Auger-Aliassime qualifies for the ATP Finals with a victory in 3 sets at the Paris Masters | Radio-Canada Sports

Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime qualified for the season-ending ATP Finals for the first time in his career with a slender 6-7(6), 6-4, 7-6(6) win. ) against Sweden’s Mikael Ymer in second-round action Wednesday at the Paris Masters tennis tournament.

The Canadiens hit their ticket when two of the four players chasing the final two spots lost their second-round matches. Hubert Hurkacz fell 7-5, 6-1 to Holger Rune and Taylor Fritz was beaten 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 meaning they could no longer catch Auger-Aliassime and Andrey Rublev on points .

The ATP Finals will begin on November 13 in Turin, Italy.

Later Wednesday, Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., lost 7-6(2), 2-6, 6-4 to 14th seeded Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain.

Auger-Aliassime moved to Paris after a tough ordeal. He had a chance to put the game away earlier in the third set tiebreaker. Ymer, serving 6-5, stayed alive when he placed a shot over Auger-Aliassime’s racket to end a long rally.

Auger-Aliassime opened his second match point when Ymer fired a shot into the net at the next point.

Ymer, who qualified for the main draw through qualifying, didn’t make it easy for the in-form Auger-Aliassime.

The Montreal native, who entered Paris after holding serve throughout his tournament victory last week at the Swiss Indoors in Basel, faced 17 break points on Wednesday and saved 14.

Ymer looked likely to win when he took a huge break in game three of the second set and held the next game, putting it 4-1 up in the second set after winning the first.

But Auger-Aliassime was opportunistic, with two of his four breaks in the game in the second set to allow him to fight back and force a deciding set.

Auger broke twice in the final set, but Ymer fired back both times to force a tiebreaker.

Auger-Aliassime had 11 aces to Ymer’s two and 45 winners to his opponent’s 34.

The Canadian will then face the Frenchman Gilles Simon.

Auger-Aliassime entered the tournament after three consecutive titles: the ATP 250 tournament victories in Florence, Italy, and Antwerp, Belgium, and the ATP 500 victory in Basel.

He is seeking his first Master’s level title in Paris.

Shapovalov, ranked 16th in the world, had just qualified for last week’s Erste Bank Open final in Vienna.

He fired 12 aces, won 86% of first-serve points and was only broken twice. One of them, however, was a key break from Carreno Busta in the opener of the third set, which proved costly as both players held serve until the end.

de Minaur, Alcaraz, Tsitsipas qualified for the 3rd round

Prior to the Paris Masters, Carlos Alcaraz, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Casper Ruud, Daniil Medvedev, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic had already qualified for the eight-man tournament in Turin from November 13-20.

Alcaraz, Tsitsipas, Alex de Minaur and Lorenzo Musetti also advanced to the third round in Paris, while Nadal’s 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-1 loss to Tommy Paul raised questions about his fitness in his first singles match since. the US Open.

Second-seeded Nadal committed 19 unforced errors to Paul’s 18 and lost serve three times in the final set, looking almost resigned.

“At the end, I need days on the circuit,” Nadal said. “It’s true that in the last five months I haven’t had enough days on the circuit. I’m not even saying competing on a tennis court. I’m saying on the circuit. Training with the guys. C is what I need.”

Paul next faces Pablo Carreno Busta, who edged Denis Shapovalov 7-6(2), 2-6, 6-4.

De Minaur upset fourth-seeded Medvedev 6-4, 2-6, 7-5 to then face Frances Tiafoe, who beat Jack Draper 6-3, 7-5.

De Minaur beat Medvedev for the first time in five encounters.

After recovering from a 2-0 deficit in the final set, De Minaur failed to convert his first two match points at 5-4. He hit a return on the first match point and committed an unforced error on the second.

But the Aussie got two more chances at 6-5. Medvedev saved the third match point with a service winner before double faulting on the fourth and angrily throwing his racquet to the ground.

“I’m happy to have played a very tactical game,” De Minaur told Tennis Channel. “I just tried to wait for my good ball and step back and get my volley back.”

Medvedev, who won the Paris Masters in 2020 and was a runner-up last year, lost serve in the opening set by hitting a spike in the final match. But the Russian took advantage of De Minaur’s unforced errors to break twice in the second set.

Top-seeded Alcaraz beat Yoshihito Nishioka 6-4, 6-4 to rack up more points in their run for the year-end No. 1 ranking.

Alcaraz hit 30 winners to seven for the Japanese player and will next face Grigor Dimitrov who dispatched lucky loser Fabio Fognini 6-0, 7-5.

Fifth-seeded Tsitsipas beat Daniel Evans 6-3, 6-4 to lead the ATP Tour with 58 wins this year.

Tsitsipas took a 3-0 lead in the first set. He then hit a forehand winner across the field to break Evans in the opener of the second, before converting his first match point with an ace.

“I’m happy with the level of tennis I brought when I had to,” said Tsitsipas. “I was moving well, I was dictating well. I put everything together, including my defence.”

Tsitsipas will face Corentin Moutet, who beat Cameron Norrie 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (3).