FAA ends Simon’s career in straight sets

Felix Auger-Aliassime won his 15th match in a row to wrap up the career of Frenchman Gilles Simon 6-1, 6-3 on Thursday at the Paris Masters.

Simon, 37, who stunned Andy Murray in the first round and then went past  Taylor Fritz to knock the American out of the chase for the year-end finals, made his planned retirement in front of a home crowd.

Canada’s FAA produced the form of last month, winning consecutive titles in Florence, Antwerp and Basel to qualifying into the eight-man ATP Finals starting a week from Sunday.

No. 188 wild card Simon ends his career with more than 500 match wins, 14 titles, defeating Top 10 opponents 34 times.

“I still feel a lot of emotions coming, but I’m just too tired to face it right now,” Simon said.

“It was a very, very long week. Even last week. I was feeling the moment coming.

“You don’t know how you’re gonna play, you just want to enjoy the crowd one more time,because that’s the only thing it is about at this point. 

“It’s not like I plan to win the tournament. It’s not like I need the points to enter the next tournament. It’s just going on court and trying to play a decent match with a good level.”

He added: “I was not sure if I would be able to do it.

“The first match (over Murray in three long sets) was really, really hard on the emotional side, especially on court. 

“The third one was one too much.  I was just empty today.”