Medvedev, Auger-Aliassime To Meet In Doha SFs; Murray Rallies Again

In Doha, Qatar, at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in quarterfinals action the Czech Republic’s Jiri Lehecka shocked the top seeded Andrey Rublev in three sets 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.

The 21-year-old Lehecka broke serve twice in the match and lost serve just once. Lehecka broke serve in the second game of the third set for 2-0 and rode out the match.

Lehecka collects his first career Top 5 win and he advances to his second career ATP semifinal. Tomorrow, he’ll face 2-time champion Andy Murray who went the distance against rallying from a set down to defeat French qualifier Alexandre Muller 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.

No. 2 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime eliminated the 7th-seeded Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-4, 7-6(7-5). In the match, Auger Aliassime hit eight aces, won 38/44 (86%) first serve points, was 1 of 4 on break chances. He never lost serve.

The Canadian took the sole break of the match in the ninth game of the first set for 5-4 then served it out. Auger-Aliassime is a perfect 3-0 in tour-level head-to-head collisions with Davidovich Fokina.

Auger-Aliassime will now get a rematch with No. 3 seed Daniil Medvedev. Medvedev ousted Christopher O’Connell in three sets 6-2, 4-6, 7-5.

Medvedev has won all five meetings with Auger-Aliassime including last week in the Rotterdam semifinals.

“I hope that I can do better than last week for sure,” Auger-Aliassime said. “It’s kind of a chess game to play Daniil. It’s really tough. He’s gotten me every time since we’ve played, so hopefully tomorrow I’ll get my shot and try to win.”