Felix Auger-Aliassime once had a finals problem. Not anymore. Yes, he lost his most recent final in Rotterdam to Alex de Minaur, but that singular defeat doesn’t change the larger narrative: he’s conquered his demons.
It would be easy to chalk this up to maturation, to simply say he became a better player. Both are true, but neither tells the complete story of how Canada’s top-ranked player finally learned to win.
Felix Auger-Aliassime: From Finals Curse to Canadian No. 1
The Early Struggles
Auger-Aliassime announced himself early. At just 18, he reached his first ATP final in Rio de Janeiro which was an impressive feat for someone still in his teens. But Laslo Djere had too much for him that day on clay.
Two more finals followed in 2019. He lost both. More troubling, he didn’t win a single set across those three championship matches. For a player of his obvious talent, the pattern felt ominous.
Yet the statistics from 2019 don’t reveal a terrible player.
Compare them to his 2025 season, when he won multiple titles, and they’re quite similar. This wasn’t about a vast skill gap. The problem lived entirely in his head.
Auger-Aliassime doesn’t carry himself with swagger. He won’t intimidate opponents through presence alone. That’s not a character flaw, but in tennis, where mental warfare matters as much as shot-making, it became a liability.
The classic example involves Casper Ruud before the 2022 French Open final against Rafael Nadal. Nadal bounced around the tunnel, radiating intensity. Ruud stood to the side, swaying nervously and looking indecisive. He’d lost before stepping on court.
Auger-Aliassime faced the same trap. He lacked that inner arrogance; the bone-deep belief that victory was inevitable. He had to learn how to win because it simply didn’t come naturally.
Learning to Win
The breakthrough took two years. In 2022, he finally claimed a trophy in Rotterdam, defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final.
The opponent mattered. Tsitsipas, like Auger-Aliassime, doesn’t exude that ruthless self-belief. Against someone like Carlos Alcaraz, who radiates quite a bit of aura, the result would have been different.
But the win opened the floodgates. Confidence breeds more confidence, and Auger-Aliassime added more titles soon after. That’s the pattern with elite athletes, once they break through, the victories multiply. Now that he understood that he was capable of winning, he started doing it consistently.
Of course, mindset wasn’t everything. He genuinely improved as a player, which we’ll explore. But learning to believe in himself in those crucial moments made all the difference.
The Numbers Behind the Transformation
Tennis statistics can feel abstract, but they reveal where meaningful shifts occurred.
Compare 2019 to 2025. In 2019, he reached three finals and won none. In 2025, he reached five and won three. What changed?
His hold percentage jumped four percentage points. He served better than ever, hitting 66% first serves and winning more points behind them. Overall, he won nearly four percentage points more on serve between those seasons. His ace percentage increased as well.
These might seem like modest gains, but tennis lives in the margins. When you consider that most of his finals came indoors, where those margins shrink even further, the improvements become crucial.
The Indoor Phenomenon
Most of Auger-Aliassime’s best tennis happens indoors. It’s not ideal as the tour plays predominantly outdoors, but the numbers are striking. He’s reached 14 career finals indoors. Of his nine career titles, eight came indoors.
Why such a dramatic split? His game simply works better in controlled conditions.
According to Tennis Abstract’s shot quality ratings, Auger-Aliassime’s indoor backhand grades as average. His indoor forehand, however, rates around +8.5, essentially comparable to Carlos Alcaraz, who many consider to have the tour’s best forehand.
Now compare that to his outdoor performance. His outdoor forehand rates similarly to Tommy Paul’s: erratic and less reliable. His outdoor backhand grades worse than Ben Shelton’s, and Shelton isn’t known for his backhand. Combine that with an elite serve that plays even better indoors, and you have a player whose effectiveness varies wildly by environment.
This isn’t just about comfort level. It’s another mental hurdle. If he can narrow that indoor-outdoor gap and bring his shot quality outdoors closer to his indoor standard, expect many more victories and trophies.
What Comes Next
Auger-Aliassime sits in a solid position. He’s learned to win and has largely succeeded in finals since that brutal early stretch. After losing his first eight finals, he’s gone 9-5 since.
The recent Rotterdam loss to de Minaur stings, but it shouldn’t obscure the progress. At 25, he has plenty of time to reach his ceiling. The key difference now is we know he’s capable of improvement. He’s proven it already.
The question is whether he’ll continue pushing. If he does, Canada’s number one could become a fixture in the sport’s upper echelon and not just an occasional occurrence.
Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey – Imagn Images