Felix Auger-Aliassime saved his best tennis for the season’s final major.
The No. 25 seed pulled off his third straight upset — a 4-6, 7-6 (7), 7-5, 7-6 (4) victory Wednesday over No. 8 Alex de Minaur inside Arthur Ashe Stadium — to reach the semifinals of the U.S. Open for the second time in his career.
De Minaur was just the most recent player in the top 15 to be stunned by Auger-Aliassime in this tournament, following No. 3 seed Alexander Zverev and No. 15 seed Andrey Rublev.
Auger-Aliassime will face the winner of the Italian showdown between world No. 1 Jannik Sinner and Lorenzo Musetti in the semifinals.
“It was my toughest match in this tournament so far,” Auger-Aliassime said after the match. “But even down a break in the second, I was like, ‘OK, let’s just believe that keep going for it,’ like, keep having the same intentions, not change much, but just, you know, believe that it’s going to come back. Like it’s going to come at some point. I’m going to connect a few and feel like, ‘OK, yeah, here we go.’
“To break back immediately, I think that was a great response mentally and in the game. Then the tiebreak, I went down in the tiebreak, but not down enough that you’d think it’s out of reach. I was, like, ‘OK, just gotta win one clutch point and one important point and then you’re back in this.’
“Then it was obviously very tight at the end. Could have gone either way, but came up with some good serves, some good shots. Yeah, once it was one set-all, I felt, ‘OK, I can settle into the match much more.’ ”
Recovering from a set down, Auger-Aliassime, 25, never put his head down for the remainder of the four-hour, 10-minute match. The confidence he built over the past week and a half visibly carried him through any point when de Minaur looked to take control.
Even when he fell behind 4-1 and then 5-2 in the fourth set, Auger-Aliassime remained levelheaded enough to force a second tiebreak in the match.
He ultimately improved to an eye-catching 5-0 in tiebreaks in the tournament.
With the win, Auger-Aliassime became just the third player born since 2000 to claim multiple ATP top 10 wins at a men’s singles Grand Slam event after Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. Additionally, after his win over Zverev, Auger-Aliassime joined Milos Raonic and Denis Shapovalov as the only Canadian men to defeat an ATP top 3 player at a major
There is worse company to keep.
Despite hoisting ATP trophies in the Adelaide International and the Open Occitanie through the first two months of this season, Auger-Aliassime could not maintain his form and struggled to compete at the Grand Slam tournaments.
He lost his Roland Garros opener. He fell out in the second round at Wimbledon.
The U.S. Open, however, has seen some of Auger-Aliassime’s best.
“I just try to be myself,” Auger-Aliassime said of the mental side of his game. “I don’t get too excited outside the court either, like in life in general. That’s how I am. I don’t try to be anybody different. But, of course, sometimes in matches you get the energy going, but I don’t try to fake it. I do it when I feel like the point deserves it. I do it when I feel like it’s the right moment or after a big shot or that the energy of the crowd, you know, is also helping me to get myself pumped.”
Taking on de Minaur, who was bidding to crack the semifinals at a major for the first time in his career, in a Grand Slam event for the first time, Auger-Aliassime blasted 22 aces and 51 winners.
The last time Auger-Aliassime reached the final four was in 2021, when he lost to eventual winner Daniil Medvedev in straight sets at age 21.
Auger-Aliassime gets another go four years later.