"I've been playing well these past two weeks" - Auger-Aliassime on reaching second straight grass-court semifinal

Felix Auger-Aliassime resumed his quest for a maiden ATP tour-level trophy on Friday, as he cruised past Marcos Giron to reach the semifinals at the Noventi Open.

The Canadian required an hour to secure the 6-3 6-2 victory, improving his record to 20-12 for the season. Furthermore, he has now reached two consecutive semifinals on grass, after falling in the Stuttgart final last week.

“I’ve been playing well these past two weeks, believing in myself a lot and dominating my service games,” Auger-Aliassime said. “As soon as I got the break in the first set, I feel like I loosened up and things were just going better and better.

“I don’t think Marcos played his best match, I’ve seen him play great matches before and beat Top 10 opponents... but in the end, I think I was able to put a lot of pressure on him and dictate the points. So I can be happy with my performance.”

After upsetting 10-time Halle champion Roger Federer in the second round, the 20-year old has been riding a wave of momentum. However, he refuses to get overwhelmed despite all the mainstream attention that's been coming his way.

“The main goal was to refocus. I received a lot of messages and attention, and those kinds of things can be tricky,” he admitted. “They can take you out of your ‘zone’ and your focus on the tournament.

“And maybe the outside doesn’t understand that as much, because even though it looks like I’ve won ‘easy’, I still have to come out and play good tennis and a good match. I think I made a good effort, stayed in my zone, and came out and played great again.”

Auger-Aliassime will face Ugo Humbert in the semifinals, as the Frenchman defeated Sebastian Korda to set up a rematch from their Stuttgart quarterfinal.