Felix Auger-Aliassime continued his solid play in recent weeks, making a winning start at the 2024 Marseille Open.
Auger-Aliassime has a tremendous history in Marseille, having played amazing tennis here in the past. It first happened back in 2020 when he made it to the final, losing to Stefanos Tsitsipas.
His next final came in 2022, and that time around, it was Andrey Rublev who bested him. He's back this year with the hopes of making another deep run, especially after some encouraging play last week in Montpellier.
The Canadian is in need of wins because his form has been too much up and down. At times, he looked amazing, but then, at other times, he struggled with his game a lot.
It's time for him to find his best tennis finally, and this indoor stretch is the perfect chance for it. The opponent was Quentin Halys, who is capable of producing a solid level, especially in front of the home crowd.
He's a player who can challenge anyone and give a good fight, but he's too limited to give Auger-Aliassime too many problems. That's how this match went.
He proved a challenge, but not too much, as Auger-Aliassime won the opening set 6-2. He served amazingly, barely dropping any points on his own serve, and dominated Halys from the baseline on return to an easy cruise in the opening set.
Halys can be a really good server, especially indoors, and he found some of that in the second set. Obviously, it made things far more complicated for Augqer-Aliassime, but he weathered the storm well by simply waiting for his chance to come.
It came late in the set, and the Canadian converted the breaking point to take a 6-5 lead. He then easily held serve to close it out 7-5, setting the final score of 6-2, 7-5. It was a good start for the Canadian in Marseille.