FÉLIX AUGER-ALIASSIME

THE MONTREAL DYNAMO GREW UP FANTASIZING ABOUT JOINING CANADA’S TENNIS ELITE. NOW HE’S THE NINTH-BEST PLAYER IN THE WORLD. THE HARD PART? STAYING ON TOP.

DAVE ZARUM

THE ONE FÉLIX AUGER-ALIASSIME was seven years old the first time he caught a tennis coach’s eye. It was 2007, and Sylvain Bruneau, who was working with Équipes du Québec, saw hundreds of seven- to 10-year-olds take the court at the Montreal academy every other Saturday to play with friends. One day, among the mass of bright yellow balls ricocheting around the courts, Bruneau noticed a spindly kid who burned a hole with his eyes through each ball that came his way. It was hard to miss him. The child would bring his racquet back, line up his shot and, like clockwork, power the ball across the net, releasing a guttural grunt with each stroke—the kind of sound that a human can only produce when they’re pushing their body to…

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Maclean's (Digital) - 1 Issue, June 2022

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