March 29, 2024

Open Court

MORE TENNIS THAN YOU'LL EVER NEED

Auger-Aliassime takes down Fognini in Rio

In search of his first victory on his first career Golden Swing of South America, Canadian Félix Auger-Aliassime hoped the second attempt would be the ice breaker.

On the minus side, the 18-year-old wild card drew No. 2 seed Fabio Fognini, ranked No. 16 in the world but likely higher than that if there were such a thing as clay-court rankings.

On the plus side, that Fognini did not make the trip to South America this year.

And so, through no real fault of his own, by playing some tennis that was solid most of the way and excellent at times, Auger-Aliassime posted the best victory of his career, by ranking.

The Canadian rolled over the 31-year-old Italian veteran 6-2, 6-3, without much of a protest from the man involved.

In the process, Auger-Aliassime likely will break into the top 100. There are a dozen players in play at various events around the world this week who could drop him down a bit, depending on how they do, assuming he can go no further in Rio.

But for the moment, it looks good. And it’s a big milestone. It’s one that many expected to come sooner. But those people didn’t have to go out and do it.

Next up for Auger-Aliassime, for the second consecutive week, is 22-year-old Christian Garin of Chile.

In Buenos last week, Garin defeated him 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 in the Canadian’s South American debut.

Fognini passive, ineffective

The thing about Fognini is that he can often be like this. He looks like he’s just going through the motions, rather disinterestedly – and then suddenly he can turn it on. He can be a little like Nick Kyrgios that way, although Fognini did it long before the Aussie came on the scene.

Fognini
If Fognini wanted to cause harm to his Babolat, he know well how to do it. So by his standards, this was a tame effort (Screenshot: TennisTV)

So it can be a trap, one that Auger-Aliassime never fell into. But on this occasion, having waited 24 hours to play the match, the Italian never gave off those vibes.

He was annoyed with the condition of the court, especially at the baseline where Auger-Aliassime hit two screamers that glanced off the baseline at 4-2, deuce in the first set.

At least the first of those engendered a reaction. Fognini – a noted transformer of tennis rackets into modern art – halfheartedly bounced his equipment on the court.

Even the lack of full effort on that one was a sign that, on this night, Auger-Aliassime had it on his racket. Assuming he was ready take it.

There may well have been issues with his strings, too. Fognini brought two rackets with him to the other side at the 2-5 changeover. But neither of those options compelled him to move his feet for the last two points of the set, as the young Canadian put it away.

A long set break

Fognini
“Seriously, what is even up with this dude?”

A fair bit of work was done on the court after the first. And in the middle of that, Fognini ambled off for a toilet break.

It felt endless – but was in fact, six minutes – before play resumed. And Auger-Aliassime continued where he left off.

It was warm (29C, even in the Rio evening) and humid, with both players glistening. 

But Fognini still was somewhat perturbed. He looked down on the court after one point, tamping down the clay with his sneaker. His opponent was drop-shotting him, and he wasn’t of a mind to chase them down.

The chair umpire assessed a time violation on his serve, as he was still in the middle of a long series of ball bounces whose purpose was unclear.

Fognini
This was the most animated Fognini was all night, turning a time-clock violation into a 60-second break. (Screenshot: TennisTV)

This woke up the sleeping Italian giant – sort of. His trip to the forecourt to plead his case – “I’m bouncing the ball!”, he said in Spanish, stating the obvious – ended up with him shaking his head as the crowd booed him.

All of that took exponentially more time than the few extra seconds he took before the serve. He then nattered something to the crowd that made them laugh – and was still chuntering at the chair umpire as he grabbed himself in a strategic location.

But only once. By Fabio standards, this was a mild. PG-rated sortie.

Auger-Aliassime just doing his thing

Fognini

As Fognini trudged back and forth behind the court between points, more often than not he was out of camera range. That’s how far back he was.

Meanwhile, Auger-Aliassime was right on the baseline. He was serving well, he was defending well. Basically, he was solid. That was all he needed to be.

The only chink in his effort came when he served for the match. He made three gratuitous unforced errors on his first two match points and at deuce.

Fognini mishit a serve return on the break point and lost his vibration dampener. As he went to retrieve it, he was booed again. He paid no attention; engaging, when he was so close to getting on a plane, seemed pointless.

Auger-Aliassime saved another break point. But on this day, with the task of coming back appearing so onerous and impossible to his opponent, the moment of pressure passed.

Salvaging the swing

Fognini

It would have been discouraging for Auger-Aliassime to leave South America 0-for-3 in his first go-round.

Not so much because of the matches lost. But because he would have spent a full month of his season, and have nothing to show for it other than a deposit into his experience bank.

The win gets Auger-Aliassime on the board. And with the carnage done to the seeds on a very full Tuesday, all is possible.

He also is straight into the main draw of the final tournament on the swing, in Sao Paulo.

Of the seven seeds who completed their first-round matches in Rio Tuesday, only No. 5 Joao Sousa came away a winner. No. 4 seed Diego Schwartzman, playing late night, lost the first thee games to Pablo Cuevas before play was suspended.

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