After allowing his country Canada to win the Davis Cup for the first time by continuing its clear round in this final phase, three years after the defeat in the final against Spain, Felix Auger-Aliassime admitted that he was coming to realize a dream.
Felix-Auger Aliassime (22), certainly in the form of his life, had already experienced an exceptional end to the season in every way. At Bercy, at the beginning of the month, he was even missing a title (and two more games won) for him to become the first player since the legendary Ivan Lendl in 1981 to win four tournaments in a row. The Canadian prodigy beaten in the semi-finals in Paris by the winner of the event Holger Rune managed to console himself. And how! On Sunday, the protege of Toni Nadal indeed added a icing of the most beautiful effect on his already very generous cake by allowing Canada to win the Davis Cup for the first time in its history. A shame knowing that the Canadians, eliminated sharply (4-0) in the play-offs by the Netherlands last March (without their two leaders Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov), should not have played the final phase without the invasion Russian in Ukraine (Russia had been ruled out and Canada drafted). Two years after their defeat in the final against Rafael Nadal’s Spain, “FAA” and his teammates were able to win this first final between non-Europeans since 1990 and put their name on the list of winners of this competition for the first time. has more than the name or almost since 2019, date of the first opus of this new formula Davis Cup.
Auger-Aliassime: “My legs collapsed”
Auger-Aliassime then admitted that he dreamed of lifting the legendary silver bowl. So after winning the match point on Sunday against Alex De Minaur, the world number 6 let himself be overwhelmed by emotion and the immense happiness of signing the most beautiful page in his young history, but not only that. “Seeing the ball come out, my legs collapsed. Frank (Dancevic, captain of the Canadian Davis Cup team) and all the others were chasing me screaming, it was unbelievable! A very special moment. You play a lot of matches over the years, but you remember days like this for a long time”, analyzed the young Canadian, author of a full box this week on the Malaga court (three singles and a double won ), where his lifelong friend Denis Shapovalov, also absent in March during this play-off which should have deprived the Canadians of the rest, also achieved a goal he had set for himself a long time ago. “It’s hard to put words to these emotions. Denis (Shapovalov) and I grew up together and we dreamed of that when we were very young. It is a dream come true and a great moment for me and for my country. »
