Canadian Felix Auger Aliassime stormed into a fierce battle with Spanish star Roberto Bautista Agut to register a huge victory that earned his country the first time the ATP Cup title on Sunday.
Novak Djokovic led Serbia won the inaugural edition of the team event in 2020, while Rafael Nadal led Spain also had to finish second, with Daniil Medvedev winning the title last year in Russia.
In this year (beginning) Auger-Aliassime managed to reach the quarter-finals of the Australian Open. Third seed Auger-Aliassime was in need of only 78 minutes to cover a 6-4 6-2 win that occurred in the Rotterdam Open on Sunday.
“The emotions are incredible, there’s no better feeling than winning, we’ve given up everything there,” said Auger-Aliassime.
“We lost our first four games in this competition, but never stopped believing.
“We trust each other, Dennis and me, and everyone in the team, and I think that’s very important. I’m very excited for everyone on the team and of course for myself.
“Spain is always tough, they’ve been the best nation in the world for a while.”
Canada earned their place in the final after stunning defending champions Russia on Saturday.
They also lost to Zverev’s Germany and Britain in the group match, bouncing back after crashing to the United States in their opening tie of the tournament.
There were no ATP points for Novak Djokovic’s victory in the court of law on Monday but the Serbs remain comfortably as the world’s top-ranked men’s player before next week. The Australian Opener Djokovic, who could still be ruled out of the year’s first Grand Slam event due to his COVID-19 vaccination status, is more than 2000 points away from second-ranked Daniil Medvedev to claim the number one spot in the 355th week of his career.
A judge on Monday ordered that Djokovic, who had been in detention since landing in Australia last Wednesday, was “released immediately and immediately from immigration detention”.
Djokovic has won the Australian Open nine times, including in the last three events, but his hopes of defending the title and winning a record-breaking 21st Grand Slam title are still unbalanced.
Felix added, “I can’t explain the weight off my shoulder right now. I got a little bit emotional with my family, you know, towards the end after the match. It’s crazy, I’ve had sleepless nights thinking about this title and why I can’t overcome this feat. I didn’t have a clear reason.
“I think this year I just wanted to be to overcome that. I wanted to be a better player overall, more consistent, more solid in my mind. And I think today I showed that and this week I showed it against the best players in the world. So incredibly happy just to get this first title under my belt and now I can play more freely, almost.”
Felix Auger Aliassime’s victory over Stefanos Tsitsipas:
Following their Sydney showdown with Denis Shapovalov, Pablo Carreno starts the season of Busta winners 6-4, 6-3 in 17 minutes and sets the scene to crunch the second singles rubber. The world number 11(ranking) Auger-Aliasime beat third-ranked Alexander Zverev in the tournament and again showed his class by beating 19th ranked Bautista Agut 7-6 (7/3), 6-3, and sealing the tournament for Canada.
By beating Denis Shapovalov Felix has won 12 out of 15 matches in 2022. In the encounter’s opening game Augur got an early break. Moreover, he fired a service winner in a 2-0 gap. Later he played another amazing serve in 3-1 ahead.
Felix Auger Aliassime is the second-youngest player (ranked 20) by the Association of TennisProfessionals. On 10th January 2022, he acquired a high-career single (ranking 9).
And this is his very first ATP Cup winning against Stefanos Tsitsipas.
