Felix Auger-Aliassime joins Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz in achieving unique milestone with Shanghai Open debut win

Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime has registered a unique milestone with a win on Saturday. The 25-year-old is currently playing in the Shanghai Masters, where he defeated Alejandro Tabilo of Chile in the second round in straight sets with a score of 6-3, 6-3.

With that win, Auger-Aliassime becomes only the third player born in the 2000s to secure 250 career wins. The only other players to achieve that feat are the current world number two, Italy’s Jannik Sinner (305), and world number one, Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz (276).

While Auger-Aliassime will be extremely happy with his performance in the second round of the ongoing mega-event, he will ideally want to take his winning matches count to 255 before the end of the competition, which will see him lift the title and increase his chances of achieving one of his goals before the end of the season.

Before playing his first match in Shanghai this year, Auger-Aliassime spoke to the media and stated that his biggest objective before the end of the 2025 season is to find a spot in the upcoming ATP Finals, which will be played in Turin, where the top eight players will participate.

“I'm extremely motivated [to qualify],” he said. “I started the year very strong and then for a couple months it was more difficult in the spring, but I had a great summer in America. There’s always ups and downs, but it's been a positive year so far. So if I can make one last push in the next month to secure my place in Turin, that would be beautiful. But I'm not in it right now, so I need to push some guys out. I need to really play some good tennis and get a lot of wins.”

As things stand, Auger-Aliassime is placed in 13th position in the ATP rankings with 2,805 rating points. If he goes all the way and lifts the title, his points tally will increase to 3,705, which would see him go as high as ninth. He will replace Britain’s Jack Draper, who has already been ruled out of the remainder of the season with an arm injury.

Overall, Auger-Aliassime is having a decent season with 34 wins and 19 defeats in 53 matches. He has won two titles as well. His first title was the Adelaide International back in January, where he defeated America’s Sebastian Korda in the final with a score of 6-3, 3-6, 6-1. Interestingly, Auger-Aliassime’s second title came soon after in February when he won the Open Occitanie in Montpellier, France, after beating Aleksandar Kovacevic in the final with a score of 6-2, 6-7, 7-6.

Auger-Aliassime came into the Shanghai Masters after having an impressive run at the US Open, where, for the first time in his career, he managed to play in the semifinal of a Grand Slam. Unfortunately for him, his journey ended at that stage, as he lost to the defending champion, Sinner, with a score of 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Auger-Aliassime was asked during the same media talk about what kind of changes he had made after losing that contest. In response, Auger-Aliassime stated that he has not made many changes and that he and his coaching staff have focused on ‘technical’ aspects.

“They weren’t big changes I made, just a few things to adjust,” said Auger-Aliassime. “I mean technically, I think my serve has improved throughout the year and then also tactically I was more aware. I think I was not playing the right way on the clay or I was not really trusting my game plan always or I was doubting myself too much. But then I got back on the hard courts again, and while it wasn’t perfect, I was improving, improving, improving until the great US Open. So hopefully I can keep that going.”