FINAL: Carlos Alcaraz 6-7 (10), 7-5, 6-3 Taylor Fritz
Carlos Alcaraz saved two match points to beat Taylor Fritz 6-7 (10), 7-5, 6-3 in the Paris Masters quarter-finals on Friday, November 6, 2026. The result ended the American’s run at the last Nitto ATP Finals place and sent Spain’s Rafael Jodar, watching from off court, into the season finale in his first year on tour.
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How to watch: Carlos Alcaraz vs Taylor Fritz, Friday, November 6, 2026, at Plenitude Arena, Nanterre
TV (Canada): TSN
Stream: TSN, Tennis TV
Rafael Jodar Reaches The ATP Finals In His Debut Season
Jodar takes the eighth and last place in Turin with 3,234 points in the PIF ATP Live Race, 184 clear of Fritz, who stopped at 3,050 and needed to win on Friday to pass him. The ATP media notes, reported by Tennis Majors, carry the two firsts that make this more than a qualification story: no player had ever qualified for the season finale after starting the year ranked as low as Jodar, who stood at No. 168 in January, and the 20-year-old is the first man to reach the ATP Finals in the same year he made his tour-level debut.
The arithmetic behind the place is in the ATP’s own qualification scenarios: with Jannik Sinner, second in the Race, out for the rest of the season, ninth place became the final ticket to Turin, and Jodar held it after beating Alejandro Tabilo in Paris before losing to Casper Ruud in the second round. From there his week was out of his hands. He needed Fritz to fall before the semi-finals, and for two sets on Friday night that looked anything but settled.
Two Match Points, One Turnaround In Paris
The BBC match report tells the shape of it: Fritz took a 22-point first-set tie-break 12-10, broke for 4-3 in the second set, and stood one point from the match twice. The first match point came with Alcaraz serving at 3-5, and the Spaniard saved it by charging the net. The second came on Fritz’s own serve at 5-4, after a net exchange of reflex volleys, and Alcaraz saved that one with a passing shot winner, broke back, and ran off four straight games to take the set 7-5. In the decider he broke in the fourth game, led 4-1, and closed the match in two hours and 43 minutes, winning 118 points to Fritz’s 116 and converting four of his nine break points.
Alcaraz heard the echo of his own biggest escape in it. “Today’s match reminds me a little bit of the French Open final last year,” he said on court, pointing back to Paris in 2025, when he saved three championship points against Sinner. He told reporters the work was mental before it was technical: “I tried not to let myself down in the difficult moments in the second set. I tried to stay strong mentally and save those break points and match points.” The win also puts Alcaraz into a Paris Masters semi-final for the first time, at a Masters 1000 where he had never been past the quarter-finals.
The Record Ladder Jodar Just Climbed Past
The starting-rank record Jodar broke had stood through some of the strongest seasons in the sport’s history. Per the same ATP media notes, the previous mark belonged to Mariano Puerta of Argentina, who began 2005 at No. 133 and still reached the season finale. Behind him sit Arthur Ashe at No. 130 in 1978, Goran Ivanisevic at No. 129 in 2001, and Andre Agassi at No. 110 in 1998. Jodar started at No. 168, thirty-five places lower than any of them, in a season that only began for him as a full-time professional at the start of 2026.
His year built in steps that each looked like the ceiling until the next one arrived: a first ATP Tour title in Marrakech in April, a quarter-final at Roland Garros, a first Masters 1000 final in Shanghai in October, and a first week inside the top 10 days before Paris. The ATP’s own feature on his rise adds one more short list he now joins: if he plays in Turin, he becomes only the third man, after Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alcaraz himself, to compete at the ATP Finals one year after playing the Next Gen ATP Finals.
A Turin Field With Two First-Time Players
The Nitto ATP Finals run from November 15 to 22 at the Inalpi Arena in Turin, and the eight-man field is now complete: Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, Ben Shelton, Daniil Medvedev, Flavio Cobolli, Arthur Fils, Frances Tiafoe and Rafael Jodar. Tiafoe locked his own first appearance on Friday as the results fell his way, so Turin gets two debutants, and Jodar, at 20, is the youngest man in the draw.
For Fritz, a finalist at this event in 2024, the night ends a race he nearly stole at the last gate: two points from a semi-final, a Turin place and the end of Jodar’s story, all of it gone inside four games. For Jodar, the season that started at No. 168, in the first January of his professional life, ends on the biggest indoor stage the regular tour has. Nobody has ever arrived there this fast, or from this far back. The record books now say so.
