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Felix Auger-Aliassime of Team World beat Gael Monfils of Team Europe 6-4 6-3 in the second rubber of the Laver Cup in Vancouver on Friday, September 22. The match lasted for less than a couple of hours, as Auger-Aliassime cruised to a victory.
The Canadian's win put Team World 2-0 ahead and they managed to extend their lead to 4-0 by the end of the day. The tournament will continue till Sunday, with Team World looking the favourite to win the tournament at this stage.
However, Team Europe has fielded a depleted side this time around, with star players like Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas not taking part in the tournament.
On that note, let us take a look at two things that stood out in the match:
#1. The two players struggled to hit winners on a slow surface:
With the surface being very slow, both the players struggled to come to terms with it. Both Auger-Aliassime and Monfils are known to have powerful forehands, but they struggled to hit winners. Auger-Aliassime hit a lot of approaches before venturing forward to hit winners through volleys. The Canadian won 15 net points in the match compared to Monfils' five.
The Canadian broke the Frenchman in the 10th game of the first set to secure a vital 1-0 lead. The 37-year-old Frenchman was always going to find it difficult to overturn a one set deficit and that proved to be the case.
#2. Monfils became error-prone in the second set:
Monfils started committing unforced errors off either wing, especially off his backhand, as the match progressed. Auger-Aliassime also committed a few errors in the second set, but did so less frequently than the Frenchman.
Moreover, the Canadian's inside-out forehand put a lot of pressure on the Frenchman’s backhand, as the latter had to stretch towards his left repeatedly. Auger-Aliassime broke Monfils quite early in the second set to have a firm grip on the match and never let the advantage slip.
The Canadian maintained that lead to finish the match off. Monfils was able to win only 38% of the points on his first serve, while Auger-Aliassime managed 64%. The Canadian also won 85% of the points on his first serve in the match against Monfils' 74%. Auger-Aliassime was decidedly the superior player on the day and won the match quite deservingly.
