Ruthless In Rotterdam: Auger-Aliassime, De Minaur Set Title Showdown

Felix Auger-Aliassime
Felix Auger-Aliassime (photo: ABN-Amro Open/Alyssa van Heyst

ROTTERDAM/WASHINGTON, February 14, 2026 (by Michael Dickens)

No. 2 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada, who won the 2022 ABN-Amro Open title, came into his Saturday evening semifinal on Rotterdam Ahoy’s Centre Court leading all players on the ATP Tour in indoor wins since the start of the 2020 season (92) and carried with him a seven-match winning streak after winning the Montpellier title last Sunday to set a new Canadian record for most tour-level titles in the Open Era (9). He took on World No. 10 Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan with a chance to advance to his third Rotterdam final after 2020 and 2022.

Although Bublik leads the ATP Tour in match wins this season (11) – and with an eye toward reaching his fourth ATP 500 final after winning a pair of titles (2023, 2025) in Halle and advancing to the 2024 Dubai final – he proved to be no match for Auger-Aliassime.

As it happened, Auger-Aliassime neutralized the 6-foot-5-inch Bublik’s power game – limiting him to just four winners, all of them service aces – and coasted to an easy 6-1, 6-2 semifinal victory that was over in just 54 minutes. It was his fifth career victory over Bublik in seven tries.

The Canadian No. 1, who dropped just one point (winning 27 of 28, 96 percent) on his first serve, hit 25 winners – including seven aces – and converted four of six break-point opportunities against Bublik.

Auger-Aliassime did not face any break points during his eight service games. He won the final game at love – and outpointed Bublik 56-28 en route to his ninth victory in 11 outings this season. Bublik dropped to 11-3.

“Every day when you come out on a streak, you don’t know if it will be the night it is going to end, but tonight wasn’t the night,” Auger-Aliassime said during his on-court interview. “I’m given another chance to play another final tomorrow and it’s great.

“It was for sure my best match in a long time. … The efficiency, the precision, the intentions were clear. I was just striking the ball well. When you feel like that on the court, it’s a joy to play tennis. Obviously, it’s different for the opponent. But in regards to my game, it’s a great feeling.”

The only former Rotterdam champion remaining in the draw, Auger-Aliassime is successfully through to his 22nd ATP Tour final – and third in the Dutch port city. He’s only the eighth player in tournament history to reach three Rotterdam finals, along with top seed Alex de Minaur. Auger-Aliassime will take a 3-1 head-to-head lead into Sunday afternoon’s title clash with the Aussie No. 1. He said he looks forward to the match-up.

“I think it’s a great matchup. No. 1 seed against No. 2 seed. He’s fallen short the past two years. … It’s no time to be friends. We’re great friends off the court. We have a lot of respect for each other – and we’re going to show that tomorrow, battling with great sportsmanship – but at the same time, only one can lift the trophy. So, we both have to go for it.”

De Minaur makes history reaching third-straight Rotterdam final

Meanwhile, after gutting out a three-set quarterfinal victory over Dutch No. 2 Botic van de Zandschulp on Friday, de Minaur played for history on Saturday.

The World No. 8 from Australia attempted to become the first man to reach the Rotterdam final in three consecutive years in the tournament’s 53-year history, when he took on France’s Ugo Humbert in first semifinal Saturday afternoon.

While de Minaur could claim a 5-2 head-to-head advantage over the 36th-ranked Humbert as he aimed to extend his lead for most ATP 500 match wins since the start of the 2023 season (51) – including titles at Acapulco and Washington, D.C. – the Frenchman attempted to become the first man to advance to multiple ATP Tour finals this season after reaching the Adelaide title match last month. A win over de Minaur would make Humbert the fourth left-handed finalist in Rotterdam this century after Michael Llorda in 2008, Rafael Nadal in 2009 and Martin Klizan in 2016.

As it played out, de Minaur played calm, relaxed and determined tennis from first ball to last – and history was favorable to him. With his all-court demeanor and cool behavior as his allies, de Minaur denied Humbert at every important juncture of the semifinal skirmish and won, 6-4, 6-3, in one hour and 32 minutes.

De Minaur broke Humbert for an early 2-1 lead in the first set and saved six break points overall in the opener. Then, the Aussie No. 1 immediately broke his opponent to begin the second set and fought off another break point in consolidating for a 2-0 lead. Later, de Minaur won a 17-shot rally after Humbert made a hitting error to save his eighth break point. He managed to hold his nerve and his serve after saving two more break points during a marathon 20-point game, in which he hit his first groundstroke winner of the match for a 5-3 lead.

