Player Features
Honeymoon on hold as Auger-Aliassime makes late-season bid for Turin
Returning to action in Shanghai, Canadian seeks second appearance at Nitto ATP Finals
October 03, 2025
Corinne Dubreuil/ATP Tour
Felix Auger-Aliassime is driving towards a second appearance at the Nitto ATP Finals.
By Paul Macpherson
From a picture-perfect Marrakech wedding two weeks ago to his return to the road to Turin at the Rolex Shanghai Masters, Felix Auger-Aliassime knew something had to give.
“Honeymoon? This is our honeymoon, a Shanghai honeymoon,” the Canadian joked to ATPTour.com in China this week, where he is joined by wife Nina.
“We’re here together and maybe later in the year there’s going to be a honeymoon. But for now, obviously I have to get back to the tournaments, get back to work… but we’re still having a good time together.”
At 10th in the PIF ATP Live Race to Turin, Auger-Aliassime is just one place outside the eight-man cut for the Nitto ATP Finals, with ninth-placed Jack Draper out for the year due to injury. Married to Nina on 20 September, the 25-year-old will this week play his first match since his semi-final run at the US Open.
Reflecting on the 120-person wedding at the Selman Marrakech hotel in the Moroccan homeland of Nina’s father, Felix said that the memorable day was flawless.
“Everything was so positive… a lot of things could go wrong in a wedding, but it went beautifully well and the highlight of the night was probably the speeches,” said Felix, who proposed to Nina during a Seychelles vacation in November 2024.
“There’s always a part during the dinner where family and friends will give speeches and myself, my mom, Nina’s sister, her dad, they all gave speeches and it was the most beautiful and touching moment because you don’t get to speak like that to each other often or there’s not really the circumstances to speak in such a deep way. So that was really the highlight for us.”
A love that never stopped growing from the moment we laid eyes on each other, and never will 🤍💍
September 20th, 2025, our dreams became reality.
Photos: Rani Fawaz
Tuxedo: @Dior
Wedding gown: @VeraWang
Venue: @SelmanMarrakech pic.twitter.com/s2jywsCE8D— Félix AugerAliassime (@felixtennis) September 25, 2025
An accomplished equestrian, Nina ensured that horses featured during the wedding day, with guests sipping on sunset cocktails between stables.
“She’s understood my world from the beginning and that’s helped our relationship because she understood the sacrifices of my life on the road,” Felix said. “She saw her dad, his whole life being an equestrian athlete, go through that similar type of sacrifice.
“But our sports are very different. We always laugh when I tell her: ‘I don’t make the horse run, I run myself’. But I think there are similarities in how technically sound you have to be in both sports. Tennis is a very technical sport and the margins in equestrian and show jumping are very small. So you also need to be very, very clean technically.”
Auger-Aliassime needs one win in Shanghai to reach the 250 career-wins milestone, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss index. He is 34-19 on the year, his best mark since his breakout 2022 season when his 60 victories led to his debut at the Nitto ATP Finals.
Having experienced the allure of the prestigious event, he’s eager for a second taste.
“I’m extremely motivated [to qualify],” he said. “I started the year very strong and then for a couple months it was more difficult in the spring, but I had a great summer in America. There’s always ups and downs, but it’s been a positive year so far. So if I can make one last push in the next month to secure my place in Turin, that would be beautiful. But I’m not in it right now, so I need to push some guys out. I need to really play some good tennis and get a lot of wins.”
Auger-Aliassime exploded out of the gates this year with titles in Adelaide and Montpellier in the first five weeks of the season. A run to the Dubai final saw him return to the Top 20 of the PIF ATP Rankings.
But just one win in four ATP Masters 1000 appearances in the lead up to Roland Garros, where he fell to Matteo Arnaldi in five sets in the opening round, saw him lose momentum.
After some subtle re-tooling, he reached the Cincinnati Open quarter-finals, only to be clobbered by Jannik Sinner, who conceded just two games. But his run to the US Open semi-finals, where he went toe-to-toe with Sinner in a competitive four-setter, catapulted him into Turin contention.
“They weren’t big changes I made, just a few things to adjust. I mean technically, I think my serve has improved throughout the year and then also tactically I was more aware,” he said. “I think I was not playing the right way on the clay or I was not really trusting my game plan always or I was doubting myself too much.
“But then I got back on the hard courts again, and while it wasn’t perfect, I was improving, improving, improving until the great US Open. So hopefully I can keep that going.”
Reflecting on his 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 loss to Sinner in New York, Auger-Aliassime said: “It was a physical battle with both of us struggling at times, mentally as well to show the least weakness to your opponent. He came out on top. But for me, it was encouraging to see a better level for me, playing the No. 1 in the world at the time, playing him. He’s been on a hot streak for a while, so it was definitely encouraging.”
When Auger-Aliassime qualified for Turin in 2022, it was on the back of a hat-trick of titles in October: Florence, Antwerp and Basel, a crown he successfully defended the following year.
With four of his seven career titles coming in October, the Canadian has hopes of closing the sizeable 630-point gap with eighth-placed Lorenzo Musetti, who is highly motivated to make his finale debut on home soil.
Auger-Aliassime opens his Shanghai campaign Saturday against Alejandro Tabilo.
