MADRID – To follow the performances of Canadian players at the Madrid Tennis Open it is now necessary to turn to doubles matches.

Montreal’s Félix Auger-Aliassime was eliminated from his first tournament appearance on Saturday and lost in three sets 2: 6, 6: 3, 6: 7 (5) against the Serb Dusan Lajovic in a duel in the second round.

A few hours later, his compatriot Denis Shapovalov also lost his first match of the tournament when the Chinese Zhang Zhizhen won a three-set victory 6:7 (4), 6:4, 7:6 (1) after falling behind. .

The eliminations of Auger-Aliassime and Shapovalov came a day after those of Eugenie Bouchard and Bianca Andreescu, also in the second round. On Thursday, Rebecca Marino suffered the same fate in front of Belgium’s Élise Mertens.

In the deciding tiebreak, Auger-Aliassime found himself in serious trouble as he gave up the first five points to his rivals, including two on his own serve.

With a 2-6 loss at break – and four match points – Auger-Aliassime managed to reduce Lajovic’s lead to 6-5.

However, the Serb ended the clash, which was being played under closed roof at Arantxa Sanchez Stadium, when he hit a forehand just outside of the Montrealer’s reach.

Auger-Aliassime had already had to fend off two match points in the 12th game of the deciding set, each after double faults. He saved the first with a forehand winner in cross-country and the second with one of his 12 aces.

Lajovic nonetheless recorded a third win in as many games against Auger-Aliassime.

“In the end it was super tight,” analyzed the 32-year-old Serb. “The 7-6 win in the third set is really good for my confidence,” added Lajovic, who meets Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff in the next round.

As for Shapovalov, he took the lead in set number three thanks to a break of serve in game six that gave him a 4-2 lead. Zhizhen answered in the next game and both players then held on to force a second tiebreak.

During that break, Shapovalov won the first point on serve but lost the next seven, including three on serve.

In addition, Auger-Aliassime and Shapovalov remain active in doubles and in the same tandem.

On Friday, Auger-Aliassime and Shapovalov defeated Colombians Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah 7-6 (5), 7-6 (2) in the first round of men’s doubles.

In their next game, the two Canadians will face Finland’s Harri Heliovaara and Britain’s Lloyd Glasspool. This game is scheduled to take place on Sunday.

Elsewhere, in a women’s doubles match on Saturday, Leylah Fernandez of Quebec and American Taylor Townsend eliminated the tandem of second-seeded Ukraine’s Lyudmila Kichenok and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia in straight sets 6-2, 6-4.

In addition, Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski and her partner Luisa Stefani will meet the duo of Russian sisters Erika and Mirra Andreeva on Sunday.

The latter is the revelation of the women’s singles draw so far, having signed victories over Leylah Fernandez, Beatriz Haddad Maia and Magda Linette.

A bad start

For Auger-Aliassime, the opening points of the crucial tiebreak looked a lot like his start to the game.

The Montrealer was broken in his first two service games and Lajovic established a comfortable 4-0 lead. The Serb completed the first set in just over 30 minutes without a single break point.

In that opening round, Auger-Aliassime hit no aces, twice double faulted and hit just 55 percent of his first serves. He also lost eight out of nine points when he had to serve his second serve.

More efficient at serving in the second set, as evidenced by his 72 percent success rate on first serves, Auger-Aliassime was offered a first break chance in game two, which he didn’t take. However, he bounced back four games later and his break propelled him to a third and deciding set.

As in the first set, Auger-Aliassime failed to break Lajovic’s serve in this crucial set.