MONTPELLIER \u2014 F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime defended a title Sunday and set a Canadian record in the process.<\/p>\n
Auger-Aliassime claimed his second straight Open Occitanie championship with a 6-3, 7-6 (4) win over France’s Adrian Mannarino in Sunday’s final.<\/p>\n
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The victory gave the 25-year-old from Montreal his ninth singles title, the most by a Canadian man in the Open Era, surpassing recently retired Milos Raonic.<\/p>\n
Auger-Aliassime also became just the second man to successfully defend his title in Montpellier, joining Richard Gasquet.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdrian is always a really tough opponent to play,\u201d Auger-Aliassime said. \u201cFor all players, there\u2019s a lot of respect for him and his career. I knew it was going to be a tough match today, and I\u2019m very happy to win here again.<\/p>\n
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“It\u2019s amazing to win here again, I\u2019m thrilled with my whole week and especially today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Auger-Aliassime entered the tournament as the top seed and ranked eighth in the world.<\/p>\n
He scored five straight points to take the third set tiebreak, including his 13th ace of the match to go up 5-4 before winning the next two points on return.<\/p>\n
The six-foot-four Canadian’s serve was in top form, as he won 87 per cent of first-serve points. His lone double fault was his first since his second-round win over Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka.<\/p>\n
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Auger-Aliassime also extended his lead as the player with the most indoor wins on the ATP Tour this decade to 89. World No. 2 Jannik Sinner is second with 83.<\/p>\n
Auger-Aliassime improved to 2-1 against Mannarino, who entered the tournament as a wild card.<\/p>\n
Mannarino reached a career-high ranking of No. 17 early in 2024 before a slump in form saw him drop out of the top 100. He was ranked 70th heading into this tournament.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 8, 2026.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTPELLIER \u2014 F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime defended a title Sunday and set a Canadian record in the process. Auger-Aliassime claimed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[77534,107737,153893,35071,110033,101,118,66616,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-416045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-adrian-mannarino","9":"tag-auger-aliassime","10":"tag-canadian-record","11":"tag-felix-auger-aliassime","12":"tag-montpellier","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tennis","15":"tag-the-canadian-press","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}