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It was a great day for Canadian tennis, as Vasek Pospisil and  Félix Auger-Aliassime didn’t drop a set en route to convincing singles victories at the ABN World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

It was back-to-back wins for the two Canadians, who headlined Wednesday’s night session at the ATP 500 event.

Vasek victorious against first seed

Anything is Pospisil, indeed.

The 29-year-old Canadian continued his excellent 2020 with a convincing 6-4, 6-3 win over Daniil Medvedev, the tournament’s top seed and World No. 5.

Pospisil was broken in his first service game, but never looked back after that, hitting 21 winners en route to the amazing victory.

After breaking Medvedev back to tie the first set at 2-2, both players held serve until 4-4, where Pospisil found himself down 0-40 on serve.

Facing three straight break points, it was all business for Pospisil, who aced his Russian counterpart on three consecutive occasions to tie the game at 40-40. He then won the next two points to take a 5-4 lead.

He then got a few break points of his own, capitalizing on his chance to seal the first set after Medvedev made one of his six unforced errors in the set.

Pospisil made 14 winners in the set.

After a quick drink of maple syrup, Pospisil continued to match Medvedev shot for shot in the second set, and got the opportunity he needed up 2-1 with the Russian serving.

It was another unforced error that ultimately sunk the top seed; Medvedev put a routine volley into the net to give Pospisil a 3-1 lead.

The World No. 132 never looked back after that, doing just what he needed to, holding serve on his next three occasions to seal the victory.

With the win, he’ll return to the Top 100 in singles rankings next week for the first time since 2018.

It’s the third career Top-5 win for the Vernon, B.C. native, and first since 2017.

He’ll now face 27-year-old Filip Krajinović in the Round of 16.

FAA avenges Shapovalov, moves to quarters

It was much of the same for Montreal’s Félix Auger-Aliassime, who took just one hour, 17 minutes to defeat Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 6-2 in his round-of-16 match.

The 19 year old utilized an excellent first serve and capitalized on some crucial mistakes from his opponent to seal the victory.

Auger-Aliassime took advantage of two break opportunities in a row to close out the first set, including a wicked backhand winner on the edge of the line that Dimitrov had no answer for. That hot shot gave him a 4-3 lead – and he didn’t look back from there.

He was broken just once in the match, while he won on his opponent’s serve an impressive four times.

The second set was dominated by the Canadian, but it was this unbelievable backhand winner (another one!) on break point that gave him a 2-1 lead, which opened the floodgates in the set. Seriously, this kid is good.

It was all up from there as Auger-Aliassime won the final ten points of the match to wrap it up.

It was Dimitrov who knocked Shapovalov out of the singles portion of the tourney in the opening round on Monday, and FAA got revenge for his close friend with today’s win.

Both Canadians are still alive in the doubles draw.

The World No. 21 moves onto the quarter-finals, where he’ll play the winner of No. 2 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas or Aljaz Bedene.

(Feature image: ABN AMRO WTT)

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