Quebec’s Félix Auger-Aliassime suffered a surprising defeat against Italian Lorenzo Sonego in the second round of the tennis tournament in Dubai on Wednesday and lost 7: 6 (4), 6: 4.

The 67th slugger in the world earned a crucial break in the seventh game of the second set when “FAA” committed a double fault. The winner held on to his serve to claim a win in nearly two hours of play.

Auger-Aliassime, ninth player on the ATP circuit, slammed six aces to two to Sonego. In return, however, he was less brilliant and couldn’t give himself a single break opportunity. Additionally, the maple leaf athlete retained a 49% efficiency percentage with the first few balls in hand, compared to 79% for his opponent.

A few weeks earlier, he defeated the European 6-2, 6-3 in their first meeting at the tournament in Rotterdam.

Shapovalov bows again

In Acapulco, Mexico, Denis Shapovalov failed to surprise American Taylor Fritz.

‘Shapo’ struggled to find his rhythm at 1:18 of the game as the player, ranked fifth in the world, lost 6-4, 6-4 in straight sets.

Even though the Ontarian showed great consistency on serve, he couldn’t upset his competitor when he initiated the change. Shapovalov only had his first break at the very end of the duel, Fritz converted three of his five chances.

The Maple Leaf representative has won just one of his four meetings since his heartbreaking loss to Hubert Hurkacz in the third round of the Australian Open. He was eliminated from the start in Dallas and Delray Beach and needed three sets to defeat Miomir Kecmanovic in the round of 16 in Acapulco.

Fritz meets his compatriot Frances Tiafoe in the quarterfinals.

Marino was eliminated in Monterrey

In Monterrey, Mexico, Canada’s Rebecca Marino worked hard before losing to China’s Zhu Lin.

After 2 hours 20 minutes of play, the Torontonian folded the spine in three sets of 7-6(4), 2-6 and 6-3.

Pointing at the world 74th level, Marino attempted to stir up excitement against the world 41st racquet and fifth seed of this WTA 250 Series tournament.

In the last set, however, the 32-year-old had to accept a service break when she was 2-1 behind. She couldn’t come back, despite being much sharper than her competitor in possession with 11 aces to just one.

On Monday, Marino won her first main draw match of the year by defeating Mexico’s Fernanda Contreras Gomez.

In addition, Zhu Lin had killed the Canadian in the first round of the Australian Open in January.