The tennis player, best known for his bloodshed on the court, announced this weekend that he had stopped drinking. The Frenchman has expressed his desire to start off on the right foot to attack this new clay court season.
» I’m going back to the place ,» said Benoît Paire last Saturday, in the columns of the newspaper L’Équipe . With these words, the 164th player in the world in the ATP ranking was referring to his decision to quit alcohol .
It is on good bases that the Avignonnais wanted to leave. For this, the Monte-Carlo Tennis Masters 1000 was the right opportunity.
And the Frenchman got his tournament off to a good start by beating his compatriot Grégoire Barrère (62nd in the ATP rankings) in the first qualifying round. The new Benoît Paire seemed to be working. Until the confrontation with Alexei Popyrin.
But against the Australian, 95th player in the world, Benoît Paire was unable to turn the match around in his favour. However, he led 5-1 in the second set, before his young opponent by 1.96 meters ahead of him. Alexei Popyrin would eventually win 2-6, 7-5 (2), 6-4.
Benoît Paire will not join the main draw and tried, as he could, to evacuate his disappointment by posting in Instagram story a piece of advice to apply to himself: «Calm down «.
This weekend, the French explained to L’Équipe having changed his lifestyle after his victory at the Challenger tournament in Puerto Vallarta last March: “ I said to myself: stop drinking a little too. I took an alcohol cure. I try to put everything back in place to feel good. I drank a lot. I am not an alcoholic. It’s just that I loved it and partied way too often .»
Then to continue: “ I said to myself: Try to deprive yourself 100% of everything, just think about tennis for a while and we will see the result. It rather paid off. OK, so rather continue on this path .
It did not pass this time for Benoît Paire who will have the opportunity to catch up later in the season.