Arthur Rinderknech won the first three points of the second-set tiebreak and four of the first six, and at that point France were a set away from a deciding rubber. Felix Auger-Aliassime took five of the next six points. In the third set the ninth game decided it, as it had in the first, only this time the break went to the Canadian. He held on his first match point to beat Rinderknech 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 and send Canada into the Davis Cup Final 8 with a 3-1 win at the Videotron Centre on Saturday.
It was Auger-Aliassime’s third match in two days, and it started, according to The Canadian Press, 35 minutes after he walked off court from a doubles defeat. He served 17 aces and one double fault in two hours and 21 minutes against France’s No. 1, who had beaten him in their last meeting, in Shanghai last year. “Felix is a really great player,” Rinderknech said. “He proved today why he is so difficult to beat. I knew I was capable of beating him. I’ve done it before. It just didn’t go my way today.”
Canada had led 2-0 overnight and could have finished the tie in the doubles. Auger-Aliassime and Duncan Chan, making his Davis Cup debut, lost 7-6(4), 6-3 to Benjamin Bonzi and Pierre-Hugues Herbert, which kept France alive and put the Canadian No. 1 straight back on the court. On Friday Liam Draxl, ranked 205th, had beaten Rinderknech 6-2, 7-5, and Auger-Aliassime had beaten Quentin Halys 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-3, getting the only break of the third set when Halys double-faulted twice in a row from 15-30 at 1-2.
This was Auger-Aliassime’s first Davis Cup tie in two years and the first he had played in his home province. Canada had not staged a tie in Quebec City since 1974, and his father, Sam, runs a tennis academy nearby where he did much of his childhood training. “It carries a lot of significance for me,” he said. “Yes, we will probably remember our level or the ups and downs of the match, but I think we will remember more the emotions we lived through as a team.”
“I don’t really have words,” said the Canada captain, Frank Dancevic. “It’s incredible for the Davis Cup, for the country to have a player like that who can play at his level, playing singles and doubles and being in shape to play three matches over two days.”
The record According to The Canadian Press, 22,340 spectators attended over the two days, a Canadian Davis Cup record, passing the 21,842 who watched three days in Ottawa in 2017. The same report put Auger-Aliassime’s run of Davis Cup singles wins at ten, dating back to September 2022.
Bologna Canada reach the Final 8 for the sixth time and the first time since 2024; they won the title in 2022. They join South Korea, Austria and Czechia, who came from 2-1 down to beat the United States in Prague the same evening, and Italy, the hosts and three-time defending champions, in Bologna from 24 to 29 November.
France, ten-time champions, have now missed the last eight in six of the last seven years, according to The Canadian Press, and go into next February’s Qualifiers first round. Three places remain, with Germany and Croatia level in Halle and Great Britain and Spain each 2-0 up going into Sunday. The full field as it stands is in our Final 8 tracker, and the format is explained in how the Davis Cup works.
