Achi news desk-
Montreal’s Felix Auger-Eliasima advanced to the quarterfinals of the Madrid Open Masters tennis tournament on Tuesday with an impressive 6-4, 7-5 win over fifth-seeded Casper Rood of Norway.
Auger-Eliasima won 78 percent of her first serve points and broke Ruud three times in eight changes, returning just one of those breaks.
The Canadian took a crucial break to go up 6-5 in the second set, when his backhand on break point led to a Roode unforced error.
Serving for the match, he stepped up to the net and smashed a forehand winner on match point to advance to the Madrid quarterfinals for the second time in his career.
Auger-Eliasima is now 2-3 all-time against Rudd at the ATP level. He has not beaten the Norwegian since the round of 16 at the 2019 Miami Masters.
Auger-Eliasima, a former world No. 6 who entered the tournament ranked 35th, looked like his old self in Madrid after a lukewarm start to the season. Montreal enters the tournament with a pedestrian 11-10 record on the year, but hasn’t dropped a set in Madrid since opening its first-round match against Japan’s Yoshihito Nishuka.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on April 30, 2024.
