MIAMI — Denis Shapovalov has continued a marvellous March for Canadian teen tennis players.
The 19-year-old native of Richmond Hill, Ont., joined fellow Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, 18, in the semifinals of the Miami Open with a 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-2 win over American Frances Tiafoe on Thursday night.
Shapovalov, the 20th seed, will face the winner of a match between No. 4 seed Roger Federer of Switzerland and No. 6 Kevin Anderson of South Africa in the semifinals of the ATP Tour Masters 1000 event. Montreal’s Aliassime, a qualifier, meets No. 7 seed John Isner of the U.S.
Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime are making headlines less than two weeks after 18-year-old Bianca Andreescu of Mississauga, Ont., captured the women’s title of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif.
The Tiafoe-Shapovalov match started more than three hours late because of rain. When it finally did get going, fans weren’t disappointed as the hard-hitting players produced regular winners.
Shapovalov rallied from a set down with two breaks in the second set and another two in the third against the 28th-seeded Tiafoe.
With the score tied at 1-1 in the third set, Shapovalov took the lead for good when he converted on his fourth break-point opportunity of the game.
Shapovalov was better on first serve, winning 76 per cent of his points, as compared to 63 per cent for the 21-year-old Tiafoe. Shapovalov also had a 36-18 edge in winners.
Shapovalov and Tiafoe both missed set-point opportunities against serve late in the first set, resulting in a tiebreak.
The Canadian fought back from a 5-2 deficit in the tiebreak to get back on serve, but a deep return by Tiafoe proved to be the difference, giving the American the first set.
Shapovalov bounced back in the second set, going up 5-1 before Tiafoe saved four set points on serve and then broke the Canadian to cut the deficit to 5-4.
Facing pressure, however, Shapovalov notched four straight points on serve, capping the set with an ace to tie the match.
As for Auger-Aliassime, it’s fair to say he is a surprise semifinalist.
It’s fair — because he’s even surprising himself.
The 18-year-old Montreal native will face 33-year-old American big-server Isner, the defending champion, on Friday. Auger-Aliassime is the youngest player left in a tournament where plenty of youngsters have made splashes, yet he says there’s no time right now to think about how rapidly his stock is rising.
“A lot of things are working, obviously,” Auger-Aliassime said. “I think I have been just improving in the last couple of weeks. But I don’t want to look back right now. I think I will do at the end of the tournament. Right now I’m looking forward to the next match and how far I can go in this tournament. Definitely I will take some time back home to reset and think about what happened.”
He had Thursday off, which probably saved him a bit of a frustrating day mentally. Play was to begin at 1 p.m. in a women’s semifinal match between 12th-seeded Ashleigh Barty and 21st-seeded Anett Kontaveit — they were delayed an hour at the start because of rain, then for another 2 1/2 hours after getting only two games in before the next wave of rain arrived.
Weather is supposed to be better Friday, when Auger-Aliassime will face off with Isner.
Auger-Aliassime wasn’t even in the top 100 of the world rankings two months ago, or in the top 50 when the Miami Open started. He’s now assured of climbing to at least 33rd when the rankings get updated Monday and becomes the first men’s player born in the 2000s to get past the No. 50 mark.
“Obviously it’s a privilege to be compared to all these great players,” Auger-Aliassime said. “I think it just shows that I’m doing good things, I’m on the right track.”
Shapovalov is 19, Tiafoe is 21, so that means the semifinal on that half of the bracket — facing the Federer-Anderson winner — will be a matchup of different tennis generations. Anderson is 32, Federer is 37.
Federer said he’s enjoying seeing the younger players start to make their mark.
“It’s interesting how they go about it differently against one another,” Federer said. “I think they really have taken it to the next level now, all the bunch of guys we are talking about right now, and it’s really nice to see.”
On the women’s side, Barty is finally through to her first Miami Open final.
The Australian endured three rain delays — one before the match, two more during play — to beat Kontaveit 6-3, 6-3 on Thursday night.
Barty, who will rise to a career-best No. 9 in the world rankings next week, will face either second-seeded Simona Halep or fifth-seeded Karolina Pliskova in Saturday’s final.
Halep and Pliskova were scheduled to play later Thursday night. Halep would return to No. 1 in the world with a win in that semifinal.