FINAL: Rinky Hijikata 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 Tomas Martin Etcheverry
Rinky Hijikata beat Novak Djokovic 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the second round of the Paris Masters yesterday, Wednesday, November 4, ending the 39-year-old’s bid to qualify for the ATP Finals. The full story of the upset itself is in iimiTV’s breaking report on Hijikata stunning Djokovic in Paris. The qualifier from Sydney struck 37 winners, 29 of them off the forehand, and closed the match with two breaks in the decider.
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Thursday answered the only question a win like that leaves behind: what does he do next? The answer, on Court 1 in Nanterre, was the same comeback written a second time. Tennis TV, the ATP Tour’s official streaming service, had posted the moment his Wednesday became official:
A moment that he’ll NEVER forget
Rinky Hijikata battles back to defeat 7-time champion Djokovic and reach the last 16!
#RolexParisMasters
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) November 4, 2026
Hijikata Backs It Up Against Etcheverry In Paris
Hijikata beat Tomas Martin Etcheverry 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 in the third round on Thursday, November 5, and the pattern of the week held for a third straight match: lose the first set, raise the forehand, and take the decider. Flashscore’s Paris live blog recorded it as his fifth straight win of the week after coming through qualifying, his first quarter-final at a Masters 1000 event, and the first run by a qualifier to the last eight in Paris since 2021. The tournament’s Paris Masters results table carries the same 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 scoreline in its third-round draw.
The win also settled a score. Etcheverry won their only previous meeting, in Hangzhou last year, dropping just five games, and he arrived in the third round off the first top 10 win of his career, a straight-sets defeat of Alex de Minaur that ended the other Australian’s own ATP Finals bid. Hijikata needed the full three sets and a 7-5 decider to reverse it, which makes his Paris week five wins deep: two in qualifying, then Luciano Darderi, Djokovic and Etcheverry in the main draw.
How to watch: Rinky Hijikata vs the winner of Lorenzo Musetti vs Luca van Assche, Friday, November 6, 2026, at Paris La Defense Arena, Nanterre
TV (Canada): TSN
Stream: TSN Premium, Tennis TV
The Neck, The Quotes, And A Fuller Djokovic Verdict
The morning after also filled in how close the upset came to never happening. Tennis Australia’s report of the Djokovic win carries Hijikata’s admission that a neck problem from his previous match left his start in doubt: “Honestly I wasn’t sure whether I was going to be able to take the court today, so I was just happy I could come out and play,” he said. The same report, drawing on his words to atptour.com, has the method behind the run: “That’s been the key this week for me; to try and impose my game as much as I can and back myself in the big moments. The last few months, I’ve maybe gotten a little bit passive under pressure, but this week I’ve done a good job of sticking to my game and staying aggressive.” The tournament’s own on-court interview, recorded straight after the Djokovic match, carries his reaction in his own words:
Djokovic’s fuller press verdict settled overnight as well, and it was blunter than the first quotes. TennisHead’s report of his press conference has him saying: “Nobody loves losing, but it’s just another match. I should have won this match, I played well the first set and then completely lost control of the match.” Asked about the shoulder problem that had needed treatment a day earlier against Valentin Vacherot, he refused to hide behind it: “Not the freshest, but it was not an excuse for the loss today.” The ATP’s own official Wednesday results from Paris record the scoreline that ended his season, 26 63 63 to the qualifier.
What It Means Next: Top 60, Turin, And Friday
The ranking consequence is now confirmed rather than projected. The Flashscore report of Thursday’s win states that Hijikata will make his top 60 debut next week, a climb from 106th in mid June and past the career high of 62nd he set in 2024. Tennis Australia noted he had already reached No. 71 in the live rankings after the Djokovic win, as the lowest-ranked player to beat Djokovic in 2026. His quarter-final on Friday is against the winner of Lorenzo Musetti’s third-round match with Luca van Assche, which was still on court on Thursday evening in Paris; Musetti is the man who knocked out new world number one Alexander Zverev on Wednesday.
For Djokovic, the records that settled overnight are the closing lines of his 2026 season. TennisHead records that Paris was his earliest exit at the Paris Masters since 2012, that this is only the second time since 2007 he has failed to qualify for the ATP Finals (the other was 2017, while he qualified but did not play in 2024 and 2025), and that he ends the year with his lowest win percentage since 2005, at 68.8 percent, without reaching a quarter-final at any Masters 1000 event this season. He still won the China Open and reached the Australian Open final and the Wimbledon semi-finals, and his own stated plan for the coming weeks remains the one word he gave on Wednesday: rest.
The Turin picture his exit created has narrowed to two men. Frances Tiafoe, on 3,390 points, and Rafael Jodar, on 3,234, hold the last two qualifying places for the Finals, which run November 15 to 22, and the only players who can still catch them are Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul, both of whom need to reach the Paris final to do it. Paul kept his run alive on Thursday by beating Quentin Halys 7-6 (3), 6-4 to set up a quarter-final against Ben Shelton, while Fritz was due to face Arthur Fils in the evening session. One day after a qualifier ranked 83rd closed Djokovic’s season, the draw he blew open is still deciding who takes the Turin places Djokovic spent the autumn chasing.
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