Felix Auger-Aliassime admits that trying to achieve his Grand Slam dream will ‘take everything out of him,’ but he is ready to give it his best shot.
The 25-year-old Canadian heads into the new season full of confidence after describing 2025 as ‘the best year of his career.’ Since January, Auger-Aliassime has won three 250 titles in Australia, France and Belgium, as well as reaching the final of the Dubai Open and Paris Masters. In the majors, he reached the US Open semi-finals in what was his best Grand Slam performance since 2021. However, he suffered early round losses at the other three major events.
“I’ve had my best year in my career so far in 2025, this is the last day of the year, December 31st, so looking back on this year, it was an amazing year, great milestones, and I’m looking to keep going in 2026,” said Auger-Aliassime, who produced a win-loss record of 50-14 this season.
“I’ve had good results in other tournaments, but maybe not as much in big events, such as the Grand Slam, so it was good to be back in the US Open semi-finals, and I have great memories playing in Australia in the past, I remember a couple of years ago, making a quarter-final run here, and feeling like I was close to my best level.
“So hopefully I can go even further in this year.”
Auger-Aliassime is currently the highest-ranked North American player in men’s tennis at fifth in the standings. He will start the new year at the United Cup alongside Victoria Mboko, who has won her first two WTA titles in 2025. Canada is in the same group as Belgium and China.
The hope for Auger-Aliassime is that the team event will set him up nicely for the Australian Open, where he will be making his seventh main draw appearance. He has a main draw win-loss record of 13-6 and it is his second-most successful Grand Slam in terms of match wins. He has won 14 matches at the US Open.
“It’s going to take everything out of me,” he said of trying to win his first Slam.
“Obviously, I’m a powerful player, like to play an aggressive game, come forward, but I’m going to need for that to work really well, to serve really well, but at the same time to be able to do all the other things that need to be done with a level of consistency that’s really high to win seven matches in a row and to win it all.
“So there’s great adversity out there, a lot of great players, I think the challenge for everyone is the same, you need to be the best out of the best.”
