NEW YORK — Felix Auger-Aliassime is into the semifinals of the U.S. Open, exactly four years after the first and only time the 25-year-old Canadian had reached the final four at a Grand Slam tournament.
Seeded 25th, Auger-Aliassime upset No. 8 seed Alex de Minaur of Australia 4-6, 7-6 (7), 7-5, 7-6 (4) in Wednesday’s quarterfinal to advance.
He will play the winner of the match late Wednesday between Italians Jannik Sinner and Lorenzo Musetti.
“Four years is a long time, even if in the span of a lifetime it’s also not that long. But 2021 does feel like a long time ago. I feel like I’m a different person,” Auger-Aliassime said. “With the opportunity I had to start on the pro tour so young, it allows me now, with a second wind, another opportunity to find myself in the semis of a Slam. And I’m still only 25.”
It was a match that was not, by even the most charitable definition, a memorable one.
It was infernally long — four hours and 10 minutes for just four sets, including an 87-minute second set. There were a few flashes of athletic brilliance overwhelmed by far too many uncharacteristic and untimely errors.
Each player had 11 double faults; Auger-Aliassime countered that with 22 aces, while de Minaur had just eight.
It wasn’t pretty. It was an absolute grind. But Auger-Aliassime said later that he carried the wise words of tennis legend Rafael Nadal with him at all times, and tried to put them into practice.
“I once asked him what the difference was between his career and that of other really good players who didn’t have the same career," Auger-Aliassime said. "He said it was the ability to win matches when he wasn’t playing his best, because it gave him the opportunity to play better in the next round and to stay alive in the tournament. What you don’t say is, ‘Today is not my day. It’ll go better next time.’
“I have tried over the years to get better with that, and to doubt myself less when things aren’t going great."
For de Minaur, so often denied at the quarterfinal stages of Grand Slam tournaments, it would have been the breakthrough he’s been working so hard for.
But de Minaur’s first-serve percentage was just 34 per cent in the first set, even if Auger-Aliassime did not make him pay the price for that.
It didn’t get much better; the final number was 42 per cent. And as the match went on, that constant pressure to defend his second serve wore de Minaur down.
“Going into this match, the serve was what was getting me out of trouble," de Minaur said. "It’s just that in the big matches, that's kind of the first thing that goes away. The only thing it does is create a lot more pressure on everything else. I'm playing second serves, I'm on the back foot, I always feel like I need to do a little bit more.
“I'm never expecting to serve like Felix — 20-odd aces and get free points. But for me, the percentage has to be a lot, lot higher.”
Auger-Aliassime appeared a step slow in the early going, much lower on energy and imagination than he had been in wins over No. 3 seed Alexander Zverev in the third round and No. 15 seed Andrey Rublev in the fourth round.
“Now that I think about it, the tempo was a bit different," Auger-Aliassime said. "My ball striking was a little less sharp on certain shots, and I wasn’t quick to move forward in the first half of the match. And the quality of my ball wasn’t as good, as precise at the start."
The Canadian was down a set and a break of serve in the second set when he ditched the ball cap he had been wearing. And, coincidence or not, things turned around.
Auger-Aliassime doesn’t often wear a ball cap, unlike certain players for whom it’s part of the uniform for every match — even at night.
“Maybe it did send a message to the brain that something’s different, without getting too spiritual about it,” he said, laughing.
Despite giving away an entire set’s worth of forehand errors to his opponent in the first two sets — 24 in all — he won that second set in a tiebreak.
And after being down 2-5 in the fourth set, with the match seemingly headed to a fifth and deciding frame, he came back and won yet another tiebreak.
Auger-Aliassime is now 14-4 in tiebreaks at the U.S. Open in his career.
After posting just one win in his three visits to Flushing Meadows since that 2021 semifinal, including a straight-sets loss to Jakub Mensik a year ago, it’s a welcome result that will do wonders for his ATP Tour ranking.
Auger-Aliassime, whose career high singles ranking of No. 6 came in November 2022, has spent most of the last two years outside of the top 20 and dropped as low as No. 36 in April 2024.
He came into this U.S. Open ranked No. 27. As of Wednesday, his provisional ranking is No. 13, the highest it’s been in more than two years.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 3, 2025.
Stephanie Myles, The Canadian Press
