Quebec’s Gabriel Diallo continued to surprise at Friday’s National Bank Championships in Granby, reaching the semifinals by beating Tunisia’s Aziz Dougaz.

Diallo, 518th thug in the world, used his energy reserves to defeat the Tunisian (353rd) in three sets 3:6, 6:3 and 7:6 (5).

Most notably, the maple leaf representative won the last three points of the tie-break to save himself with the win. As a result, he had the upper hand in the tiebreak of the third inning for a second game in a row.

However, the 20-year-old giant struggled to utilize his 6’7-inch frame to take the lead in the game on serve. Dougaz had the same number of aces as Diallo (four) and was more efficient when putting the ball in play, whether on the first or second serve.

The Montreal native triumphed largely thanks to his opportunism. He converted four of the seven break points he was offered versus just two out of five for his rival.

Recall that Diallo defeated seventh seed Germany’s Cedrik-Marcel Stebe in the previous round of this Challenger Series tournament.

In the semifinals, Diallo meets the Japanese Hiroki Moriya (290th), who defeated the Frenchman Ugo Humbert (143rd) in three sets 7:6 (4), 4:6 and 7:5.

The other duel before the final will be qualifier Aidan Mayo (842nd) and Juncheng Shang (246th).

From the quarters to the final

On the women’s side, Daria Seville advanced straight to the final of the tournament as her rival of the day was eliminated.

Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine, ranked at No. 72 in the world, is likely to have picked up an injury as she defeated Canada’s Rebecca Marino in three sets on Thursday.

Sevilla (73rd) meets Russia’s Daria Kasatnika (10th) in the grand final. The latter, first seeded, made fun of the French Diane Parry (81st) in two sets with 6: 2 and 6: 0.

Sevilla also appear to want to devote all their energies to the singles final as she and partner Ena Shibahara have withdrawn for their semi-final against Britain’s Alicia Barnett and Olivia Nicholls.