Felix Seals ATP Tour Title Hat-Trick With Basel Triumph

In a battle between two previously impenetrable serves on Sunday at the Swiss Indoors Basel, it was Felix Auger-Aliassime who held firm.

Neither the Canadian nor Holger Rune had been broken en route to the championship match at the ATP 500 event in Switzerland, but Auger-Aliassime twice unpicked the Dane’s delivery to seal a 6-3, 7-5 victory and lift his third consecutive ATP Tour title.

It was Auger-Aliassime’s 13th consecutive tour-level win, extending his personal-best winning streak. The one-hour, 40-minute triumph also lifted the 22-year-old one spot to sixth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin.

“It’s been an amazing week,” said Auger-Aliassime after the match. “Once again in the final, not getting broken all week… [It’s been] a long year, a long stretch of wins, and it’s not over. So hopefully I can keep going, but right now I’m feeling all the good emoitons that come with winning a tournament. It’s amazing.”

Having now leapfrogged Andrey Rublev, the Canadian’s red-hot form has put him a strong position to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals for the first time. With seventh the last position to guarantee qualification for the season finale, Auger-Aliassime is now 725 points clear of eighth-placed Taylor Fritz as the player’s head to this week’s Rolex Paris Masters.

Auger-Aliassime is the third player to win an ATP Tour title without dropping a service game in 2022. Taylor Fritz and Nick Kyrgios have also achieved that feat with their triumphs in Eastbourne and Washington, respectively.

More to follow…