Auger-Aliassime continues winning run with win over Struff at Paris Masters

PARIS – Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime continued his impressive season-ending run of form with a 7-6 (3), 6-4 first-round win over Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff on Tuesday at the Paris Masters tennis tournament.

Auger-Aliassime, ranked 19th on the ATP Tour, had 17 aces and saved all three break points he faced as he improved his 2023 record to 23-18.

The first set went to a tiebreak after both players held serve throughout. Auger-Aliassime roared out to a 6-0 lead in the extra session and won it on his fourth set point.

Auger-Aliassime picked up the only break of the match to go up 2-1 in the second set, then capped the victory in just under one hour 39 minutes by winning a 19-shot rally on his second match-point chance.

It was the first meeting between Auger-Aliassime and Struff, No. 27 in the world, since they split a pair of matches in 2020.

Auger-Aliassime, coming off a successful defence of his Swiss Indoors title last week, picked up another convincing win over a quality opponent. He defeated No. 6 Holger Rune in the semifinals and No. 11 Hubert Hurkacz in the final last week in Basel without dropping a set.

Auger-Aliassime next faces a familiar foe in seventh-seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, who had a first-round bye.

Tsitsipas holds a 5-3 career record in matches against Auger-Aliassime, but the Canadian won their last meeting in the final of last year’s Rotterdam Open.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2023.