Felix Auger-Aliassime will return to the Top 20 after his Madrid Open run, which ended in the final on the racket of Andrey Rublev.
Auger-Aliassime is a Top-10 player based on talent alone, but obviously, the ATP Rankings are fluid and change weekly, and they don't show the talent but points accumulated by players over the past 52 weeks.
The last time the 20-year-old Canadian was ranked inside the Top 10 was on May 29th, 2023, almost a year ago. Since then, he has been on a slow decline that eventually peaked at number 36 in March.
That's not where he belongs, but that was the product of his relatively bad play compared to previous results, which caused the drop. Now, he'll be going the other way as this run to the Madrid Open final ensures a return to the Top 20 for the first time since October of last year.
He will jump 15 spots to number 20, which is a great result, but he obviously would have liked to leave Madrid with a trophy. He won't because he was beaten in the final by Andrey Rublev, who badly needed a good run as well.
The Canadian congratulated Rublev on the win after the match, calling it deserved while reflecting on his own performance.
"Congrats to Andrey. Very deserving winner. Congrats to you and your team. I tried til the end. I’m sorry I made you overthink I was struggling. But it’s okay. You’re a great player. We always have a good time on tour."
"Very deserved and well done. Thank you all for coming. I love playing in Madrid. I’ve been coming since I was a teenager for other events. I love everything about the tournament… thank you to all the fans. We play for you."
It's back to the drawing board for Auger-Aliassime, but it's certainly a very good result that hopefully is only the start of some good showings from the Canadian.
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