Paris Masters 2024 Day 4 Preview & Schedule: Alcaraz vs Humbert, Draper vs De Minaur headline (Oct 31)

It is Day Four of the 2024 Paris Masters with some real top ties on the schedule confirmed. Our preview looks ahead as the third round takes place with Carlos Alcaraz continuing his run as favourite in Bercy.

Alcaraz won't appear until the Night Session on Halloween. He faces off against Ugo Humbert who was upset about not playing on the Court Central main court but will get his wish this time. He was pretty vociferous against the tournament earlier on Wednesday.

But of course in facing Alcaraz who is the big name in Paris, he is very much going to get that billing. Albeit so does Arthur Rinderknech again in the final match of the day as he faces off against Grigor Dimitrov in the last match following that.

It is a day with top matches across the board. Adrian Mannarino will face off against Jordan Thompson to start the day on Court Central. This is swiftly followed by Francisco Cerundolo facing Stefanos Tsitsipas also on the main court. Alexei Popyrin and Karen Khachanov are slated for just after midday.

But it is perhaps the ties between Arthur Fils and Alexander Zverev and Jack Draper v Alex de Minaur. Both take place at 3:00pm or there or thereabouts that are the ones really to savour.

Both are very much matches of the day with Fils in some of the greatest form of his fledgling career thus far. The same can be said for Draper. He has just won Vienna. Fils lost narrowly to Shelton in Basel. Albeit the American lost to Arthur Cazaux so won't continue.

Fils now faces Alexander Zverev who has made these ATP 1000's his mission and has achieved multiple milestones of late in terms of match wins and titles. So perhaps one of the most difficult players to beat at this level. De Minaur on the otherhand has been vocal about battling demons and he will face a Draper who is very much at the top of his game right now so will aim to further his own ambitions. Whilst also likely crushing De Minaur's dreams as he looks to qualify for Turin. Cazaux follows as he faces Holger Rune on Court One. One of the only Frenchman not on Court Central on Thursday.

This is despite a heroic win over Ben Shelton on Wednesday evening in which he took out one of the top names that the tournament had to offer in superb fashion. But with Rinderknech and Humbert likely already pencilled in and him playing late, it was likely a decision made with them thinking it would be Shelton perhaps.

For once it is not the question of the big names getting scheduled too much on the show courts, it is very much the question of the placing of Frenchman. But compared to Roland Garros which has been pretty dire for French players as of late, it has been a wide success thus far for the home heroes.

As they bid adieu to Paris Bercy, there are still some top displays left before they move up the road to the La Defense Arena at La Nanterre in 2025 onwards which is a bigger capacity and is used to hosting sport and concerts.