Felix Auger-Aliassime rides the waves of confidence in Rio de Janeiro
Despite a knee injury in December 2017 and a late start of the last season, super talented Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime needed some time to found the form, scoring the first Masters 1000 win at Indian Wells but struggling to stay on the winning path in the following two months. After Roland Garros, the youngster decided to stay on clay and work on his game on the slowest surface, defending the Challenger title in Lyon and losing in the final of Blois in the following week. Felix left Umag, Gstaad and Toronto with three ATP wins under his belt and he qualified for the main draw at the US Open, retiring against a good friend Denis Shapovalov with health issues and returning stronger in Chengde where he played in the quarter-final.
In October, Auger-Aliassime claimed Challenger crown in Tashkent, settling just outside the top-100 and setting some big goals for 2019 that he opened in Pune. Ivo Karlovic defeated him in the opening round and the results were not that good in the following events too, scoring his only win against Norbert Gombos in Davis Cup Qualifiers that helped Canada reaching the Davis Cup Finals in November. Last week, Felix lost in the opening round of Buenos Aires against Christian Garin but he bounced back stronger in Rio de Janeiro, toppling Fabio Fognini and Christian Garin to reach the first ATP 500 quarter-final in a career.
Also, with these points, Felix has secured the place in the top-100 next Monday as the first player born in 2000 to achieve that, achieving another milestone for his generation in what should be a breakthrough season for him. Felix was delighted with the way he played against Fabio Fognini, toppling the Italian 6-2, 6-3 in an hour and 29 minutes, saying he always believed he could play on this level and hoping for more in the rest of the tournament.
"It's for those wins that I train for. It was a great match but my goal here is to keep going. It's only the first round. I always believed I could win this kind of matches. It's a great milestone for me. I played against Garin last week. I expect a tough match again although I think I have what it takes to win."
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2BPe8Wu
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