Felix Auger-Aliassime Wins Dramatic Montpellier Open Final To Lift Seventh Career Title
News
Felix Auger-Aliassime finally found his best tennis again, as he beat everyone to win the 2025 Montpellier Open.
At the moment, there probably isn't a bigger indoor hard court specialist on the ATP Tour than Auger-Aliassime. He won six out of his seven titles on indoor hard courts, with his only other triumph coming in Adelaide this year.
In the past, the Canadian player recorded wins in Rotterdam, Florence, Antwerp, and Basel. Now, he added another city and another country as he recorded his first triumph in Montpellier, France.
Auger-Aliassime entered the draw of the ATP 250 tournament as the second seed. Thanks to that, he had a first-round bye. But already in the second round, he had to play against home player Arthur Cazaux.
That didn't prove to be a challenge for Auger-Aliassime. He beat the French player 6-4, 7-6(5). In the quarter-finals, he recorded another straight-sets win over Yunchaokete Bu, and even Jesper de Jong couldn't stop him in the semi-finals.
But his final opponent, Aleksandar Kovacevic, was having a great event as well. The 26-year-old American player started in the qualifying of the tournament, as his ranking didn't allow him to enter the main draw directly.
He beat Robin Betrand and Pablo Carreno-Busta in the qualifying. Then, he outplayed David Goffin, Mattia Bellucci, Alexander Bublik, and Andrey Rublev, to reach the final of the tournament.
It was the second meeting for the two, as Auger-Aliassime won their match in Cincinnati last year. This time, he wanted to follow up on the win, but Kovacevic proved to be a real challenge, even though it didn't seem like it early on.
The American player led 2-1 in the opening set, but from that point, he lost five consecutive games. Auger-Aliassime dominated the first set, winning 6-2.
However, neither player could break at the start of the second set. That was true during the entire set, as both players served without facing a break point. Because of that, a tie-break had to decide.
In the tie-break, neither player made mistakes either. Auger-Aliassime got to the first championship point at 6-5, but it was on return, and his opponent saved it.
But after that, Kovacevic became the first player to lose his serve in the tie-break, and Auger-Aliassime had a championship point on his serve. However, miraculously, Kovacevic broke his opponent's serve twice and won the second-set tie-break 9-7.
In the third set, both players excelled on their serve again. That was until 5-5 when Auger-Aliassime felt the pressure and faced the only break point of the set. He was able to save it and force another tie-break.
This time, he was the better player and won the tie-break 7-2 to win the match 6-2, 6-7(7), 7-6(2) and lift his second title in 2025.
