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He will inevitably remember his first Masters 1000 final, but perhaps even more so the way he reached it. Of the five matches that led him to the conclusion of the Madrid tournament, Félix Auger-Aliassime only won two regularly. If the Czech Jiri Lehecka therefore gave up after six games (3-3, ab.) Friday in the semi-final, his young compatriot Jakub Mensik also gave up in the 3rd round (6-1, 1-0 ab.) against the Canadian who then benefited from the withdrawal of Jannik Sinner, the man in good shape of the moment.
Has a player ever had such success reaching the final of a tournament before? According to our partner Jeu, Set et Maths, since the creation of the ATP Tour in 1990, this has only happened once. During the 2016 US Open, Novak Djokovic also spent three rounds without fighting or almost, taking advantage of the withdrawals of Mikhail Youzhny (3rd round) and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (quarter-final) and the withdrawal of Jiri Vesely (2nd round ).
I couldn’t believe what was happening
“It’s crazy. I don’t know if it’s ever happened to a player before. It’s a weird situation, I’ve never experienced that at least on my part, at least consecutively, like that. I couldn’t believe what was happening when I saw that he had blocked his back. I feel really bad for him, I also had to deal with injuries. You can only imagine that. how it feels to get injured on a night like this, hoping to fight through and not being able to, I feel a lot of empathy for Jiri, but I can only try to prepare for Sunday.” said Félix Auger-Aliassime in his post-match interview.
Note that in 2016 at Flushing Meadows, this simplified course ultimately did not bring luck to Novak Djokovic who lost in the final to Stan Wawrinka. Will Félix Auger-Aliassime lack rhythm on Sunday or will this saved energy help him lift his first Masters 1000 trophy against Andrey Rublev? Only time will tell.
Does tennis still have a boss?
2024-05-03 21:11:00
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