the serbian Novak Djokovic knocked down, in the quarterfinals of the Masters 1,000 in Rome, the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime in two sets, by 7-5 and 7-6 (1), and meets in the semifinals with the Norwegian Casper Ruud.
The brave Canadian with the number 1 in the world could not on the central court of the Foro Italico. The first duel between both tennis players falls on the side of the favourite, who he had to push himself to the max to counteract the onslaught of his young rival and maintain the first position in the ATP ranking, which would have yielded to the Russian Daniil Medvedev if he had succumbed on the Italian clay during this day.
And it is that Auger-Aliassime, called to be one of the greats of his generation, made ‘Nole’ sweat, mainly with his serves during the first set, where he signed six direct hits. He was not short in the second, in which he finished five ‘aces’, eleven in total.
Djokovic, who was not comfortable at the beginning of the match, countered with long exchanges of blows in which he gained confidence to take two forehands that raised the Italian public. Little by little the Serbian was becoming great.
He broke the serve of the Canadian, number 9 in the world, and went 5-3 up to get the first set back on track, but he recovered Auger-Aliassime and he snatched the serve from the favorite in the next game, annulling the ‘break’. It seemed that the first stake was going to ‘tie-break’, but the number 1 figure appeared at the key moment to break another service and get ahead on the scoreboard.
The second manga was different. The Serbian started better, Auger-Aliassime seemed to deflate a bit, and managed to break the Canadian, after three break balls to make it 4-2.
Novak I promised them happy, but just at that moment, Auger-Aliassime began his resistance, in which he enjoyed two balls to recover his serve that put the Serbian in tension, until he managed to confirm the break and go up 5-2. he celebrated ‘nole’fist raised, releasing the tension of the previous game, without being aware that everything was not said.
But the 21-year-old tennis player continued his brilliant exercise of resistance against a winner of twenty Grand Slams, whom he sent to the canvas with three games in a row to even the contest (5-5). The public he already had his favorite of the nightwhich they encouraged and celebrated whenever there was an opportunity.
kept his serve Auger-Aliassime and tried to extend the match to the third set by breaking the Serb. He managed to extend it until a ‘tie-break’ in which both displayed their gala blows, but in which he sent a superb Djokovic with dropshots, angled balls and a waste of physique that allowed him to reach all of his rival’s.
Djokovic he did not fail at another key moment, he broke three serves Auger-Aliassime in the final tiebreaker and access to the semifinals without losing a single set. He is the only one who has achieved it together with the German alexander zverev.
The Serbian celebrated defiantly, putting a hand to his ear. In the semifinals, Djokovic will be measured against the Norwegian Casper Ruudnumber 10 in the ranking, who eliminated the Canadian this Friday Denis Shapovalov in two sets.