Felix Auger Aliassime commits to ATP Adelaide International
A teenage sensation will join Wimbledon champion Simona Halep as the first men’s name on the board for the ATP Adelaide International tennis tournament in January.
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Teenage sensation Felix Auger-Aliassime is the first men’s name on the board for the return of top-class tennis to South Australia in January.
The 19-year-old Canadian, ranked 20 in the world and the only teen in the top 100, will make his SA bow at the inaugural ATP Adelaide International.
Wimbledon champion Simona Halep is the first woman to commit to the WTA tournament which will run in tandem with the men’s event.
In a sport dominated at the top end by men well into their fourth decade, Auger-Aliassime is a stand out, only turning 19 in August, the same day as his idol Roger Federer, a man now exactly twice as old as the newcomer.
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He is, popular opinion suggests, the real deal, becoming, in May, the youngest man to enter the top 25 since Lleyton Hewitt in 1999. And already the plaudits are mounting.
“He’s probably the one that I like the most from the young generation, as a tennis player and as a person,” world number one Novak Djokovic said recently.
Federer equally, is a fan, inviting the youngster of Canadian and Tongan heritage, to train with him in Dubai in late 2017.
“He got in touch with my family,” said Auger Aliassime told the Advertiser from China ahead of his first round match in the Beijing Open last night.
“You don’t often get a chance to hit with him, to feel how he plays, how he hits the ball, how he moves, how he trains, his habits.
“People kept asking me what he said but it’s not about that, it’s learning by example, the good example he creates.”
Peer admiration aside, Auger-Aliassime already stands apart. He enjoys playing piano and performed at 2019 ATP Masters 1000 Monte Carlo player party in bow tie and jacket.
“I was quite nervous, I usually just play in my living room,” he said. “I didn’t want to mess it up.”
Indeed he had early designs on life as an artist if his tennis didn’t pan out.
That appears unlikely now, 2019 has been a belter of a year for the 193cm tall man from Montreal, who in true top tennis pro style, has already decamped to tax friendly Monte Carlo.
“I love it, is so convenient for a lot of tennis players, a lot of them are about. It has amazing facilities, I’ve trained with (Tomas) Berdych and (Grigor) Dimitrov
On court, the year’s highlights came in Miami where he reached the last four and at the Wimbledon warm up at Queen’s Club where he took out Nick Kyrgios, former Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic and this year’s Australian Open sensation, Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Indeed he has beaten the Greek twice this year, Tsitsipas calling him “the most difficult opponent I’ve ever faced,” after the second whipping.
He is also, right now, in the vanguard of a Canadian tennis cohort the includes Raonic, 20-year-old Denis Shapovalov and the recent women’s US Open champion Bianca Andreescu, all intriguingly, first generation immigrants to Canada and fiercely patriotic.
General public tickets for the men’s and women’s Adelaide International, which runs from 12-18 January 202, go on sale Thursday October 3.