Felix Auger-Aliassime is in the semifinals of the US Open, exactly four years after the first and only time that the 25-year-old Canadian had reached the Final Four in a Grand Slam tournament.
Sowed 25, Auger-Aliassime were sown No. 8 Alex de Minaur seed of Australia 4-6, 7-6 (7), 7-5, 7-6 (4) In the quarterfinals on Wednesday to advance.
The winner of the match will perform Wednesday night among the Italians Jannik Sinner and Lorenzo Musetti.
“Four years is a long time, even if in the period of his life it is not so long either. But 2021 feels like a long time ago. I feel that I am a different person,” said Auger-Aliasmeme. “With the opportunity, I had to start at the Pro Tour so young, now it allows me, with a second wind, another opportunity to meet in the semifinals of a blow. And I still have only 25 years.”
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Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime advances to the open semifinals of the United States with a 4 set victory over Alex de Minaur de Australia, in a match that took four hours and ten minutes to complete.
It was a party that was not even the most charitable, memorable definition.
It was infernally long: four hours and 10 minutes for only four sets, including a second set of 87 minutes. There were some sport flashes overwhelmed by too many little characteristic and inopportune mistakes.
Each player had 11 double failures; Auger-Aliassime answered that with 22 Aces, while De Minaur had only eight.
It wasn’t pretty. It was an absolute routine. But Auger-Aliassime said later that he carried the wise words of the legend of tennis Rafael Nadal with him at all times and tried to put them into practice.
“Once I asked what the difference was between his career and that of other really good players who did not have the same career,” said Auger-Aliassime. “He said it was the ability to win games when I was not playing as well as possible, because he gave him the opportunity to play better in the next round and stay alive in the tournament. What you do not say is:” Today is not my day. Go better next time. “
“I have tried over the years to improve with that, and doubt myself when things are not going very well.”
For De Minaur, he had often denied him in the quarter -final stages of Grand Slam tournaments, it would have been the progress for which he has been working very hard.
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But the De Minaur first service percentage was only 34 percent in the first set, even if Auger-Aliassime did not make him pay the price for that.
It didn’t improve much; The final number was 42 percent. And as the game progressed, that constant pressure to defend his second service took De Minaur.
“Upon entering this game, the service was what was taking me out of trouble,” said De Minaur. “It’s just that in big games, that’s the first thing that disappears. All it does is create much more pressure on everything else. I am playing the second service, I am on the back, I always feel that I need to do a little more.
“I never hope to serve as Felix: 20 Aces and get free points. But for me, the percentage has to be a lot, much higher.”
AUGER-ALIASSIME seemed a slow step to the beginning, much lower in energy and imagination of what he had been in victories about sown No. 3 Alexander Zverev in the third round and the sown No. 15 Andrey Rublev in the fourth round.
The Canadian lowered a set and a service break in the second set when he left the ball cap he had been using. And, coincidence or not, things changed.
AUGER-ALASSIME does not usually wear a ball cap, unlike certain players for whom it is part of the uniform for each game, even at night.
“Maybe he sent a message to the brain that something is different, without being too spiritual about it,” he said, laughing.
Despite giving the value of a set of right errors to his opponent in the first two sets, 24 in total, he won that second set in a tiebreaker.
And after having dropped 2-5 on the fourth set, with the game he apparently went to a fifth and decisive frame, returned and won another tiebreaker.
AUGER-ALASSIME Now he has 14-4 unpaid at the US Open in his career.
After publishing only one victory in his three visits to Flushing Meadows since that semifinal of 2021, including a defeat in the direct sets against Jakub Mensik a year ago, it is a welcome result that will do wonders for its ATP Tour classification.
Auger-Aliassime, whose singles ranking of his career of number 6 arrived in November 2022, has spent most of the last two years outside the Top 20 and fell as low as number 36 in April 2024.
He entered this United States open in the 27th position until Wednesday, its provisional ranking is number 13, the highest in more than two years.
Dabrowski, Routliffe Advance to Women’s Doobles Final
Later, on Wednesday, Gabriela Dabrowski of Ottawa and Erin Routliffe of New Zealand advanced to the final of female doubles with a semifinal victory 6-4 and 6-3 over the second Italian duo of second sown Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani.
The third sown Dabrowski and Routliffe, who won the United States Open in 2023, will face the best Taylor Towsend seeds in the United States and Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic in the Friday Championship match.
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2023 The female double champion of US Open, Gabriela Dabrowski of Ottawa and Erin Routliffe of Ottawa, defeated the Italian duo of Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani 6-4, 6-3 to advance to the final of the double women of the United States.
What else happened at the US Open on Wednesday?
In the quarterfinals female, Amanda Anisimova bothered Iga Swiatek 6-4, 6-3 in a rematch of the Wimbledon final won by Swiatek 6-0, 6-0 less than two months ago. Naomi Osaka faced Karolina Muchva at night.
Who plays at the US Open on Thursday?
The female semifinals are scheduled at night, including defending champion Aryna Sabalenka against Jessica Pegula. That is a repetition of the Flushing Meadows final last year, when Sabalenka was a 7-5, 7-5 winner.
