Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime rolls into semifinals at Adelaide International

ADELAIDE, Australia — Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime is off to the semifinals of the Adelaide International.

The No. 2 seed from Montreal needed just 55 minutes to beat Australian wild card Alex Bolt 6-3, 6-0 in a quarterfinal on Thursday at the ATP Tour 250 event.

Auger-Aliassime, 19, had eight aces, no double faults and won 90 per cent of points when he got his first serve in.

Ranked 22nd in the world, Auger-Aliassime did not face one break point aganst the 157th-ranked Bolt.

Auger-Aliassime next faces No. 3 seed and world No. 22 Andrey Rublev of Russia in the semifinals of the Australian Open tuneup event.

Rublev won their only previous meeting — on clay in Croatia in 2018.

American qualifier Tommy Paul faces South African qualifier Lloyd Harris in the other semi.

Meanwhile, Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Croatia’s Darija Jurak have advanced to the women’s doubles final.

The No. 3 seeds beat Lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic and Andreja Klepac of Slovenia 6-7 (6), 7-6 (3), 10-5.

Dabrowski and Jurak will face top seeds Yifan Xu of China and Nicole Melichar of the United States in the final. Dabrowski and Xu split up as doubles partners after last season.

Meanwhile, French Open final opponents Ash Barty and Marketa Vondrousova delivered the same outcome at the Adelaide International: A dominating victory for the No. 1 player in the world.

The Australian beat Vondrousova 6-3, 6-3 at Memorial Drive to advance to the semifinals.

The last time the players met in the final at Roland Garros, Barty won her first Grand Slam title. Vondrousova has failed to win a set against Barty in four matches.

Barty will next play American Danielle Collins, who beat No. 7-ranked Belinda Bencic 6-3, 6-1.

Barty lost her first match at the Brisbane International last week but has showed steady improvement in Adelaide.

“That is just a gradual progression of spending time on court and spending time in that competition mode,” Barty said.

Aryna Sabalenka will meet Dayana Yastremska in the other semifinal on Friday.

Yastremska beat Donna Vekic 6-4, 6-3, while Sabalenka defeated second-seeded Simona Halep 6-4, 6-2.

Halep won the 2018 French Open and 2019 Wimbledon. She reached the Australian Open final in 2018.

— With files from The Associated Press.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 16, 2020.

The Canadian Press