Montreal favourite loses Olympic debut
`I can do better,' admits 20-year-old
When dawn broke on Sunday morning, Felix Auger-aliassime had a fascinating task ahead of him.
For his Olympic debut he would face Andy Murray, two-time defending gold medallist and multiple Grand Slam champ.
But Murray is also 34, and in the final set of his career, coming off a long injury layoff and many years past his best tennis.
So, there it was: the 20-year-old Canadian with all the promise in the world, coming off a deep run at Wimbledon, up against a legend. What a treat.
And then Murray pulled out. A thigh injury, he said.
About four hours before his match, Auger-aliassime found out he would instead face Max Purcell, a 23-yearold Australian doubles specialist. Purcell was only in Tokyo because of a late injury to his countryman Alex de Minaur. He was on a relative singles hot streak, but that had raised his ranking to 190th in the world, a career high. Auger-aliassime was ranked 15th after his run to the quarters at the All-england Club. At the Olympics, with so many big names choosing not to play, the Canadian was the ninth seed. He was a medal contender.
Bit of a mismatch, yes? It didn't turn out that way. Purcell simply outplayed his more heralded opponent, serving much better and taking advantage of a few mistakes from Auger-aliassime on the sun-baked Centre Court at Ariake Tennis Park. The straight-sets victory, 6-4, 7-6(2), was the biggest of Purcell's career, and was another entry on Auger-aliassime's somewhat confounding resume. He's an immense talent capable of impressive victories, but he has come up short in a lot of big matches. He's accomplished so much, like making eight ATP Tour finals while still barely out of his teens, but he's 0-8 in those matches. Before that run in London this month, his record at the Slams was 8-8.
While Frank Dancevic, one of the Team Canada coaches, said that the late change of opponents was “a mentally tough adjustment,” Auger-aliassime, 20, said it wasn't the reason for his loss.
“I still needed to play a better match today,” he said. “Maybe this is another lesson in my career.”
The kid certainly didn't make any excuses. He spoke after the loss, downcast and quiet, about how big-match consistency has eluded him.
“I know what I'm worth and I know how good I can play,” he said, while acknowledging that he hasn't yet made that final step. “I think it just proves that even though I've done great things in my career so far, and this year again, there are still a lot of things that I can do better.”