In less than 24 hours, the roles were reversed for Quebecer Félix Auger-Aliassime at the National Bank Open.
After dominating Britain’s Cameron Norrie in 72 minutes the day before, Auger-Aliassime saw his run in Montreal come to an end in the quarter-finals when Norway’s Casper Ruud triumphed 6-1, 6-2 on Friday.
Auger-Aliassime, the tournament’s sixth seed, had been ruthless on serve against Norrie (noh 9) and he manhandled him with several powerful and precise strikes. None of that worked against Ruud though (noh 4), who dictated the pace after a small hitch in the first run.
The Quebecer committed four double faults and 21 unforced errors, against 19 winners. Like the crowd present on the center court of the IGA stadium, Auger-Aliassime regularly seemed helpless in the face of his opponent’s attacks.
Thanks to this small victory in 76 minutes, Ruud now has an appointment in the semi-finals with the Pole Hubert Hurkacz (noh 8), which fell to Australian Nick Kyrgios, earlier in the day.
Ruud and Hurkacz are the only two seeds still in contention for the title in Montreal. In the evening, the American Tommy Paul will face the Briton Daniel Evans while the Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta will cross swords with the Briton Jack Draper, from the qualifications.
Breakage exchange
The game got off to a flying start for Auger-Aliassime, who won the first four points to immediately break Ruud’s serve. The Norwegian, however, returned the favor to the local favorite in the next game to level the score at 1-1.
It was from there that things got worse for the 22-year-old Quebecer.
In the fourth game of the first set, Auger-Aliassime was unable to finish despite two advantages and he was broken. When he got the balls back, his serve didn’t unsettle Ruud, who earned another break to take a 5-1 lead.
In the second set, the Norwegian picked up where he left off by breaking Auger-Aliassime in the first game. In the third game, the Quebecer even made it easier for him by committing a double fault which increased his lead to 3-0 .
Ruud put an end to the debate during his service game, performing a small miracle following a smash from his rival.
Hurkacz slows down Kyrgios
As a curtain raiser on Friday, in front of an exhausted but still tough Kyrgios, Hurkacz continued his demolition work on serve by triumphing in three sets of 7-6 (4), 6-7 (5), 6-1.
Hurkacz already topped the aces column with an impressive 39 in two games and he added 20 against Kyrgios.
Kyrgios was on a very good streak, having just won his last nine games. He won the title at the Washington tournament last week. The Australian, however, seemed to run out of fuel in the tank from the second run.
“My body wasn’t feeling very well during the week. I had abdominal pain before the game, my knees hurt so obviously when you start playing and you stop for a few minutes, it doesn’t help your body, said the Australian about the break taken by Hurkacz between rounds two and three. My body was stiff and I couldn’t move properly. »
Earlier this week, Kyrgios had managed to eliminate the Russian Daniil Medvedev, favorite and defending champion of the tournament, in the second round.
“It was a difficult match because Nick is a difficult opponent. He’s been successful for a few months so it was quite a challenge, but it was also a lot of fun, Hurkacz said. Nick is capable of hitting every shot and he doesn’t really have any weaknesses. I just tried to serve well and be aggressive. »