Felix Auger-Aliassime was forced to do double duty at Melbourne Park on Friday as he battled into the last four of the Murray River Open.
Due to the recent 24-hour pause in tennis taking place in Melbourne Park following a positive COVID-19 test, the world No.21 had to play two matches to make up for loss time as organisers aim to finish the tournament in time for the Australian Open. Auger-Aliassime survived a tough three-set encounter with Egor Gerasimov before his clash with Jiri Vesely came to an unfortunate end.
Gerasimov starts strong
In his first match of the day Auger-Aliassime came from behind to prevail 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(6). The first six games of the match were pretty routine as both players did a good job holding serve and we saw a lot of quick games and it looked like it was going to be a tricky match to win.
At 4-3 Gerasimov earned the first breakpoint of the match forcing the error from his Canadian opponent and would get the first break as Auger Aliassime made two consecutive errors sending a return into the net for a 5-3 lead.
Gerasimov would serve out the first set to take it 6-3 and was one set away from pulling off quite an upset vs the world number 21.
The Canadian responds
The Montreal native responded right away at the beginning of the second set after holding his opening service game broke the Belorussian serve with a sick return winner to take an early 2-0 lead. From there each player held serve and the Monte Carlo resident served out the second set to take it 6-3.
The decider
The third set was a back and forth battle and you honestly couldn’t tell who was going to win this match. Auger Aliassime got the first chance to break at 1-1 and managed to get the early break to take a 2-1 lead.
The break of serve didn’t last long as the Belarusian responded in the very next game breaking the Canadian on his fourth break point of the game after the number three seed managed to save the first three Gerasimov pulled off an amazing passing shot to go back on serve at 2-2.
Once again from there both players did a good job holding serve and at 6-5 Gerasimov had his first match point but Auger Aliassime managed to save it and held serve to force a tiebreaker to decide the match.
The Canadian won the first point of the breaker on the Belarusian’s serve but gave the break right back the very next point when he served an untimely double fault.
After that it was Gerasimov turn to break as Auger Aliassime made another unforced error to give his opponent the 2-1 lead but squandered it the very next point as he sent a ball long.
It seemed both players were struggling at this point to hold their own serve and were playing a better return game. At 4-3 the world number 21 got the crucial break with a stunning passing shot for a winner to take a 5-3 lead.
The Belorussian managed to hold his serve and at 5-4 the Canadian had a chance to serve it out but sent a ball into the net and we were tied up at 5 but Auger Aliassime would manage to make up for it winning the next point to set up another match point.
Once again he would give the break right back and at 6-6 he didn’t give up and the Montreal native won a great rally to set up another match point. This time he made no mistake winning the match with a big smash to take it.
Felix handles Vesely
A couple hours after a hard fought three set win Felix Auger Aliassime was back on court to face Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic for a spot in the semi finals.
The first set was pretty routine for both players as they both held serve for the first six games of the match. The Canadian at 3-3 earned three chances to break but the Czech was up to the task of saving them with his serve.
The first set went to a tiebreak and that’s where the number three seed turned up the tempo winning the breaker 7-3. After losing the first set Vesely decided to retire sending the Canadian into the semi finals.
In that semi final he will either face Correntin Moutet or Grigor Dimitrov while in the other quarter final matches Stan Wawrinka withdrew from his match against Jeremy Chardy with an injury he suffered in his win with Alex Bolt.