlos Alcaraz vs Taylor Fritz
Alcaraz is the second seed and has had an easy route to the last eight. After a first-round bye he beat Alex Michelsen 7-6(4), 6-3 in his only match, then reached the quarterfinals when Matteo Berrettini withdrew from their round of 16. He hasn’t gone beyond the quarterfinals in Paris before. He arrives off the Vienna title and is 17-2 since returning from his four-month absence, with titles in Tokyo and Vienna.
Fritz has had to work a lot harder. The 11th seed came back from a set down to beat Benjamin Bonzi 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in his opener, then beat Alex Molcan and Arthur Fils to get here. He’s serving very well and is chasing a place in the ATP Finals, a win here could put him in a qualifying position, at least temporarily.
Alcaraz has a solid 6-1 lead in their H2H and their last meeting was an extremely tight match at the Laver Cup, where the Spaniard won 13-11 in the deciding tie-break set.
Predictions and best bets
Fast indoor courts are as good a setting as Fritz is likely to get, and the matches between them are closer than the record suggests, with two of the four tour-level matches going past straight sets. The American is highly motivated and he’s shown he can match Alcaraz high level before. I think we’ll see another tough 3-set battle.
My bet: Fritz (+3.5) Game Handicap at odds 1.78.
Casper Ruud vs Nuno Borges
Ruud has put together a really solid week. He beat Juan Manuel Cerundolo 6-3, 6-2, then Jodar 6-3, 6-4 on Tuesday night, a win that guaranteed Flavio Cobolli’s place at the ATP Finals, and then Jan-Lennard Struff 6-3, 6-3 in the round of 16, holding all nine of his service games. It’s his second Paris Masters quarterfinal, after 2021, and the Struff win took him from No. 22 to No. 19 in the live rankings.
Borges is one of the stories of the tournament. He only entered the main draw as a lucky loser, and he has beaten Moise Kouame, Karen Khachanov and then Ignacio Buse 6-0, 6-2 to become the first lucky loser to reach the quarterfinals in Paris.
The two have split four meetings 2-2. Ruud won in Los Cabos in 2024 in the quarterfinals and in Toronto in 2025 in the third round, 7-5, 6-4, while Borges won at Roland Garros in 2025 in the second round, and again in Basel last month, 1-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Predictions
Two players that has surprised everyone in Paris and they are both showing good form even though it’s not their favorite surface.
Borges has beaten Ruud in two of their last three meetings, including the most recent one at the Swiss Indoors, when he lost the first set 6-1 and still came back, and he has dropped just two games in his last match. But Ruud has been the more convincing of the two in Paris, and he held serve throughout against Struff. Here I’ll go with the more experienced player, with Borges getting at least a set.
My bet: Ruud to win in three sets.
