ATP Tour

Rinderknech continues dream run, defeats Auger-Aliassime to reach Shanghai SFs

Arthur Rinderknech earned the biggest win of his career on Friday at the Rolex Shanghai Masters, where he moved past Felix Auger-Aliassime to reach his first ATP Masters 1000 semi-final.

Rinderknech defeated World No. 3 Alexander Zverev and World No. 19 Jiri Lehecka to advance to his maiden Masters 1000 quarter-final, and ensured his run would not end against World No. 13 Auger-Aliassime. The Frenchman produced a high-quality display of aggressive striking and closed out the match with authority, sealing a dominant 6-3, 6-4 victory on his second match point after 87 minutes.

Following his victory, Rinderknech raised his arms aloft and looked toward his cousin Valentin Vacherot, who is in semi-final action against Novak Djokovic on Saturday. Read more about the cousins' dream tournament.

"It is huge. First of all, I followed my cousin," Rinderknech said, referencing qualifier Vacherot, who is set to break the Top 100 after becoming the first Monegasque player to reach a tour-level semi-final. "He was going through the emotions on Thursday and I am trying to follow and battle and do the same as him. It has been incredible since the start of the tournament.

"The whole family is following from home. We are in our own little world here. It has been incredible and today was a good performance from myself and I am happy it was straight sets, so I am not too tired for tomorrow."

Rinderknech is up 17 spots to No. 37 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings and is set to rise to a career-high ranking on Monday. The 30-year-old, who has earned three consecutive Top-20 wins, is the third Frenchman to reach the semi-finals in Shanghai, joining Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (2013, ’15) and Gilles Simon (’14, 16). Rinderknech will next meet Daniil Medvedev in the last four.

Auger-Aliassime had lost his serve just once all tournament before he played Rinderknech, but lost serve twice against the Frenchman. The Canadian gave Rinderknech an opening on his serve in the first set when he struck two unforced errors off the forehand and hit a double fault. The 30-year-old took his chance with a forehand pass to break and finished off a clean first set, in which he hit nine winners to just three unforced errors, on his first set point.

The 30-year-old continued to play front-foot tennis in the second set and battled hard on serve, crucially saving three break points at 2-1, 0/40 to maintain his break advantage. He struck 20 winners in the match and won 85 per cent of his first-serve points, according to Infosys ATP Stats, to improve to 1-2 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series against Auger-Aliassime.

Rinderknech is delighted to have joined his cousin Vacherot in the last four and opened up after the match on the week they are having.

"I was stressing so much yesterday during his whole match," said Rinderknech, who watched Vacherot's three-set win against Holger Rune courtside. "I am not used to watching guys play on court and I wanted him to win so much. I was so stressed but I didn't want to show anything. I didn't want to stress him. Today was a lot calmer for me on court."

Vacherot was in Rinderknech's guest box and afterwards said: "It's really nice that it's happening here. I was thinking yesterday it will have been special to maybe be a bit closer to home so maybe some family would have get to come or anything. But I think we're just in our little bubble here with my brother, my coach — who is also helping a little bit Arthur — my girlfriend. We're just not many at all, and I think we're in our little bubble doing our thing. So I am really happy that it's happening here, and we're having a lot of fun all together."

Texas A&M University coach Steve Denton has been getting up in the early hours of the morning back in College Station to watch both of his former players.

"As their college coach I couldn’t be more proud of these two," said Denton. "A dream week for both of them and it is a testament of what college tennis can do to young players if they are all in and trust the process of just trying to improve. Clearly they are feeding off each others energy and you can really see the joy they are playing with, much like they did when they were at Texas A&M. I have always believed in both of them that they will eventually put it together. Isn’t it ironic that they have done it during the same week?"

For Auger-Aliassime, the Canadian leaves Shanghai 10th in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin. The 25-year-old is 530 points behind eighth-placed Lorenzo Musetti, who is in the final qualification spot for the Nitto ATP Finals.