Zverev

Alexander Zverev made a losing start to his reign as world No 1 on Wednesday as the two-time Grand Slam champion went down 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 to an inspired Lorenzo Musetti at the Paris Masters.

Playing his opening match in the round of 32 in the French capital, the German accumulated errors to tamely exit the tournament against the 24-year-old Italian.

Former world No 5 Musetti became the fifth man to defeat a player in his opening match as the world No 1.

But Zverev insisted that the pressure of being the top-ranked player was not the cause of his poor performance.

“Stress, I don’t know if stress. I was a bit annoyed, to be honest,” he told reporters.

“The last couple of days, because, you know, achieving the world No 1 status is something that I think every player dreams of.

“But then I feel like I’m the only world No 1 in tennis history that has to explain why it’s okay for me to be world No 1, which I find quite difficult, because I think I deserve to be where I am, even though I lost today.”

“To simplify it, he played really good and I played really bad,” Zverev told reporters.

“I think this was not a very good match from me, I think it might be one of the worst in the last couple of months.”