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Félix Auger-Aliassime is not only good, he's also lucky as he reaches the US Open junior semi-finals
NEW YORK – If Félix Auger-Aliassime goes on to win the US Open juniors – and he’s two matches – he may well have an official’s error to thank for it.
The 16-year-old from Montreal sat down in his chair at 6-1, 5-2 Friday, about to serve out an easy quarterfinal win, when his nose began to bleed profusely.
Had the proper rules been applied, it’s entirely possible the umpire would have had to stop the match and hand the victory to American opponent Patrick Kypson.
Both Auger-Aliassime and Kypson told Eh Game that the supervisor told them Auger-Aliassime had 15 minutes get the bleeding stopped, handle whatever clean-up may be required and properly dispose of any blood-contaminated items.
It took every bit of that time.
The trainer arrived around 12:04 p.m. Tissue after tissue went into a plastic bag, handled by a staff member wearing plastic gloves. The trainer tried numerous methods to stop the bleeding; by 12:16 p.m., they were applying an ice pack on Auger-Aliassime’s nose as they still hadn’t found a way to stop it. When they finally did, Auger-Aliassime changed his bloodstained shirt, took a drink, put his hat back on and went back to his side of the court to serve it out.
It was 12:18 p.m.
The problem was that the USTA’s rules, used in American tournaments and also in college tennis, were incorrectly invoked. For International Tennis Federation events, including junior events and in particular these US Open juniors the limit is … five minutes. And if the problem can’t be resolved, the chair umpire stops the match and the opponent wins.
At the five-minute mark Friday, Auger-Aliassime was nearly 10 minutes away from resuming play.
There can be no concerns about blood on the court, for obvious reasons. Fellow Canadian Bianca Andreescu had what’s called a “bleeding timeout” called on her behalf Thursday to have a small wound on her left calf treated, even though she would have been fine to continue on.
For Auger-Aliassime’s doubles semi-final with partner Ben Sigouin later in the day (another win – they’re in the final on Saturday), junior tournament referee David Littlefield was on duty.
Auger-Aliassime’s nose began to bleed again, not as severely, and Littlefield correctly allotted him five minutes. They managed to stop the bleeding more quickly this time.
Littlefield had a long career as a chair umpire, notably overseeing proceedings in that classic 1991 Jimmy Connors - Aaron Krickstein marathon that was the rain delay go-to here before the new roof over Arthur Ashe Stadium debuted this year.
But Littlefield wasn’t around for the singles.
“The lady told me he gets 15 minutes to stop the bleeding. If he gets up and it starts bleeding again, he can’t play any more. I don’t really know if that lady knew what she was talking about. And he took 15 minutes,” Kypson said. “I guess maybe I should start reading the rulebook so I can actually make a valid argument once in a while instead of being an idiot. I just listened to her. She seemed like she knew what she was talking about. She was real serious about it, so I wasn’t going to argue with her because she was real serious about it.”
There will likely be some internal paperwork involved on the USTA’s side, as the supervisor’s account of the use of the time to her boss, Littlefield, didn’t jibe with what other witnesses on Court 17 saw.
But whatever the outcome, they can’t take the result back.
“I was lucky it stopped because we don’t know what could have happened,” Auger-Aliassime said. “I didn’t realize (the rule). I’m happy they gave me 15 minutes, so I guess you could say I was fortunate in my misfortune.”
Auger-Aliassime said the nosebleeds were something that happened from time to time, just something he had to deal with. The fact that he's been battling a cold and blowing his nose constantly probably didn't help, and the humid conditions were another strike against him. His mother, Marie Auger, told Eh Game he used to get them quite regularly when he was younger, not so much now.
But in the end, instead of a bitterly disappointing and dramatic bit of bad luck, Auger-Aliassime now will play a potentially compelling semi-final against the No. 1 junior in the world, Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece.
While Auger-Aliassime was getting back into the junior rhythm at the warmup event outside Montreal last week, Tsitsipas was playing a $25,000 Futures tournament in Calgary. He reached the singles semi-final and won the doubles.
The 18-year-old (he’s two years less four days older than Auger-Aliassime) was involved in the junior match of the tournament at Wimbledon when he went toe-to-toe, serve-volley to serve-volley with eventual champion Denis Shapovalov before falling in three sets. Shapovalov, of course, is Auger-Aliassime’s countryman, good friend and frequent doubles partner.
The weather looks to be as oppressively humid Saturday as it was Friday, when even the top pros in the struggled with the conditions in the men’s semi-finals.
Here's what it looked like – except for the dramatic part. In terms of the actual tennis, there was no drama at all beyond how well Auger-Aliasime played; he was absolutely on fire, saying later that his Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, his opponent the previous day, was a tougher challenge because of his recent win over him and the fact that the Spaniard was coming in fully confident.
“I have to be ready physically. He’s had great results in the juniors and the pros,” Auger-Aliassime said of Tsitsipas. “I’ve already beaten him twice, but he’ll be quite motivated. It’ll be a good semi.”
Auger-Aliassime came out the winner over Tsitsipas in 2015 at the same US Open tune-up tournament he played this year as well as at the Eddie Herr event on Har-Tru in Florida at the end of the season.
Since then, Tsitsipas has played a lot of pro events; he was outside the top 1000 in the ATP Tour rankings a year ago and now, he’s ranked No. 335.
For Kypson, who was being soundly beaten but still got a bit of a raw deal Friday, Auger-Aliassime is the best junior in the world when he’s playing well.
“Too good. He didn’t let me into any rallies, He was returning my first serves one inch from the line. Nothing I could really do. When he plays well, no one in juniors is going to be able to hang with him,” he said. “Much more noticeable than any other junior. He hits the ball a little bit harder, a little bit deeper, and serves a little bit better than everyone else. When he plays well, it’s nearly impossible to beat him.”
Auger-Aliassime and Sigouin saved a match point in their doubles-semifinal later Friday before prevailing 3-6, 6-4 [11-9] against unseeded Japanese pair Toru Horie and Yuta Shimizu.
Seeded No. 3, they'll play the doubles final later Saturday afternoon against another unseeded pair, Juan Carlos Manuel Aguilar of Chile and Felipe Meligeni Rodriguez Alves of Brazil (good luck to the scoreboard to fit all those names in).
It's the first Grand Slam junior final for Sigouin, who reached the Wimbledon junior boys' doubles semis with Louis Wessels of Germany.
Andreescu also advanced easily Friday, 6-4, 6-2 over lucky loser Victoria Ong. She'll play No. 5 seeded American Kayla Day in the semis; her match is scheduled right after Auger-Aliassime's, which will be aired on TSN2 at noon.
