Tennis News: Canadian tennis player Felix Auger Aliassime didn’t play the opening match he wanted when he made his Qatar Open debut in Doha in the 2023 season.
But the second seed has raised the level of her game when she needed it to reach the quarter-finals of the Qatar Open. He overcame a slow start before beating Australian Jason Kubler 4-6 6-1 6-4 in 2 hours 16 minutes.
The 22-year-old struggled to make comebacks in the first set after winning just 20% of the points on Kubler’s first and second serves. But he found his rhythm as the game went on, hitting the ball better and being aggressive on the returns in the second and third sets.
The second seed also converted three of the six break point opportunities he created, while saving four of the five he faced.
Thanks to this victory, Auger Aliassime has now leveled his head to head at 1-1.
Auger Aliassime will next face seventh seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina who earned a convincing 6-3 6-2 win over South Korean national Soonwoo Kwon in the second round of the Qatar Open.
After beating world number 9 Auger Aliassime in Newport last season, Kubler is aiming for a second victory over the Canadian and only the second top-10 victory of his career. But he failed to break the resistance of the Canadian tennis player.
First-seeded Andrey Rublev also had to struggle after conceding the first set before advancing to the Qatar Open quarter-finals after beating Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor 1-6, 6-1, 7- 6.
World number 5 Rublev, who won the title in Doha in 2020, was on the verge of losing his fourth game in the opening match of the five tournaments he has played this season before finding a way to turn things around after leading 2-5. in the third set.
The top seed saved three match point chances in the ninth game of the third set before converting a third match point chance in the tiebreaker to claim the win.
Czech tennis player Jiri Lehecka awaits Rublev in the quarter-finals, which eliminated Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori 6-2, 7-6.
Article Tags: Tennis, Qatar Open, Felix Auger Aliassime, Jason Kubler, Andrey Rublev
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