Canadian Teen Felix Auger-Aliassime Knocks Out Top Seed Stefanos Tsitsipas To Make Queen’s Club Final Four
(June 21, 2019) Canadian teen Felix Auger-Aliassime knocked out top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-5, 6-2 to make the final four at Queen’s Club in London. It was his third singles match in less than 24 hours due to the rain earlier in the week. The 18-year-old is the youngest player to make the semifinals of this Wimbledon warm-up tournament since Lleyton Hewitt, who was also 18 in 1999.
“He’s the most difficult opponent I’ve ever faced, and I think it’s going to take a couple of tries to beat him, and I think it’s gonna take a couple of tries to beat him.” Tsitsipas said.
“It is very difficult, because he has one of the best returns on the tour. He has a really powerful, accurate serve, which is tough to read.
“He’s really quick and fast, which is rare to find all of that combinations together, combined. Big forehand, big backhand. He can create a lot of opportunities from his backhand, but also, at the same time, he can be very aggressive from the forehand side.
“There’s not much to come up with when you play against him. He’s pretty much solid from everywhere.”
The Canadian has never lost to the Greek going back to their days as junior players.
“I have to accept that he’s better than me. I might never beat him, but if I think that way, just need to wait, years maybe, for that chance to come.”
“I guess when we play, I have the advantage on him, but at the same time, I think it would be wrong for me to say that I’m a better player than him,” Auger-Aliassime said to media.
“If you just look at the results he’s had, I mean, I think he has, what, three titles already on different surfaces, he’s beaten all the top players, Rafa(Nadal), Novak(Djokovic), Roger(Federer). So I think objectively he’s a better player. He’s better ranked and he’s a better player than me, but maybe the matchup, one against each other, I have a bit of an advantage. I don’t know.”
“It’s humbling,” Auger-Aliassime commenting on Tsitsipas’ compliments. “I appreciate that from him, especially coming from him, because, you know, he’s beaten these players and he’s been playing good against these top players.
“I think for me that’s obviously the next challenge with winning, winning tournaments, is to beat players like Rafa(Nadal), Novak (Djokovic),(Alexander) Zverev, or (Kei) Nishikori. I think I have been playing well also on clay, but I haven’t found quite the way to beat these guys. I actually lost pretty badly three times.
“I think, yeah, that’s, for me, the next step to find a way to beat these type of players”
Auger-Aliassime’s next opponent will be 37-year-old Spaniard Feliciano Lopez, the 2017 Queen’s champion, who stopped a potential all-Canadian semifinal by defeating Milos Raonic 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(5).
In other Fever-Tree Championships quarterfinal action, Daniil Medvedev became the first Russian to reach the semifinals of Queen’s Club in the Open Era when he beat Diego Schwartzman 6-2, 6-2.
Medvedev will play Frenchmen Gilles Simon who beat countryman Nicolas Mahut 7-6(5), 5-7, 7-6(3) in a marathon three-hour and 20-minute match.
“It’s great to be the first Russian to be in the semifinals and a bit surprising, maybe it’s the first time I made history,” he said.
