By Chris Oddo | Tuesday March 26, 2019

 

Felix Auger-Aliassime became the youngest Miami Open quarter-finalist in 18 years on Tuesday--what will he achieve next?.

Photo Source: Lindsey Godwin/Miami Open

Felix-Auger Aliassime is proving that all the hype that has surrounded him since he became the first player born in the 2000s to hold an ATP ranking four years ago is more than justified.

The 18-year-old Canadian has been beyond impressive in the last two months, starting with his trip to South America to play on clay in three Golden Swing events. While there he shook off a heartbreaking loss in his first match at Cordoba and became the youngest player to EVER reach a 500-level final at Rio two weeks later.

He was just getting started.

In total Auger-Aliassime would win six matches in South America and set the table for what he has achieved over the last three-plus weeks at Indian Wells and Miami.

His decision to play on clay, and to embrace the mentality of playing long, physical points while delivering consistent depth and defense, has clearly helped Auger-Aliassime on the slower hardcourts that he has played on in North America, where he has continued his rise with confident aplomb.



At Indian Wells Auger-Aliassime powered past World No.10 Stefanos Tsitsipas for his first ever Top 10 win. It was a devastating, dominant display that left the talented Greek at a loss.

“It's tough playing him,” Tsitsipas reflected after his defeat. “He has kind of a strange tempo in his game, and you always feel like he's going to hit very hard, but then you don't really know what to expect, how hard he's going to hit the ball. So you're always caught out of position.”

Though Auger-Aliassime lost a difficult third-rounder at the BNP Paribas Open to Yoshihito Nishioka, a match in which he later admitted that he had encountered physical fatigue, he has picked up where he left off with Miami and on Tuesday became the first qualifier to reach the quarter-finals at the Miami Open since 2007.

He’s done it by notching victories over savvy veterans (Paolo Lorenzi), rising stars (Hubert Hurkacz and Casper Ruud) and physical phenoms (Marton Fucsovics and Nikoloz Basilashvili). He’s done it with a balanced brand of baseline tennis, a pulverizing forehand that can wreak havoc against even the fleetest defender, and a wicked first serve. He’s done it with heart and he’s done it with intellect, and he’s doing it with a game that has plenty of room to grow.

The Canadian is a force on the courts already, and he covers the court with a remarkable ease, moving explosively and intuitively while striking the ball cleanly off of both wings. But if he continues to fine-tune his attack, add placement and pace to his serve, finds more ways to devastate earlier in points with his forehand and net play, he could become an undeniable force at the top of the men’s game.



Never mind that as of next Monday he’ll already be the first player born in the 2000s to achieve a Top 50 ranking, Auger-Aliassime has the potential to go much, much higher—perhaps to the top of the ATP rankings.

That last statement is not news to the ardent tennis fans. Lofty projections have been made about the Canadian since he earned that aforementioned ATP ranking point at the age of 14. And, again, when he became the fourth-youngest player ever to crack the Top 200 in 2017 (only Richard Gasquet, Rafael Nadal and Lleyton Hewitt did it at a younger age).

Those who have just taken notice after the Quebec native cracked the Top 100 in February are late to the party.

This writer remembers sitting courtside as Auger-Aliassime played Wimbledon juniors while two tennis insiders spoke about the fact that agents were relentlessly pounding on the kid’s door—to no avail. At 15 he was a "can’t miss kid" but his parents (father originally from Togo, mother from French-speaking Canada), according to what was being said, weren’t willing to do a deal because they didn’t want him to skip any steps along the way (he now wears Nike, and touts a Tag Heuer timepiece as well).

There wasn't any rush at the time. Let the shoe and apparel companies wait while Auger-Aliassime learned to play a pro-style game that was sheltered as much as could be from outside interference, one that could be executed successfully on all surfaces against all comers.

Auger-Aliassime told media on Tuesday in Miami that all the media attention that came so early in his career has actually helped him essentially be over it by now. He says he's no longer worrying over expectations and projections, he's just dialed into the tennis, patiently building his game so that it will stand up over the next decade or so on the ATP Tour.

"I think I have been dealing with this for the last couple of years, so I think in a way that's why I am able now to have these kind of results, because this extra pressure, this attention that I gave maybe last year or the year before to the outcomes, to the medias, that's a bit behind me now where I'm able really to stay in the present and really focus on what I have to do in the court, finding ways to win," he said. "That just keeps me going and just keeps me happy."

The decision to conduct a lot of training and match play on clay has played a significant role in making Auger-Aliassime into a well-rounded player. Sure, he has power to burn and can make hay in short rallies, but where Auger-Aliassime is really impressing, particularly against accomplished veterans like Pablo Cuevas, Marton Fucsovics and Nikoloz Basilashvili, is in the shot tolerance department. He can not only hang in long rallies and in physical stretches of matches—he can thrive in them.

“It's just a surface that was always good for me as a young guy to develop mentally, physically,” Auger-Aliassime told reporters about his feelings for the clay at Indian Wells. “I made a lot of traveling sacrifices to go away and play these tournaments, and I think it built me really a strong character. I think I can use that any week and any day.”

He used that “character” today as he knocked off World No.19 Basilashvili to improve to 4-0 lifetime against players inside the Top 20. And no, that Top 20 record not a typo—clearly playing big against the tour’s best is another of Auger-Aliassime’s trademarks.

The Canadian will get a chance for a fifth Top 20 win on Thursday in Miami when he faces Borna Coric in his first Masters 1000 quarter-final. Last year at this time Auger-Aliassime lost in qualies and he was ranked 182 in the world. Today’s he’s the fourth-youngest quarter-finalist in Miami Open history, and the youngest since 2001.

Is he surprised?

Maybe, maybe not.

“It feels amazing,” he told Tennis Channel on Tuesday. “It feels pretty surreal. Obviously that’s where I want to be as a player—I believe, but to happen so quickly, in just a year, that jump, it is a lot of improvements, a lot of work, but to happen that way, it’s great.”