By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday October 28, 2023
Felix Auger-Aliassime played what he called his best match of the year to take down Holger Rune and reach the Basel final.
Photo Source: Getty
The ATP season is just about over for Felix Auger-Aliassime, and the Canadian intends on finishing off a shaky campaign on solid footing.
The Canadian rolled past Holger Rune on Saturday, 6-3, 6-2, setting a final with Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz in a match that will be doubly important for the Pole.
Hurkacz, who took down Ugo Humbert in a cliffhanger, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(5), can pull within 15 points of Rune in the Race to Turin standings with a title in Basel.
Rune, who falls to 2-2 against Auger-Aliassime, was resurgent this week with new coach Boris Becker spending his first week in the Dane’s box, but he fell flat against Auger-Aliassime as he was broken three times and never managed a break of his own against the World No.19 in a contest that lasted one hour and 22 minutes.
For Auger-Aliassime, who improves to 21-18 on the season and 9-0 lifetime at Basel, the performance was a breakthrough.
“Very pleased, my best match in a while – probably the whole year,” he said.
“I have to come back to last year this period to where I played that well,” the 23-year-old added as he expressed pleasure in coming back a day after he had a physical encounter with Russia’s Alexander Shevchenko in the quarterfinals. “Against a player like Holger, who beat me a couple of weeks ago in Beijing. To come out today firing, the forehand, the serve, not too many mistakes and moving well, after yesterday, kind of surprising, I tried to get the best sleep I could, drink loads of water, and it worked out.”
Rune notched a 6-4, 6-4 win over Auger-Aliassime a few weeks ago in Beijing, but he had no such luck today. “I think last time we played I was going maybe for too much,” he said. “There were just too many unforced errors. Maybe this time around he was kind of waiting for that and I didn’t give him that.” Auger-Aliassime struck 17 winners against nine unforced errors, including nine off the forehand side, while Rune hit 14 errors and committed 19 unforced errors.
Auger-Aliassime leads Hurkacz 2-1 in their head-to-head, and has won their only hard court meeting (in 2019 at Miami).
The Pole, who won the Shanghai title earlier this month for his second Masters 1000 title, says he won’t be thinking too much about a potential boost in the Race to Turin standings.
"I try to shut down the noise and do my job, because ultimately if you can do that then you give yourself the best chance," Hurkacz said.
He failed to serve out the win against Humbert at 5-3 in the third but eventually got it done in the tiebreaker, closing out the contest in two hours and 37 minutes to improve to 43-21 on the season.