Felix Auger-Aliassime rally in Paris to keep Turin’s hopes alive | ATP Tour

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Auger-Aliassime rally in Paris to keep Turin’s hopes alive

The Canadian reversed course and defeated Muller, Zverev struggled to win the R2 championship

October 29, 2025

The 2025 Nitto ATP Finals is still on Felix Auger-Aliassim’s radar, but only just.

The Canadian’s hopes of reaching the season finals at the Rolex Paris Masters were in jeopardy on Wednesday, but he edged out Alexandre Muller 5-7, 7-6(5), 7-6(4) to stay in contention for a spot in Turin.

Watch the magical moment Auger-Aliassime kicks off his comeback in Paris:

Auger-Aliassime stepped onto the court at the Arena La Défense in Paris knowing that his hopes of a top-eight finish at the PIF ATP Live event in Turin would be over if he was eliminated in the second round by local favorite Muller at the Indoor ATP Masters 1000. The ninth seed soon found himself with a set first and a break of serve, but he held on for a crucial victory despite an extremely inconsistent performance overall.

Auger-Aliassime, 25, hit 50 winners, including 21 aces, but his efforts were marred by 55 unforced errors. In comparison, Muller hit 20 winners and made only 24 unforced errors, but the world No. 44 Muller failed to find a path to victory when leading 2-0, 40/30 in the second set.

Auger-Aliassime missed match point in the final set at 6-5, 30/40, but then won 7 of the last 8 points of the match and came back from 0/3 in the tie-break to seal his victory which took 3 hours and 5 minutes. The Canadian closed the gap on eighth-placed Lorenzo Musetti to 390 points in live action with his 80th indoor victory on Tour this decade.

Auger-Aliassime will next aim to keep the pressure on Italy’s Musetti in the third round against Daniel Altmaier. Altmaier earlier ended 11th-ranked Casper Ruud’s hopes of qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals with a 6-3, 7-5 upset.

Defending champion Alexander Zverev was also forced to dig deep to secure a third-round spot. The German defeated Camilo Hugo Carabelli 6-7(5), 6-1, 7-5 to extend his winning streak at the Rolex Paris Masters to six matches and improve to 2-0 in the Lexus ATP Headquarters series with the Argentinian.

Watch highlights from Zverev’s hard-won victory in Paris

“really [a good win]”, said Zverev in the post-match interview. Zverev competed just four days after losing to Yannick Sinner at the Vienna Championship. “Especially after a difficult match. [loss] last week. Coming here, to be honest, I didn’t expect him to perform like this.

“It’s something I have to learn. I played against him in Rome and he was nowhere near that level. It was my mistake. I have to be better prepared for my opponent, but he was fantastic today.”

Zverev defeated Ugo Carabelli in 2 hours and 36 minutes at the PIF ATP Live Event in Turin to move past Novak Djokovic into third place. Having already qualified for the Nitto ATP Finals, he will next face No. 15 seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who defeated home wild card player Arthur Cazaux 7-6(5), 6-4 in the French capital.