Montreal’s Félix Auger-Aliassime was eliminated in the third round of the Miami Tennis Open on Monday, losing 6-2, 7-5 to Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo.
Ranked 25th in the world Cerundolo made a crucial break in the 11th game of the second set to take a 6-5 lead. He achieved this by winning four points in a row after the Montrealer took a 40-15 lead in the game.
The Argentine took advantage of his chances, breaking Auger-Aliassime four times in six chances.
The Montrealer only got two break chances and capitalized on his first opportunity, in the eighth game of the second set to come back on even serve, at 4-4.
As Cerundolo served for the match, Auger-Aliassime was offered a second break chance, but he failed to exploit it.
Four points later, Cerundolo was able to confirm his victory, on his third match point, when Auger-Aliassime sent a forehand beyond the baseline.
Auger-Aliassime saw his streak of six straight Masters 1000 quarter-finals come to an end.
Moreover, it was the third duel between the two players in their career. They all took place in 2023 and Auger-Aliassime had won the first two, first at the Australian Open in January, then two weeks ago in Indian Wells.
Later Monday in women’s singles, Ontario’s Bianca Andreescu will play her fourth-round match against 18th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia.
In women’s doubles, Laval’s Leylah Fernandez and her American partner Taylor Townsend qualified for the quarter-finals with a 6-4, 7-6 (4) victory over Giuliana Olmos and Beatriz Haddad Maia.
Fernandez and Townsend served six aces and won 64 percent of first-serve points contested, in a match that lasted one hour 33 minutes.
Fernandez and Townsend will face third seeds, Latvian Jelena Ostapenko and Ukrainian Lyudmyla Kichenok on Tuesday.
Note to readers: Corrected version. In the 5th paragraph of the previous version, it should have read that Bianca Andreescu will play her fourth round match later on Monday, not the third round.