Montreal's Felix Auger-Aliassime had his comeback attempt fall just short in a 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (5) loss to Andrey Rublev on Friday in the semifinals of the Qatar Open.
Down 6-3 in the third-set tiebreaker, Auger-Aliassime scored the next two points on serve. But when the serve rotated to Rublev, the fifth-seeded Russian converted on his third match point.
Auger-Aliassime lost despite firing 21 aces in the match. The world No. 23 failed to convert what turned out to be a crucial break-point chance in the first game of the third set as the players held serve the rest of the way.
"(It took) everything. It was super tough today,” Rublev said. ”He was serving well and I was just saying, 'OK, I cannot do much, this is one of the best servers on tour. I just need to try to guess and when I have a moment, just go for it.'"
Rublev took the first set when he broke Auger-Aliassime in the clinching game, but the Canadian responded with a strong second set in which he fired seven aces and won 81 per cent of service points.
Rublev improved to 6-1 against Auger-Aliassime and will next face the winner of a match between eighth-seeded Briton Jack Draper and Czechia's Jiri Lehecka, who advanced to the final four with a shocking quarterfinal upset of top seed Carlos Alcaraz.
Auger-Aliassime had advanced to the semifinal of the ATP 500 tournament after fourth seed Daniil Medvedev retired from their quarterfinal with food poisoning after dropping the first set 6-3.
The 24-year-old Canadian has a 14-4 record this season after winning titles last month in Adelaide, Australia and Montpellier, France.
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