A four-set win for Shapo against Gilles Simon in first-round singles action on Tuesday evening in Paris. The final score was 6-2, 7-5, 5-7, 6-3, and of those 41 games neatly half were won on breaks on serve. That's why, although it might not look like the closest of matches from the score alone, its outcome was uncertain until the very last point had been played.
The whole match might have pivoted on the ninth of the second set in which Simon, ahead 5-3, was serving and led 40-0 before Shapo fought back and took the game after saving another two set points. On one of them the Frenchman thought he had hit a winning serve, and the linesman agreed with him. But the umpire overruled the linesman and Simon lost the point, the game and, eventually, the set.
Shapo could have and probably should have won the match in three sets, but after leading 3-2 in the third set with his serve to follow, he was broken. This was the most worrying feature of the match from his point of view: his inability to hold serve at some of the crucial stages. A better player than Gilles Simon would have exploited this weakness to the full and might even have won the match.