Felix Auger-Aliassime continued to grow in confidence at the Chengdu Open on Wednesday. The 18-year-old #NextGenATP Canadian knocked out last year’s Next Gen ATP Finals champion, second seed Hyeon Chung, 7-6(2), 5-7, 6-4, to make his first ATP World Tour quarter-final.

“It feels nice. It was one of my objectives this year to go maybe deep in an ATP 250 or 500. Now I’m here in the quarter-finals, and the tournament’s not done yet, so it’s a very nice feeling and hopefully I can go far,” Auger-Aliassime said.

He raced out to a 4-1 advantage but could not convert a set point chance at 5-4, with Chung serving at 30/40. The Canadian, however, broke clear from 2/2 in the tie-break to take the first set.

Chung rebounded in the second, though, breaking in the 12th game. But Auger-Aliassime broke right back to start the third and served out the match to love.

“You have to believe in yourself to win these kind of matches, to play against these players,” Auger-Aliassime said. “My plan was… I’m going to play every point, give it everything, and play with my strengths. The keys today were my serve, and I was also able to dictate most of the rallies, and I was very tough mentally… That really paid off.”

The Canadian, who’s the youngest player inside the Top 200 of the ATP Rankings, started the week in 15th position in the ATP Race To Milan. The top seven players in the Race will qualify automatically for the Next Gen ATP Finals, while the eighth spot will be reserved for the winner of an all-Italian qualifier tournament to be held just prior to prestigious 21-and-under event. Auger-Aliassime is 310 points behind seventh-placed Andrey Rublev.

“There are a lot of good players ahead of me. Maybe I’ll get there but I have to start with this week and then we’ll see how it goes for the rest of the year,” Auger-Aliassime said.

He will next meet Aussie Bernard Tomic, who saved one match point to reach his second ATP World Tour quarter-final of the season. Tomic beat fellow qualifier Lloyd Harris of South Africa 7-6(5), 2-6, 7-6(6) in two hours and 12 minutes, saving one match point at 5/6 in the deciding set tie-break. Harris, who beat fifth seed Gael Monfils in the first round, struck 23 aces.

Seventh-seeded Portuguese Joao Sousa saved two match points at 4-5 in the third set of a 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(0) comeback win over Vasek Pospisil. Sousa couldn’t convert a set point in the first set at 5-4, with Pospisil serving at 40/30, but battled to extend his FedEx ATP Head2Head record to 4-0 against the Canadian, who had led 5-2 in the decider. Sousa now meets Malek Jaziri, a 6-3, 7-6(5) victor over fourth seed Adrian Mannarino.

Winning at the Nitto ATP Finals often requires players to raise their games to another level. And with the 2018 season finale less than two months away, Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers investigates which players have best lifted their games during the most recent season finales.

During the past three Nitto ATP Finals, only two players have won a higher percentage of points at the season-ending event than they did during the regular season. An analysis of who competed in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 Nitto ATP Finals at The O2 in London highlights that the elite level of competition for every match dictates that most players walk away from the tournament losing more points than they win.

Grigor Dimitrov leads the pack in the past three years with the highest percentage of points won in London at 55.4 per cent. Last year, Dimitrov won a very respectable 53 per cent of points in the regular season, and improved that by 2.4 percentage points to capture the biggest title of his career.

The only other player to perform better in London in November than everywhere else from January to October was Novak Djokovic in 2016. He won 54.9 per cent of his points in the regular season, and inched a little higher to win an even 55 per cent of his points in the last ATP World Tour tournament of the year.

During the past three years, no other player has been able to increase the percentage of points won at the Nitto ATP Finals over their regular season performances.

2015-2017 Percentage Points Won: Regular Season vs. Nitto ATP Finals

All players who have competed in the Nitto ATP Finals in the past three seasons have enjoyed winning more points than they have lost during the regular season. But only eight times out of 26 attempts has a player walked away with winning more than 50 per cent of their points at The O2.

Editor’s note: Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers author Craig O’Shannessy is also a member of Novak Djokovic’s coaching team.

Pierre-Hugues Herbert recorded his biggest match win for 16 months on Wednesday for a place in the Shenzhen Open quarter-finals. The Frenchman proved to be too strong for second-seeded Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-3, 7-6(4) in one hour and 41 minutes. Herbert knocked out No. 13-ranked Lucas Pouille in May 2017 at the Mutua Madrid Open first round.

World No. 15 Tsitsipas, who is in the running to qualify for the Next Gen ATP Finals at Milan in November, has now lost four of his past five matches since advancing to the Rogers Cup final (l. to Nadal) on 12 August.

Herbert next faces Spain’s Albert Ramos-Vinolas, who edged past Viktor Troicki of Serbia 7-6(4), 4-6, 7-6(3) in two hours and 37 minutes.

Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka recovered from 0-3 down in the third set and saved two match points at 4-5, 15/40 for a 7-6(5), 3-6, 7-5 victory over sixth seed Denis Shapovalov, the 19-year-old #NextGenATP Canadian, who is in third position in the ATP Race To Milan. Qualifier Nishioka will face Briton Cameron Norrie, who upset third seed Borna Coric 6-4, 7-6(8).