MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA -- Montreal's Felix Auger-Aliassime ousted fellow Canadian Denis Shapovalov from the Australian Open on Friday, defeating him in three straight sets, 7-5, 7-5 and 6-3.
The victory for Auger-Aliassime at the Margaret-Court stadium in Melbourne, means he advances to the fourth round of the first Grand Slam tournament of the season.
He will face veteran Russian Aslan Karatsev, ranked the 114th player in the world, who knocked out ninth-seeded Argentina's Diego Schwartzman in the third round.
In his career on the ATP circuit, Karatsev never managed to defeat a player ranked higher than 48th in the world.
The 11th seed Shapovalov served five double faults, while the 20th seed Auger-Aliassime had eight aces, twice as many as Shapovalov, in addition to dominating in all the statistics of the match.
The victory for the 20-year-old Quebecer allows him to join Ontarian Milos Raonic in the round of 16, the only other Canadian still in contention in singles.
The 30-year-old veteran will play against the winner of the duel that pits young American Taylor Fritz against tournament favourite and world number one Novak Djokovic of Serbia.
-- this report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2021.
