Felix beats Botic in Rome, celebrates 200th career win

Felix Auger-Aliassime hit a major milestone with a dramatic second-set comeback Saturday at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia.

The 23-year-old Canadian rallied from a double break down in the second set to overcome Botic van de Zandschulp 6-1, 7-6(6) in Rome and clinch the 200th tour-level win of his career. Auger-Alissime is just the second ATP Tour star born in the 2000s to reach 200 wins, after the 22-year-old Jannik Sinner.

Most tour-level wins for players born in the 2000s

At one point trailing 1-5 in the second set, Auger-Aliassime saved a set point at 2-5 and another at 5-6 before completing his two-hour, five-minute win in a tie-break. The 18th-seeded Canadian, who was competing for the first time since reaching his maiden Masters 1000 championship match last week at the Mutua Madrid Open, now leads van de Zandschulp 3-1 in the pair's Lexus ATP Head2Head series.

Auger-Aliassime was visibly delighted after converting his second match point for an unlikely straight-sets victory. The World No. 20 converted four of the eight break points he earned on the way to his triumph, according to Infosys ATP Stats.

Now 5-5 in Rome, Auger-Aliassime will take on Alex de Minaur next at the Foro Italico. The No. 11 in the PIF ATP Rankings, De Minaur earlier eased past Roberto Carballes Baena 6-3, 6-2 in his opening match of the tournament.

Also on Saturday evening, Stefanos Tsitsipas dug deep to avoid a second consecutive early Masters 1000 exit. The sixth seed rallied past Jan-Lennard Struff 6-7(1), 6-4, 6-4 to book his second-round spot.

Tsitsipas became a Masters 1000 champion for the third time last month in Monte-Carlo and he also reached the final in Barcelona. The Greek then fell to Thiago Monteiro in his Madrid opener, however, and he looked in danger of being upset again on the Rome clay, where Struff’s huge forehand dictated play in the early stages.

Despite dropping the opening set in a tie-break, Tsitsipas held firm to engineer a two-hour, 32-minute comeback win. He broke Struff’s serve twice in both the second and third sets, ultimately improving to 11-2 for the year on clay after converting five of the 16 break points he earned.

The Greek’s next opponent in Rome will be Cameron Norrie, who earlier held off Jaume Munar 6-3, 1-6, 6-3. Tsitsipas has reached the semi-finals on three of his six main-draw appearances in the Italian capital, where he went on to contest the championship match in 2022.