Canadian singles tennis specialist Felix Auger-Aliassime won his first-ever Olympics medal in Paris on Friday. Along with his mixed doubles partner Gabriela Dabrowski, Aliassime beat the Dutch pair of W. Koolhof and D. Schuurs to grab a bronze medal at the event.
Being a singles specialist, it’s a great achievement for Felix to grab an Olympic medal in the doubles category. He termed the moment ‘incredible’ and described how special it was for him to win a team medal and add to the Canadian medals tally at the Games.
“It’s incredible. I’ve won tournaments during my individual career, but winning as a team means something different. The emotions are doubled. It means a lot to me. I have vivid memories of the Olympic Games … Adding my name to the list of Canadian medallists is a great pleasure, it’s a career achievement,” Felix was quoted after the bronze medal match ended on Friday.
Felix has done something that the tennis greats like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal did in the years 2008 and 2016 respectively. Federer, along with his men’s doubles partner Stan Wawrinka, beat the Swedish pair of Simon Aspelin and Thomas Johansson in the final to grab a gold medal in the 2008 final in Beijing.
While Nadal alongside Marc Lopez defeated Romania’s Florin Mergea and Horia Tecău in the 2016 men’s doubles final in Rio de Janeiro. However, a common factor between all 3 of them has been the kind of season they were having on the tour before grabbing that medal in the Olympics.
Federer and Nadal revived their careers after Olympics gold medal wins
Federer was having a subpar year in 2008 before his win in Beijing. In fact, he admitted once that the gold medal win was vital for him to gain his confidence back after losing to Nadal in his dominion at Wimbledon not too long before that.
After the Beijing success, he went on to defend his US Open title and followed it up by winning the French Open and Wimbledon in 2009, reclaiming his World No.1 ranking from Nadal in the process.
Similarly, 2016 was turning out to be one of the worst years for Nadal prior to the Summer Games. He entered the event without a single Grand Slam win, having been knocked out of the first round of the Australian Open. At his favorite French Open tournament, he retired hurt from the second round while he did not play Wimbledon at all.
But the men’s doubles gold medal win was the highlight of that year for Nadal. It renewed his motivation to persist with himself and turn his fortunes around in singles. Months later, he made it to the Australian Open 2017 final, overcoming all odds.
Although he lost to Federer, but 2017 was memorable in showing what a fighter Nadal is. He went on to clinch the French Open and US Open titles in the same year.
Coming to Aliassime, he entered the Olympics in extremely poor form and has struggled with a lot of injuries in the last 2 years. But a bronze medal win in doubles in Paris could culminate into something special going ahead in the near future.
He can look forward to replicating what Federer and Nadal did after winning their respective medals, which is to build on such success and win important singles events, especially the US Open.
Interestingly, Felix could also win a bronze medal in the men’s singles category. At the time of writing this report, the Canadian was locked in an intense battle, bouncing back to win the second set 6-1 after losing the first, 4-6 against Italian tennis star Lorenzo Musetti. In the third and deciding set, the score was 4-3 in favor of Musetti.
