Canada's Felix Auger-Aliassime held off a fierce Dominic Thiem comeback on Monday to register a 6-3, 7-5, 6-7(5), 5-7, 6-3 victory in a marathon Australian Open first-round clash.
At one stage just two points from a straight-sets triumph, the 27th-seeded Auger-Aliassime was forced to dig deep to grind out a four-hour, 59-minute win.
It was the longest match ever recorded.
"(There’s) a lot of relief,” said Auger-Aliassime, who had led 5-2 in the third-set tie-break before Thiem engineered a dramatic turnaround.
“It’s crazy, in these matches you go through really all the emotions. It was a great level, a great match, and I started well. Then this is sport, sometimes it sucks. You’re trying your best, and he also played well, and it was a struggle for me.
“At the end, I didn’t want to fail mentally. I didn’t want to disappoint myself with my effort or have any regrets when leaving this court today. It was frustrating, the way it went in that third set. I thought, ‘You need to be tough, you need to stay strong’, and I’m happy I did because now I’m really happy.”
Thiem outhit Auger-Aliassime by 57 winners to 54 but was ultimately undone by the 66 unforced errors he made, compared to his opponent’s 54.
Felix has reached this stage at the Australian Open for the fourth successive year. He featured in the quarter-final in 2022.
Felix has gone past the opening round of a major for the first time since the 2023 Australian Open.
He was knocked out in the opening rounds at the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open last year.
Felix avenged his loss against Thiem from the 2020 US Open. The Austrian defeated Felix in the Round-of-16 clash and went on to win the title. Felix leveled the head-to-head record against Thiem (1-1).
Felix will next lock horns with France's Hugo Grenier, who defeated Alexandre Muller in another five-set thriller.
