Auger-Aliassime survives 1-4 down in the fifth against Altmaier, the last first-round match of Roland-Garros and the first to be decided in a fifth-set tie-break
Felix Auger-Aliassime beat Daniel Altmaier 4-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7) on Tuesday evening and will play Roman Andres Burruchaga in the next round
Félix Auger-Aliassime, Roland-Garros 2026 | © Julien Nouet / Tennis Majors
Félix Auger-Aliassime, the No. 4 seed, recovered from 1-4 down in the deciding set on Tuesday evening to beat Daniel Altmaier 4-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1, 7-6(7) in four hours and 17 minutes – the last first-round match of Roland-Garros 2026 and the first at the tournament to be settled by a fifth-set tie-break.
The contest had everything Auger-Aliassime had been told to fear. Altmaier, the 27-year-old German clay-court specialist whose best results of the year have all come on the surface, had beaten Taylor Fritz in this same first round of Roland-Garros 12 months ago and was the kind of patient grinder against whom the Canadian had spent the past 14 months struggling.
The Canadian had been 7-10 on clay since the start of 2025 (excluding his UTS Nîmes crown) and had crashed out at the first hurdle of last year’s Roland-Garros to Italian Matteo Arnaldi from two sets up.
The first set went to Altmaier on the back of an early break. The second set went the other way on the back of two breaks for the Canadian. The third set fell to the German again, and Auger-Aliassime needed three medical timeouts across the contest to manage the wear on a 25-year-old body that has not always cooperated.
Survival mode
He took the fourth 6-1 in a stretch that suggested the comeback was on. Then the fifth set looked like 2025 in reverse. Altmaier broke for 2-0, then lead 4-1. The Canadian dug in. He held to stay alive at 2-4. He broke straight back at 3-4. He held to 4-4. They reached 6-6. The first fifth-set tie-break of Roland-Garros 2026 ran to 10-7.
The draw has just opened up for him. With Daniil Medvedev gone from this half of the bracket – beaten in five sets by Australian Adam Walton earlier in the day – and Alexander Bublik out as well, the quarter Auger-Aliassime sits in has lost both of its other top-10 seeds in the space of an afternoon. He faces Argentina’s Roman Andrés Burruchaga in the second round. A semi-final place that looked, on Sunday, like a path that ran through Medvedev now runs through whoever survives the wreckage of this section of the draw.
