Adelaide Tournament | Auger-Aliassime advances to third round, Shapovalov loses

(Adelaide) Quebecer Félix Auger-Aliassime recovered from a difficult first round to begin his new season with a 1-6, 6-4, 7-5 victory against Frenchman Arthur Cazaux on Tuesday in the second round of the Adelaide International Tennis Tournament.

After being broken twice in the first round, Auger-Aliassime (29^e) won all his service games in the last two sets.

Combative, Cazaux (80^e) erased five break points in the second game of the final set. As in the second set, however, he lost his serve in the last game.

Auger-Aliassime succeeded in 65% of his first serves, compared to 54% for his opposite number.

“FAA” thus won a second match in as many clashes against Cazaux. He won 7-5, 2-6 and 7-6 (4) in another hotly contested duel in Montpellier last year.

In the third round, Auger-Aliassime will cross swords with the American Marcos Giron, who took advantage of the Canadian Denis Shapovalov’s service problems to win 7-5 and 6-2.

Shapovalov (58^e) hit nine aces, but also committed 13 double faults. He only placed 49% of his first balls in play and won only 22% of rallies with his second ball.

Broken five times in 13 occasions, he won one point less than his opponent (31 against 32) when he had the balls in hand. He broke Giron (45^e) twice in the first set, but was never able to take advantage.

It was a second duel between the two men on the ATP circuit and Giron triumphed each time.

Shapovalov was initially scheduled to face Auger-Aliassime in the first round, but the latter ultimately earned a bye as the fifth seed. “Shapo” finally defeated the Chinese Zhizhen Zhang (45^e) 6-3 and 6-4 to get this meeting with Giron.