ATP Tour

Auger-Aliassime on 'huge' breakthrough aged 14: Raonic's reaction & Gilbert's tweets

In ATPTour.com’s series, Sliding Tour Moment, a host of top players reflect on a career defining experience, one that they look back on as pivotal in their journey through tennis. This week, Felix Auger-Aliassime reflects on his run to the quarter-finals at the 2015 Granby Challenger, when he was just 14 years old. Read all instalments of Sliding Tour Moment here.

When it comes to reminiscing about his personal breakthroughs as a pro tennis player, Felix Auger-Aliassime can look back further than most.

Now a nine-time ATP Tour champion who has risen as high as No. 4 in the PIF ATP Rankings, Auger-Aliassime has plenty of milestone moments to look back on even at the age of 26. Yet he still emphasises his first outings in pro tournaments as key when it came to giving him the belief he could make it to the top: a series of notable ATP Challenger match wins, earned at the age of just 14, that first made the tennis world sit up and take notice of his talent.

“The first one I would pick if I go down memory lane is in 2015,” Auger-Aliassime told ATPTour.com when asked about any ‘watershed’ moments in his career. “Throughout the year I won my first ATP points, and I was really young.

“I was not expecting to win professional matches or ATP points at that stage. I made the quarter-finals at a Challenger. I was still 14, [about to turn] 15. It was like I just realised and it just hit me, ‘Wow. If I can do that at my age, then if I can keep working well, I could really be professional. This is not like a dream, but something that can be reality’. I think that was a huge turning point at a younger age. Being 14 and winning matches at Challengers, that was huge.”

Auger-Aliassime’s breakout began in March 2015, when he won three qualifying rounds on his professional debut at the ATP Challenger in Drummondville: He was the youngest player to qualify for an ATP Challenger main draw at 14 years and seven months, although he subsequently had to withdraw from the main draw due to an abdominal strain.

_{^{The 14-year-old Auger-Aliassime in action at the 2015 Drummondville Challenger. Photo: Jean-Samuel Gauthier}}

Yet four months later, still a couple of weeks shy of his 15th birthday, the Canadian was at it again. At the Granby Challenger, not far from his hometown of Quebec City, he did not drop a set across two qualifying rounds and two main-draw wins (against No. 493-ranked Andrew Whittington and No. 205-ranked Darian King). The win against Australia’s Whittington made Auger-Aliassime the second-youngest player to win an ATP Challenger main-draw match.

“My family was there. I didn’t feel anything when the matches happened or when I won in the first round or even the second round. But it was the reaction from the media and from other players,” Auger-Aliassime recalled. “I remember at the time, [Milos] Raonic, who was 10 years older than me, tweeting about me. Players, like established players, not just Challenger players, but established players talking about it.

“Brad Gilbert [was talking about it], and obviously my friends. I remember being like, ‘This is big’. So you see all that and you think, ‘Well I guess I’m going in a really good direction and doing really good things. So that was a big turning point.”

Watch Auger-Aliassime Hot Shots from 2015 Granby Challenger, aged 14

Gilbert, himself also a former No. 4 player in the PIF ATP Rankings and a renowned coach who has worked with the likes of Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick and Andy Murray, still remembers being excited at first seeing video footage of the 14-year-old Auger-Aliassime.

"I remember watching him because somebody told me about this guy,” Gilbert told ATPTour.com when asked about his first memories of hearing about Auger-Aliassime. “I have this friend in Canada and he was like, ‘Watch this kid’. It was indoors in Canada, and I watched it on my iPad. I couldn’t believe his physical presence and where he was at maturity-wise for such a young kid."

The world’s top players are elite competitors whose mindsets usually involve focusing on the next challenge, not dwelling on past successes. Auger-Aliassime revealed that he nonetheless does sometimes reflect on past events to help inform his present-day decision-making and strategy, but perhaps not as far back as his time as a teenage sensation.

“I think a couple of years ago, maybe I would think back on [my early successes], because it wasn’t that long ago and felt recent,” he said. “But now [they were] a long time ago, so I don’t think about it ever. It’s really more like talking with family or my team or other people about older stories we have.

“I more refer back to recent matches on Tour, the past couple of years. Matches on Tour, moments on Tour, ups and downs that I was able to manage in the past. I refer back to them.”

Felix Auger Aliassime's 'Sliding Tour Moment' — Honourable Mention
First ATP Tour match win, Indian Wells 2018: “Later [in my career] I want to say my first ATP win, not Challenger, which came in Indian Wells in 2018. I beat my countryman [Vasek] Pospisil. I just remember the emotions of that match. It was a first round that, today, I would probably win and go, ‘Okay, what’s next?’ But it was like I’d won a tournament for me at the time, because it was finally a breakthrough.

Challengers were nice, and I’d already won a Challenger title, but this was like ‘Welcome to the big stage’. Winning on the ATP Tour, winning on Stadium 2, Indian Wells, Masters 1000. I thought, ‘This was big for me’… I’m sure [Pospisil and I] have spoken about it since. He’s aware [it was important for me]. We talked about it at Davis Cup, for sure. The last Davis Cup we played together before he retired.”

Read & Watch More About Felix Auger-Aliassime:
It All Adds Up: Why Auger-Aliassime is 'Mr. Clutch'
Auger-Aliassime’s secret weapon is not a shot, but his wife Nina
Auger-Aliassime hires Ljubicic as coach: 'Let's get to work'