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If things break right Saturday, it could be an all-Canadian junior boys' singles final at the French Open
PARIS – And then there were two.
With three Canadian boys in the quarterfinals of the French Open juniors, it would have been a lot to ask for all three to win.
But two out of three isn’t too shabby, and the boys’ singles semi-finals Saturday will feature two Canadians who if they win, will play each other for the title.
It’s the first time since 2012 that two Canadians have found themselves in the final four at a junior Slam: at Wimbledon that year, Eugenie Bouchard and Françoise Abanda both made it, with Abanda losing in the semi-finals to Elina Svitolina of Ukraine (who is now in the top 20 on the WTA Tour), and Bouchard winning the title.
Benjamin Sigouin, who turned 17 Friday, had a tough turnaround from his dramatic victory in Thursday and fell 6-3, 7-5 to unseeded French player Geoffrey Blancaneaux. Down a set and 1-3, Sigouin managed to turn it around and lead 5-3, but that’s when the gas tank hit empty.
Still, for the first junior Grand Slam-level match of his life, the Vancouver native had, in the words of countryman Denis Shapovalov, “a hell of a tournament.”
Shapovalov’s task was a lot harder on paper as he faced No. 1 seed (and world No. 1 ranked junior) Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece.
It was shockingly easy; Shapovalov rolled over him 6-4, 6-2. He will now face Blancaneaux in one Saturday semi-final.
“I was surprised that he kind of went away in the second set, because I know for a fact that he works with a mental coach and he’s usually really good mentally, so that was surprising,” Shapovalov said. “But he’s played a lot of matches in the last month and I just think he’s burned out.”
That’s an understatement. Tsitsipas, a lanky 6-4 player with a one-handed backhand who turns 18 in August, came into this junior Grand Slam having won tournaments three consecutive weeks: a Futures win, followed by a victory in a Grade A junior event with a 64-player draw, followed by another Futures win. Plus doubles. That’s 23 matches in three weeks, and Tsitsipas is still in the doubles here.
“In the first set, we were both playing very good tennis but in the second set, once I broke him, you could see that he was going to throw in the towel even though I knew he could turn it around any time. I’ve seen him down 5-0 and come back,” Shapovalov said.
None of that should obscure the fact that Shapovalov played near-flawless tennis in the victory. He never had a letdown, he struck his groundstrokes with depth and assurance, and he served well.
As for Félix Auger-Aliassime, he faced a stocky Argentine named Genaro Alberto Olivieri who was at home on the clay, but didn’t have a big serve or many big weapons to hurt the 15-year-old from Montreal.
It was a tight contest, in part due to then fact that Auger-Aliassime had so much adrenaline going in the middle of the second set. Perhaps he was already getting ahead of himself a little bit; his consistency dropped some and he allowed Olivieri a glimmer of hope.
“I had to stay calm. I got a bit mad when he made good shots, hit a few lines, it made me a bit nervous. I had to stay calm and I think that helped me towards the end,” said Auger-Aliassime, who nevertheless won 6-3, 7-5 will play Nicola Kuhn of Spain in his semifinal. “There were a few games where he had break points and the match could have turned around, but I had to stay with him, and once again my serve helped me stay in the match,” he added.
Unlike his previous round, which was won almost exclusively from the baseline, Auger-Aliassime came into this one with a varied, all-court game plan.
“We talked before the match, I really had to win the points at the net, because he’s a player who stands far back, who gets a lot of balls back. I sure wasn’t going to hit winners from the back of the court. Even if it wasn’t working, I had to continue to go to the net, vary it with low balls, high balls, serve and volley a few times, just to bother him mentally,” Auger-Aliassime said.
Tennis Canada high-performance chief Louis Borfiga, who has been bouncing around from one end of the Roland Garros site to the other all week as the boys, more often than not, have been scheduled at the same time, has looked quietly pleased throughout.
“We had three in the quarterfinals – three boys who aren’t even 18, which is in my opinion even more rewarding. For me, Roland Garros is the strongest tournament of the year, and by far. Everyone plays it,” Borfiga said. “In my opinion they’re (in the semis) because they have a lot of talent, a lot of freshness and keenness to play. The two have worked hard and well, and deserve it.”
From the wilds of courts with double-digit numbers a lengthy commute from the main stadium, the Canadian kids get major promotions Saturday.
Shapovalov, playing a Frenchman, will play his match on Court No. 1, the third-biggest court in the complex. Auger-Aliassime will play Kuhn on Court No. 2, which is where countryman Filip Peliwo played his French Open junior final back in 2012.
Auger-Aliassime and Kuhn have met once, in the finals of the Junior Davis Cup competition in Spain last September. Kuhn, Austrian-born, represented Germany then. But as a long-time resident of Spain, he had a pretty big cheering section and won the match 6-3, 6-3.
When he arrived at the junior Australian Open in January (and was beaten by Auger-Aliassime’s Montreal training teammate Jack Mingjie Lin), he suddenly was Spanish. Unlike many of the players in the tournament, he’s at least close in age to Auger-Aliassime, who turns 16 in August. Kuhn turned 16 in March.
