{"id":124016,"date":"2025-09-06T10:16:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T10:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/124016\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T10:16:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T10:16:14","slug":"who-are-felix-auger-aliassimes-parents-marie-auger-and-sam-aliassime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/124016\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Are F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime\u2019s Parents, Marie Auger and Sam Aliassime?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime looks to do the impossible\u2014defeat Jannik Sinner\u2014he\u2019ll be supported by his family, including fianc\u00e9e Nina Ghaibi<\/a>, sister Malika Auger-Aliassime, and his parents, Sam Aliassime and Marie Auger.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father, Sam, came to Canada from Togo when he was 26, with my mum, Marie. She was a big help for him because he didn\u2019t feel alone and she knew everything about Canada,\u201d he told The Guardian<\/a>. \u201cFor sure, it was challenging for him. He left everything behind and was sacrificing a lot. The memory I have of growing up is my dad doing everything he could to make it work for us. We never really felt pressure. Everything he did was for the family and the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

F\u00e9lix also told the New Yorker<\/a> he credits his father\u2019s immigration journey with his work ethic. \u201cI know for my part it helped, seeing what my dad had to sacrifice to come to Canada, leaving all his family behind,\u201d he said. \u201cI think he really gave us the tools and the education that you have to work, you have to earn your place in this world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here, get to know F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime\u2019s parents, Sam Aliassime and Marie Auger.<\/p>\n

F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime\u2019s father, Sam Aliassime <\/p>\n

Sam Aliassime is from Togo in West Africa. \u201cIn Africa, everyone plays soccer. Every time you see a boy, you see a ball. In my family, we were 11 boys, and because my father ran a hotel with a tennis court, we all played a little tennis. But nothing was more important than that soccer ball,\u201d Aliassime told Tennis Canada<\/a>. \u201cIn soccer, I couldn\u2019t dribble or do much with my left foot. I always shot and got passes with my right. My coach said \u2018Sam, forget about a career in soccer. You\u2019re not good enough with your left foot.\u2019 I was discouraged, but then I took up tennis full time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam became a tennis instructor, recalling, \u201cThere was no internet to look up tips.\u201d When French service members visited Togo on holiday, Sam would borrow their French tennis magazines. \u201cThat\u2019s how I prepared for my lessons,\u201d he said. He eventually moved to Quebec, where he continued to teach tennis. \u201cI was the only Black person\u201d at the tennis club, he continued. \u201cToday, there are so many Black kids who play tennis and who believe because they saw F\u00e9lix do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TENNIS-AUS-ATP\"MICHAEL ERREY\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Sam Aliassime in 2015 at his son\u2019s match.<\/p>\n

Sam started as his son F\u00e9lix\u2019s coach, before he stepped back. \u201cIt was a simple and easy decision,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cYou know, I still communicate with him\u2026at the end of every tournament. I\u2019m there and I share my perspective when we plan the season at the start of the year and when we take stock at the end of it. I\u2019ve known my son\u2019s tennis DNA since the very beginning. I sometimes remind him of that, so he doesn\u2019t forget!\u201d He added, \u201cIn my opinion, children can\u2019t succeed in tennis if their parents aren\u2019t involved. That\u2019s very clear. Twenty-five percent happens on the court. The rest is off the court, and you can\u2019t neglect that 75 percent. It has to be a family project. I tell parents I can\u2019t ensure their children\u2019s development if they don\u2019t get involved themselves because I need them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TwoFelix Auger-Aliassime\/Instagram<\/p>\n

F\u00e9lix and his father at the Miami Open earlier this year.<\/p>\n

He eventually launched Acad\u00e9mie Aliassime, his own tennis academy. He and Auger-Aliassime\u2019s mother are no longer together.<\/p>\n

F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime\u2019s mother, Marie Auger<\/p>\n

There\u2019s less information available online about his mother, Marie Auger. She is a teacher, and of French Canadian descent. Per the New Yorker, \u201cWhen Auger-Aliassime started to travel to tournaments at a young age, his mother, Marie, worried about him missing school, and missing out on childhood. She emphasized schoolwork and encouraged him to take piano lessons\u2026When Auger-Aliassime and his father came home from the courts at the end of the day, they were not allowed to talk about tennis. His mother, he said, wanted him to be \u2018a normal person.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In a 2022 interview<\/a>, Marie spoke about how she\u2019s grappling with her son\u2019s fame. \u201cAs a parent, you\u2019re never prepared to have a child who has a public life. When I arrive in a city and see [his] picture plastered on the buses, there\u2019s something a little surreal,\u201d she said. \u201cBut for me, F\u00e9lix is still F\u00e9lix. When we\u2019re at home, I forget all that. But I know it\u2019s part of his career, and he plays that role very well. He never gets impatient, and he\u2019s always very generous with his time.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cIt makes me even happier when people tell me that F\u00e9lix is a good person, that he’s intelligent, because as a parent, I didn\u2019t raise a tennis player. I helped a child become a comfortable adult. It\u2019s always been a family project, with his father, even though we\u2019re divorced. And I look at him, and it\u2019s true that he\u2019s like that. But as a parent, you can\u2019t take all the credit for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Play\"Two\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Emily Burack (she\/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime looks to do the impossible\u2014defeat Jannik Sinner\u2014he\u2019ll be supported by his family, including fianc\u00e9e Nina…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,782,68559,784,1642,68558,82,593],"class_list":["post-124016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-69e82e69-896a-4767-84ad-372f32221830","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-locale-us","tag-shorttitle-meet-felix-auger-aliassimes-parents","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}