Roger Federer has confirmed his participation at this year’s Paris Masters after a three-year absence.
Federer’s only victory in Bercy came in 2011, but he has the chance of recording a historic 100th tournament win of his career in the French capital after winning the Swiss Indoors in Basel for a ninth time last weekend.
The world No 3 will play the winner of the tie between France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Milos Raonic of Canada on Wednesday after receiving a bye in the first round.
On his last appearance in 2015, Federer was knocked out by American John Isner in the last 16, but the 37-year-old feels that he has recovered well enough to take his place in the draw.
“I prefer playing to training as long as I don’t take any risks ahead of the London (ATP) Finals, (November 11-18),” Federer said.
“I feel like I’ve recovered well after last week. I feel good today (Tuesday).”
Meanwhile, Novak Djokovic, who is aiming to wrestle back the No 1 ranking from Rafael Nadal, opened his campaign with a straight sets victory against world No 48 Joao Sousa of Portugal.
The Serb, who arrived in Paris on an 18-match winning run after triumphs in Cincinnati, US Open and Shanghai, had led 4-1 in the opening set only to be pegged back to 5-5 by Sousa. After holding his serve he then broke to take the set 7-5.
It was much more straightforward for Djokovic in the second set, taking it 6-1 and with it a place in the third round.
Nadal is returning to action for the first time since hobbling out of the semi-finals in New York and must match Djokovic’s result in France to remain in top spot.French hopes of success were dented when Pierre-Hugues Herbert, Jeremy Chardy and Benoit Paire were all knocked out in the first round.
Herbert was beaten by Kazakhstan’s Mikail Kukushkin in three sets 3-6 6-3 7-5 while Jeremy Chardy lost 6-4 6-4 to Spain’s Fernando Verdasco.
The 56th-ranked Paire made the opening round through the qualifiers but lost 6-4 6-4 to Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics.
Greek 14th seed Stefanos Tsitsipas suffered a surprise 6-3 6-3 defeat at the hands of Bosnian star Damir Dzumhur.
