Borges achieves “one of the best victories of his career” before facing Aliassime

Portuguese tennis player Nuno Borges achieved this Tuesday “one of the best victories of his career” against Frenchman Arthur Fils, number 19 in the world , in the first round of the Dubai tournament, in which he will face Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassiame.

“I’m very happy. I think I had a great performance, it’s one of the best victories of my career. I had already faced him twice last year and I couldn’t win, but today I sent a good message right from the start and I think that counted a lot. I don’t think I let him believe that I could turn the match around and I stayed very positive. I’m to be congratulated on that aspect and I think the tennis also turned out in the best way because of that”, began by explaining the player from Maia, in statements to Lusa.

Nuno Borges, ranked 38th, defeated Arthur Fils in two sets, with partial scores of 6-2 and 6-1 , after the latter committed 35 unforced errors, and thus achieved his 10th triumph of the season in the ATP 500 tournament, in the United Arab Emirates.

“It wasn’t a very easy day to play. I feel like I took more than half of the initiative from the beginning, things were going well for me and I made him uncomfortable from start to finish, especially when returning service. I felt like he was having some difficulties and I knew how to take advantage of his responses and pass the pressure a little bit onto him,” added the national number one.

In addition to confessing that “a victory like this, in a tournament like this, is very motivating”, the athlete from the High Performance Center of the Portuguese Tennis Federation guarantees that he is “ready for the second round” and for the “very tough” duel, the first between the two, with Auger-Aliassime, currently ranked 21st in the hierarchy , who was number six in the world, in November 2022.

“ I will try to go in with the same intensity and aggressiveness as today. I will try to play my best, within what I know I can do. I feel that I can make the game difficult for him, and who knows, I might be ready to win too, but it will still be a big challenge. He must be confident, he has won a lot of games this year. I don’t know him that well, because I have never played against him, nor trained much with him, but I have some references from watching him play”, concluded Borges.