By the end, every big moment seemed to have gone de Minaur’s way – he won the biggest points – and it put him into the Rotterdam final once again after giving another masterclass in the Dutch port city before an appreciative audience.

“I’m super proud of the efforts. I mean, today, there were a lot of tough moments, a lot of break points, a lot of tricky situations,” de Minaur said during his on-court interview. “But I actually dug myself out of them. It’s super fun to be here in another final and giving myself another chance to hopefully win the title.”

Although de Minaur only won 67 percent (34 of 51) of his first-serve points and hit just four winners, he saved all 10 break points he faced from Humbert and converted three of four break-point chances. De Minaur outpointed Humbert 65-63 and benefited from 41 unforced errors by the French No. 3.

“It’s hard to get a good rhythm against [Ugo],” de Minaur admitted. “He looks to get a first strike in the rallies whenever he can, whether he’s serving or on return. He’s such a clean ball striker … A lot today was just about trying to be solid, trying to make that extra ball and trying to keep asking questions. Not every match do you get the chance to be aggressive and today was certainly one that I was not able to do that. Hey, I found a way and now on to the next [match].”

After losing consecutive Rotterdam finals to Jannik Sinner (2024) and Carlos Alcaraz (2025), de Minaur was asked what he learned from those previous finals and what kind of mindset will he take into Sunday’s title match. He said: “Yeah, look, I mean ultimately I’ve been in this position before … and I have no regrets. What ever happens, happens. I don’t want to leave the court thinking about the ‘what ifs’. I just want to go after it, ultimately. These are the types of matches that you go through to win the title – not hoping the other player loses it. That’s going to be the mindset going forward.”

Around the Rotterdam Ahoy

• While the singles semifinals garnered much of the day’s attention, the doubles semifinals bookended the day’s order of play.

In the first semifinal, top seeds Marcelo Arevalo of El Salvador and Mate Pavic of Croatia, co-ranked World No. 6, were upset by qualifiers Ray Ho of Taiwan and Hendrik Jebens of Germany, 6-3, 1-6, 11-9 – and it was decided by a match tie-break, the secon for each team this week.

Ho and Jebens, who won on their second match-point opportunity during the match tie-break, outpointed their opponents 54-53 to improve their win-loss record to 5-4 this season. Arevalo and Pavic dropped to 6-3.

Later, defending champions and fourth seeds Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori of Italy (5-2), ranked 21st and 22nd respectively, held off unseeded German duo Jakob Schnaitter and Mark Wallner (5-5), in the second semifinal.

Bolelli and Vavassori prevailed 7-6 (5), 3-6, 10-7, decided by a match tie-break. They outpointed their opponents 75-69.

• Diede de Groot of the Netherlands and Alfie Hewitt of Great Britain won UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour titles in women’s and men’s wheelchair singles events on Saturday.

Saturday’s ABN-Amro Open results

Sunday’s ABN-Amro Open order of play

By the numbers

Three of the Top 5 ATP Tour win leaders were on court in Rotterdam Saturday: Alexander Bublik (11), Alex de Minaur (10) and Felix Auger-Aliassime (9).

“Quotable …”

“In the second set, I was kind of in the zone. I hit some crazy shots, like return winners off of first serves, volley winners where I don’t know if I even saw the ball to be honest. Just a couple of points here and there that were kind of crazy to play. Overall, it’s a credit to my opponent. … I stayed calm, found my rhythm and it got better and better as the match wore on.”

– No. 2 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada, during his on-court interview, following his quarterfinal win over Dutch No. 1 Tallon Griekspoor. 

Search

Brigitte Urban
Tennis photographer
camera lens

International Blogs

Michael Dickens

Once-In-A-Lifetime Photograph Of Jasmine Paolini Tells A Great Story

December 29, 2025

Marc Raffel

2026 wieder Herren-Weltklassetennis in Troisdorf

December 19, 2025

Dietmar Kaspar

TC Augsburg startet neu strukturiert mit großen Ambitionen in die 1. Bundesliga

December 12, 2025

Florian Heer

Björn Kroll beim Hamburg Ladies & Gents Cup: “Wir möchten unseren Spielern eine gute Plattform bieten!”

October 26, 2025

Podcast

Categories