Montreal’s Félix Auger-Aliassime qualified for the quarter-finals of the Antwerp tennis tournament thanks to a victory in two identical sets of 6-3, 6-3 against Frenchman Manuel Guinard on Thursday afternoon.
In his first outing on the courts after his triumph at the Florence tournament on Sunday, Auger-Aliassime again offered a solid performance on serve.
The 10e world player collected 11 aces without committing a single double fault, and faced only one break point, in the sixth game of the second set which he managed to erase.
Auger-Aliassime also caused 10 break chances and converted three of them, including the first in the eighth game of the first set, which gave him a 5-3 lead.
Auger-Aliassime added breaks of service in the opening game of the second set, and in the ninth game, which was ultimately the last of the clash after 79 minutes of action.
As the tournament’s second seed, Auger-Aliassime was given a bye in the opening round.
In the quarter-finals, he will face the Briton Daniel Evans, 26th player in the world and fifth seed. On Wednesday, Evans defeated Frenchman Constant Lestienne 6-2, 6-1.
This will be the third meeting between Auger-Aliassime and Evans, but the first outside Australia.
In 2021, in an Australian Open preparatory tournament, Evans defeated Auger-Aliassime 6-2, 6-3 in Melbourne.
On January 22, at the Australian Open, Auger-Aliassime easily beat the Briton, 6-4, 6-1, 6-1 in a third-round duel.
In other games played Thursday in Antwerp, American Sebastian Korda and Belgian David Goffin scored straight-set wins over Russian Karen Khachanov and Argentinian Diego Schwartzman, respectively.
In another clash, Austria’s Dominic Thiem needed three sets to defeat Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo.