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For much of the last year, Félix Auger-Aliassime has preached patience.

Both to fans and detractors alike. But also to himself.

The Canadian is a thoughtful, deliberate man who likes everything in place, organized and consistent.

But the last year or so his career has been anything but that.

The 23-year-old was at a career-high No. 6 to start 2023. Coming into this week in Monte Carlo, at the dawn of the clay-court season, he finds himself at No. 35.

There’s every possibility that he’ll be unseeded at Roland Garros for the first time at a Grand Slam tournament since the 2019 Australian Open, when he was barely 18 years old and the future seemed so bright.

The search for solutions

The vox populi have *demanded* Auger-Aliassime set aside longtime coach (“set aside” is a polite euphemism for what some people feel compelled to post) Fréderic Fontang for awhile now.

As if a coaching change would be some potion that would straighten out the serve on its bad days, cut down the forehand shanks and magically make his down-the-line backhand appear on command.

Of course, it’s significantly more complex than that. And in the end, changing a coach doesn’t change much unless the player is willing to listen.

Fontang is a solid coach. But he’s as low-key as they come, not the kind to get in his player’s face and demand changes to his game and mindset.

Whether or not that approach would even work with Auger-Aliassime is certainly a valid question. But it was hoped that Toni Nadal would add some spice to the mix, push him the way he pushed his nephew Rafa to great heights all these years.

It turned out, that didn’t happen. And so Toni Nadal has been quietly pushed out of the picture for awhile now. There may well be room there for someone to light a bit of a fire.

Yes, a bit of an ass-kicker.

They’re not that easy to find. Most people in tennis are selling their FAA stock right now, not buying or holding it.

Your resumé will be embellished by a player on the come-up or already at the top; a player whose ranking is falling and who has a long road to turning it around doesn’t do much for your reputation, if you can’t come up with a quick fix.

And yet, Auger-Aliassime is such a supreme athlete that it’s far too soon to write him off.

Facing reality

The month of March was not kind to Auger-Aliassime.

He didn’t just lose to Carlos Alcaraz at Indian Wells in his second match there. He didn’t even make a dent. He didn’t show in the way that he had shown the previous year in defeat, and in other matches against the younger Spaniard where he was able to win.

Still, he preached patience.

The 2023 season had shaken him out of that settled comfort zone, as he dealt with the first significant injury of his career and continued to try to play.

Healthy again, he was giving himself time in these first months of the 2024 season to get back into a good groove. But those things take time, he said.

It must have been a long wait until Miami, with some soul-searching involved.

Auger-Aliassime managed to get through a tight one over qualifier Adam Walton in the first match. It could have gone sideways, but it didn’t. It was the first time in a long time that Auger-Aliassime didn’t have a first-round bye at an extended Masters 1000. So he had to dive right in early in the week.

There was at least a little momentum going into his second-round match against Alexander Zverev.

Second straight poor performance

Zverev held a 6-2 head-to-head. But Auger-Aliassime had beaten him at both the 2022 ATP Cup, and in a dramatic five-setter at Wimbledon in 2021.

He said later that he felt good going in.

It just didn’t happen. Not even close.

After the match, Auger-Aliassime’s demeanour was a lot more sombre. For the first time, he questioned – out loud, publicly, anyway – whether he had enough in his game to compete with the best players in the world.

Certainly, on this day, he didn’t. The return of serve wasn’t there. The backhand wasn’t there.

As Auger-Aliassime pointed out, the foundation of his game has always been his big serve and his forehand. The backhand has always been a work in progress.

For a few years, it was enough to get near the very top of the game.

The challenge for Auger-Aliassime has been on the days when those two big weapons aren’t firing.

Behind that, there are holes in his game that are ripe to be attacked. And, at least from what he said after that Miami loss, he’s starting to come to terms with it.

Here’s what he said.

Open Court has interviewed Auger-Aliassime since he was a young teenager. And there was definitely a different tone to his comments after this one.

But what to do, with that realization?

It’s not as though, as he said, he hasn’t strived every year to improve his weaknesses. There just seems to be a disconnect between the practice court and the match court.

The lack of confidence leads to an instinct to play it safe. Auger-Aliassime playing it safe means inside-out forehands and cross-court backhands. Opponents know what’s coming; they don’t have to move out of a slot just left of the service strip. And they can be pretty confident that the Canadian won’t use the space he creates down the backhand line to pull the trigger.

When he was just coming up, all of those other weapons fired a lot more. He came to the net more. He looked for those opportunities a lot more.

But the game style has become a little stale, too reliant on those two big weapons that might get you to the top 10, but don’t guarantee you can stay there.

Meanwhile, all around him, his rivals have been getting better, plugging those holes in their game. And, above all, just being more consistent and less error-prone week to week.

In other words, it’s getting even tougher at the top.

Is Monte Carlo an opportunity?

Even if clay isn’t Auger-Aliassime’s favorite surface, he has had his share of success on it, going back to when he reached the Roland Garros junior boys’ final in 2016.

And he got off to a good start.

Faced with a qualifier in the first round, he ended up drawing young Italian Luca Nardi – almost exactly three years younger, 21 in August two days before Auger-Aliassime turns 24.

Nardi shocked Novak Djokovic at Indian Wells. At No. 161 a year ago, he’s at a career high No. 75 and not an easy out.

But two things happened on Monday. Nardi didn’t play well. And Auger-Aliassime was strong with both his weapons: he was nearly untouchable on serve, and his forehand was firing. And his backhand held up.

With the same number of unforced errors (19), Auger-Aliassime hit 24 winners to Nardi’s … four.

No Alcaraz

And then, a break.

Auger-Aliassime was looking at a rematch with Alcaraz. But the Spaniard had been dealing with an arm muscle issue. And reports back from his practices were that he wasn’t even really hitting his forehand.

It wasn’t much of a surprise when Alcaraz announced Tuesday that he was withdrawing from Monte Carlo, as he had to do last year as well.

So Auger-Aliassime ended up drawing the fifth lucky loser picked out of the qualifying pool. Normally that might be a tasty proposition. In this case, the fifth lucky loser is talented Italian Lorenzo Sonego.

Auger-Aliassime is 2-1 against Sonego, including a win on clay in Hamburg in 2020.

It’s a winnable match. And the No. 3 seed being out of the draw opens it up a little bit.

Will this be the breakthrough week for Auger-Aliassime? The plus from his struggles on clay last year is that he has virtually no points to defend through the end of the clay-court season. There’s only one way to go: up.

We’ll know Wednesday afternoon.

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