Felix Auger Aliassime is into the second round of the Western and Southern Open being held at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio after beating Marton Fucsovics in straight sets 7-6 (0), 6-3 in two hours and 20 minutes.
“I was down a break but I felt really close,” said Auger-Aliassime. “I was giving myself chances to break back and broke him when he served for the set and in the end, it was a tight first one. It was really important for me to win it and I was happy I was able to find a way to win today.”
Auger-Aliassime fired 23 winners in the win while his opponent hit 40 unforced errors in the loss. The first four games of the match went on serve before the Hungarian was able to apply pressure onto the service game of the world number 17.
Fucsovics would come up with a return winner to set up the first breakpoint of the match and break to take an early 3-2 lead but the Montreal native didn’t go away quietly earning chances to break back the following game.
Despite his attempts, the world number 37 saved three breakpoints and managed to consolidate the break, and had a chance to go up a double break but the number 12 seed saved four critical breakpoints and held serve.
At 5-4 with the Hungarian serving for the first set Auger-Aliassime once again came up with the goods saving a set point and earning a chance to break back which he took with a stunning forehand winner to go back on serve.
The Montreal native had a set point of his own, but Fucsovics managed to save it and the first set would be decided by a tiebreaker. That’s when the world number 17 took over winning seven points in a row to win the breaker 7-0 and the first set.
The Canadian had all the momentum heading into the second set where he got the early break but the first three games were breaks of serve until it started to rain and at 2-1 play was suspended.
Roughly 90 minutes later play resumed and Auger-Aliassime was finally able to hold a service game saving a breakpoint and in the following game managed to break the Hungarian with a sweet volley winner on breakpoint for a 3-2 lead.
Again the lead didn’t last long as the world number 37 broke right back and once again the Canadian responded breaking the following game this time with his powerful forehand on another one of his breakpoints.
At 5-3 with the Hungarian serving to stay in the match the Montreal native knew he was close to the finish line and closed out the match breaking one last time to seal the win.
After the match in his post-match press conference, he spoke about he was able to use the rain delay to his advantage.
” It was tough because I was serving at 40-0 when it started raining and I rushed through my service games a little bit so that wasn’t good for me. so I came off the court frustrated because of that so I had an hour in the locker room to relax, talk with my coach and I went back out there.” He said.
Auger Aliassime will face Karen Khachanov in the next round.
