Roland Garros | Nadal beats Auger-Aliassime in suspense

Félix Auger-Aliassime pushed Rafael Nadal to the limit. At Roland Garros. In itself, this is a feat. But the Canadian couldn’t take advantage of his sparkling performance against the Spaniard. He lost in five hard-fought sets in the round of 16, on the Philippe-Chatrier court.

Jean-Francois Teotonio
The Press

Nadal therefore moved into the quarters in favor of a victory of 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 3-6 and 6-3 against Auger-Aliassime. This constant battle lasted nearly 4 hours 30 minutes.

“He’s an incredible player,” Nadal said of Auger-Aliassime on the pitch after the match. It’s one of the best in the world. He is very young. It has a lot of power and is very mobile. He was a tough opponent for me today. »

Unbearable tension

Auger-Aliassime was fierce early in the game. Nadal, a little less. A good recipe to try to achieve the feat of beating the Spaniard on his clay in Paris.

Specifically, Nadal only converted one break point in seven chances in the first set. And Félix took advantage of it a few times to make good comebacks in these games, and thus take the lead. He confirmed his win by serving brilliantly at 5-3.

But don’t beat Nadal who wants. The Spaniard has still lost only three career games at Roland Garros.

His dominance was starting to show in the second set. He missed much less. And pushed Auger-Aliassime to his last entrenchments. The latter generally answered the call very well, however. The exchanges were spectacular.

At 4-3, Nadal finally found the breach on a break point. His second success in 10 attempts. He solidified his lead at 5-3, then served aptly for the set. A set everywhere.

Irreducible Nadal

In the third set, we felt that the inevitable was happening. The Spaniard suffocated the Quebecer every time he found some fresh air in the corners. He joined all the strikes from the bottom of the field. And the off-center ones to look for off the court.

Auger-Aliassime continued to deliver excellent tennis. But Nadal’s was simply better. He broke the Canadian twice to win the third set 6-2.

Well. Was it a small drop in speed from Nadal in the fourth set? If so, Felix was there to enjoy it. He broke to take a 2-0 lead. After Nadal returned the favor, the Canadian found the breach again in the Spaniard’s serve, then consolidated at 3-1.

Nadal continued to hang on. But Felix had sniffed out a good deal. He won 6-3 to push the king of clay to the limit of five sets.

Like the previous four hours, the fifth set was as tight as possible. It took until Felix’s serve at 4-3 to see Rafa take his game up a notch — again. You had to see the reaction of Nadal, and the crowd, when the Spaniard gave himself two break points at 15-40. He materialized his break the next game. And would serve for the match at 5-3.

Driven by a fervor that we had not yet seen in this meeting, the undisputed master of Roland-Garros would confirm his hold on this tournament a few moments later.

“It’s always incredible to play here, at Philippe-Chatrier, with an incomparable atmosphere, noted Nadal, in French, after the match. It’s a lot of emotions for me. This is the most important tournament of my career. »

Will Rafael Nadal have enough energy left to beat Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals now? The answer on Tuesday.