Needing every point possible to advance to the year-end ATP Finals, Montreal’s Félix Auger-Aliassime advanced to the Round of 16 at the Paris Masters on Wednesday with a razor-thin 5-7, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4) win over France’s Alexandre Muller.
Auger-Aliassime used his powerful serve to get through the match. He fired 21 aces and had an average first-serve speed of 206 kilometres per hour.
The ninth-seeded Auger-Aliassime needs a deep run at the ATP 1000 event to make up ground on Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti, who is eighth, one spot ahead of Auger-Aliassime, in the ATP Race To Turin standings. The top eight qualify for the season-ending event in Italy.
Auger-Aliassime caught a break when Musetti was upset 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 by fellow Italian Lorenzo Sonego later Wednesday.
The 25-year-old Auger-Aliassime won an ATP 250 event in Belgium nine days ago, but he potentially left some points on the table when he retired during a quarterfinal clash in Basel last week with a sore back.
Muller scored the first break of the match at a crucial time, forcing an error on set point to take the first frame 7-5.
The Frenchman rode that momentum to an early 2-0 lead in the second set after breaking Auger-Aliassime in the second game. But the Canadian responded with a break in the next game and held serve the rest of the way to force a tiebreak.
Overcomes pair of deficits in tiebreak
Auger-Aliassime trailed the tiebreak 5-4 before firing back-to-back aces, then taking set point on return.
Both players held serve in the third set, and Auger-Aliassime came back from deficits of 3-0 and 4-3 in the tiebreak to win the match.
Auger-Aliassime will face Daniel Altmier in the Round of 16. He has a 1-2 career record against the German.
Auger-Aliassime has played in 11 tiebreaks over his last nine matches. While that may make for nervous moments, he often comes out of them on the winning end. According to the ATP Tour’s website, Auger-Aliassime is tied for fourth on tour with a tiebreak winning percentage of 69.2.
In other second-round action Wednesday, Montreal’s Gabriel Diallo fell 7-6 (8), 4-6, 6-3 to sixth-seeded Australian Alex de Minaur.
Diallo came back from 5-2 down in the first set and had chances to win the tiebreaker, but de Minaur saved two set points before taking what turned out to be a crucial 1-0 lead.
Fernandez broke Lys 4 times
Leylah Fernandez advanced to the quarterfinals of the Hong Kong Open with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Germany’s Eva Lys on Wednesday.
The tournament’s second seed won 73 per cent of her first-serve points and broke Lys four times in the 68-minute match.
Fernandez, of Laval, Que., finished with three aces, one double fault and won five straight games to close out the match.
The victory was her seventh in her past eight matches, a stretch that includes her Japan Open title earlier this month.
Fernandez, 23, will next face seventh-seeded Sorana Cirstea of Romania.
Fellow Canadian Victoria Mboko, the No. 3 seed, plays Alexandra Eala of the Philippines on Thursday.
