Felix Auger-Aliassime beat Quentin Halys 6-2, 7-5 on Wednesday afternoon and will face Chinese Zhizhen Zhang in the next round
Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, the No 7 seed, moved into the second round of the Marseille Open by beating French wildcard Quentin Halys 6-2, 7-5 at the Palais des Sports.
The seventh-seeded Canadian overcame another man with an imposing delivery, home favorite Quentin Halys, in a confident start to his campaign at the indoor ATP 250. Auger-Aliassime prevailed 6-2, 7-5 in the pair’s maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head clash to build on his semi-final run in Montpellier last week.
“It’s never easy,” said Auger-Aliassime when asked about facing an opponent for the first time. “We’ve practiced together before and he’s been on Tour for a few years, so of course I know him, and I know his qualities.
“I think I started the perfect way, hitting my targets and being aggressive, keeping him on defence and without much time. So it was the perfect start and then he was serving too good in the second set until I got lucky with a double fault. I was trying to put pressure on him whenever I had a second serve [to return]. I think I played a very complete match.”
Auger-Aliassime, ranked No 28, will face Chinese Zhizhen Zhang next.
Marseille ATP 250, other first-round results (Palais des sports, hard, EUR 801.335, most recent results first):
- Jiri Lehecka (8) beat David Goffin (Q): 3-6, 7-5, 6-2
- Sebastian Korda beat Hugo Grenier (Q): 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (3)
- Hugo Gaston (Q) beat Denis Shapovalov (WC): 7-5, 1-6, 6-3
- Arthur Rinderknech beat Maxime Cressy (Q): 6-7 (6), 7-5, 6-2
- Tomas Machac beat Andy Murray: 7-5, 6-4
- Zhizhen Zhang beat Giulio Zeppieri (LL): 6-7 (7), 6-1, 6-4
