Felix Auger-Aliassime is back in the winner's circle after winning his opening match at the Japan Open against Aleksandar Vukic.
Auger-Aliassime hasn't played that well recently, and to demonstrate that, let's just say that he lost to Holger Rune. The same Rune who is 1-9 in the last 10 matches played, so you get the idea. He won his opening round match at the Japan Open, but it was very complicated.
The Canadian faced an early break point in the match but held his nerve, which proved crucial to jumping out to an early lead not long after that. He was on the verge of winning the opening set at 5-4 but lost his serve to prolong the set.
Ultimately, he did win it in the tiebreak, but he could have done it far sooner, and it sort of shows how volatile his level can be during a match. The second set saw the reverse happen as Auger-Aliassime wasted an early break point only to lose his serve a bit later.
Vukic served for the set at 5-4 but lost his serve only to win in the tiebreak 7-2. It was just a very close and competitive match between two players who weren't separated by much in the first two sets. That changed in the final set as Auger-Aliassime outplayed his opponent quite a bit to start the set.
He took a 3-0 lead, which was enough for him to win the match even though he lost his serve once more in that set. We actually saw four breaks in that final set, as both were a bit erratic, but Auger-Aliassime was the far better player who deservedly won in the end.
The final score was 7-6(3) 6-7(2) 6-2 for the Canadian who moves on to play Sebastian Ofner in the next round.
0 Comments