Felix Auger-Aliassime felt 'dizzy' and was 'seeing spots' as untimely illness wrecks his US Open ambitions

It is 'back to the drawing board' for Felix Auger-Aliassime who crashed out of the US Open in a hugely surprising 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 battering against Karen Khachanov. Bizarre health scares did not pass by as he was hampered throughout with his Russian opponent taking full advantage.

Khachanov had endured a slip in the rankings as of late which is the reason why he is not seeded for this event. Nevertheless, he was always going to be a dangerous opponent and Auger-Aliassime knew that.

It began well for the No.3 seed as he edged his rival in a very tight opening set, winning the tiebreak 7-5 to lead. From then on, the Canadian would go down a spiral trajectory as he plummeted out of the US Open.

He won as many games in the next three sets as he did in the opening one with Khachanov capitalising. He was struggling on court, and it was obvious to the viewers, but internally there were confusing things emerging that did not leave him in a good state.

Khachanov took a 3-0 lead and rebuffed break point efforts to draw level. Something seemed off when Khachanov took a 5-1 lead with a double break enroute to taking the lead of the match. A bagel was much more likely than a comeback as the former semi-finalist led the fourth set 4-0. Auger-Aliassime, who in turn was defending the points from a last-four run in 2025, prevented this but was not capable of turning around the match. He is the highest ranked player to lose in this US Open so far.

He attempted to explain what he went through on court in his press conference. “I mean it’s tough to talk about anything else than how I felt physically after a set and a half I just couldn’t yeah couldn’t … [didn’t] feel well and was dizzy and seeing spots and yeah, couldn’t recover,” he said.

“I thought maybe it would pass, but it didn’t. So that’s the end of the tournament for me and now back to the drawing board.”

It was a unique experience for him, made even more bemusing with him not feeling any signs of illness throughout the day ahead of the event. "No. I’ve never felt quite like that," he admitted. "I’ve had cramps before I felt, you know, tired towards the end of matches, but in a normal way. This was abnormal a little bit and there were no signs in the last couple of days and no signs this morning as well. So yeah, I’m not sure. I’m going to run some tests and see what comes out of it.”

Auger-Aliassime clung onto the thin silver lining that he would eventually feel better and make a comeback. By the end of the third set and start of the fourth, this prospect was looking more and more unrealistic as his condition did not go.

“When I lost the third set, no, because I was thinking maybe I take a break, maybe in 20 minutes I feel better, but obviously it wasn’t the case,” he said when asked if there was any consideration of retiring.

“Not much you can do, you know, hydration, supplementation, but then if it doesn’t go away, I mean, the guy keeps on winning points. So, by the time it was three, three love, four love, I was okay, let’s finish the match. Let’s see. But I didn’t want to retire at that point."

He concluded by sharing his frustration that the issue that had hindered his US Open run was not tennis related, something completely out of his hands. “Karen’s a great player. Look, I cannot beat I mean, him or or anybody in this draw feeling the way I felt today. So, if I cannot move, I mean, we’re not talking about tennis here. It’s unfortunate. I wish we were talking about tennis. I wish that I had been beaten and we were talking about what I could have done better tennis-wise, but it’s not the case.”