Just 18, ‘FAA’ is taking flight
WIMBLEDON, England — Dealing with jitters early in a match is nothing new to Felix AugerAliassime.
Being among the favorites to win Wimbledon? Considering the Canadian is just 18 and had not won so much as one Grand Slam match until this week, well, yes, that’s not the sort of thing he is used to.
One more victory, and the kid known to many by his initials, “FAA,” could be taking on defending champion Novak Djokovic. Not that he’s worrying about that just yet.
The first player born in the 2000s to win a men’s match at a major, the 19th seed progressed to the third round in his debut at the All England Club with a 63, 46, 64, 62 victory over French qualifier Corentin Moutet on Wednesday.
“I can recall being 10 years old and playing (for) the first time away from home and being very nervous. Since (I was) very young, you kind of learn how to deal with this pressure, with the stress,” he said. “But at different stages of your career, you face different times. Now it’s Grand Slams. Maybe one day I’ll play finals of these events and I’ll be, for sure, extremely nervous . ... It comes — and then it all depends on how you deal with it. Today, I was able to deal with it in a good way.”
AugerAliassime is hardly the only one contemplating the possibility that he could play for a major championship soon. Tennis has been waiting for some time to discover a worthy successor to the Big Three of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic, who have won the past 10 major titles and 53 of the past 64. So there is a bit of irrational exuberance whenever some youngster comes along with the sort of skill and poise AugerAliassime seems to possess.
British bookmakers were listing AugerAliassime at 251 odds to lift the Wimbledon trophy, behind only the top three seeds: No. 1 Djokovic, No. 2 Federer and No. 3 Nadal.
That’s remarkable. The Montreal native had played only one Grand Slam match, and lost it. He had not been ranked above 108th until this season.
But just three days into the fortnight, the men ranked Nos. 46 — Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas, all touted as upandcomers — already are gone, as is threetime major champion Stan Wawrinka, who lost to 21yearold Reilly Opelka of the U.S. on Wednesday in five sets.
“I understand that people want to see a new winner of a Grand Slam. They don’t want to see three of us dominating the Slam titles. Eventually, it’s going to come,” Djokovic said, then waited a comedic beat before adding with a smile: “in about 25 years.”
Djokovic moved into the third round by dismissing Denis Kudla 63, 62, 62. He will face Hubert Hurkacz on Friday; AugerAliassime takes on Ugo Humbert.
When a reporter told him he might be looked upon to “carry the sport forward,” AugerAliassime replied: “‘Carry the sport’ is a bit much. Obviously, yeah, there’s a bit of a pressure. I think it’s quite funny, because I think for a lot of players, when they play their first Grand Slam, they have zero expectations. No one talks about them.”
With him, that’s not the case. Not at all.