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Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime survived a major scare against Alex Molcan as he scripted a memorable comeback to clinch the win in a five-set thriller to advance to the second round of the Australian Open on Wednesday.
Molcan had upset Felix once, less than a year ago in Marrakech. The Canadian nearly avoided going winless in their ATP head-to-head match. The sixth seed rallied from a set down to win on Margaret Court Arena with scores of 3-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2, keeping him alive in his quest to top his quarterfinal performance from Melbourne last year. With the score tied at 3-3 in the third game, Auger-Aliassime went on to win seven straight games to get the upper hand. The Canadian's serve and his aggressive ground game proved to be too much in the closing stages, despite Molcan rebounding to win the opening game of the final set. He had 23 aces and 59 overall winners by the time the game was over. For the third year in a row, Auger-Aliassime has advanced to the third round and will next play either Francisco Cerundolo or Corentin Moutet. Molcan, who was about to go to the third round of the Australian Open for the first time, came close to pulling off his second upset of Auger-Aliassime in ten months. In their first encounter in April 2017 in Marrakech, the Slovakian turned back two match points, ultimately triumphing in a third-set tie-break. Frances Tiafoe secured a spot in the third round of the Australian Open on Wednesday with a crushing victory in John Cain Arena, defeating Shang Juncheng of China in straight sets. In a match that lasted less than two hours, 16th seed Tiafoe defeated Shang 6-4, 6-4, 6-1, who qualified to make his Grand Slam debut at 17. Tiafoe finished the game with 20 aces and 40 winners. He did not drop service during the game, fending off all four break points. The American rushed to the finish line by winning the final six games of the match, thriving in the electrifying environment in John Cain Arena that he helped to create by turning on the style. The American will next face the winner of the matchup between 18th seed Karen Khachanov and Australian wild card Jason Kubler. "I played an unbelievable player. He's going to be an unbelievable player, he already is a really good player. It's tough playing someone that young. You know they're coming for you, but I thought I did a good job. I played really well today," the American said post-match as quoted by ATPTour.com. (ANI)
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