Felix Auger-Aliassime advances in Cincinnati, beats de Minaur

Cincinnati –

Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., moved on to the third spherical of the Western & Southern Open Masters-level tennis match with wins Wednesday.

Auger-Aliassime, the seventh seed, superior comfortably with 6-3, 6-2 win over Australia’s Alex de Minaur.

Shapovalov joined his buddy and compatriot later with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory over American Tommy Paul. Subsequent up for Shapovalov will probably be world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev of Russia.

Auger-Aliassime overcame 17 unforced errors and received 71 per cent of service factors and 48 per cent of return factors in a match that took one hour 18 minutes to finish.

It was the primary assembly on the ATP Tour between Auger-Aliassime and world No. 20 de Minaur. They cut up a pair of matches on the Challenger degree, with Auger-Aliassime profitable within the quarterfinal of a 2017 match in Drummondville, Que., and de Minaur popping out on prime the following yr within the quarterfinals at Braga, Portugal.

Auger-Aliassime had 9 aces in Wednesday’s match to 3 for de Minaur, and transformed 4 of his six break factors whereas saving break level three of 4 instances.

Auger-Aliassime, ranked ninth on this planet, rebounded after a 6-1, 6-2 loss to Casper Ruud final week within the quarterfinals of the Nationwide Financial institution Open in Montreal.

“I by no means thought it might be ending like this as we speak,” he stated after that match.

Auger-Aliassime will subsequent face tenth seed Janik Sinner of Italy, who was up 7-5, 3-1 on Miomir Kecmanovic when the Serb retired.

Auger-Aliassime defeated Sinner of their solely different assembly, within the spherical of 16 of the clay-court Madrid Masters earlier this yr.

Shapovalov had 10 double faults and 30 unforced errors in his match. However he obtained well timed breaks when he wanted them, together with an important break in Sport 2 of the third set.

It was Shapovalov’s first win over Paul. The American had received two earlier matches towards, together with the ultimate of a 2021 match in Stockholm.

Shapovalov is 2-2 in 4 earlier matches towards Medvedev, with the Russian claiming the newest two matches. They haven’t confronted one another since Medvedev’s 6-4, 6-0 on the Laver Cup in September, 2021.

This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Aug. 17, 2022.