Andy Roddick can't wrap his head around how a Felix Auger-Aliassime Australian Open first-round exit happened as it just doesn't make sense to the 2003 US Open champion.
The world No. 8, who was one of the best players in the last three months of the 2025 season, made a positive start to his Happy Slam campaign after taking the first set with a 6-3 scoreline against Nuno Borges.
But then, everything went downhill abruptly for Auger-Aliassime. Firstly, the No. 7 seed started to deal with cramps – Borges took full advantage and took the next two sets. Then, the Canadian – who won three ATP titles last year – retired just before the start of the fourth set.
Addressing Auger-Aliassime's retirement on the Served with Andy Roddick, the American tennis legend was stunned for one simple reason – the 25-year-old Canadian is known as a big professional.
“It’s a strange one, man, because you look up and he’s fit, he’s professional, you don’t feel like he’s the kind of guy that’s not going to work,” Roddick said on his podcast.
After describing the situation as “strange,” Roddick suggested that something may have happened that is unknown to the public.
Roddick: Auger-Aliassime is not a guy to be cramped early into the match… This is really weird to me
“I don’t know what happened. Here’s what I know, FAA is not a guy to be cramped or unprepared at an hour and 20, and then fight it, that seems really weird to me. I don’t know what the reasoning is, but I circled that, and that seems like a really weird outlier. That’s strange, but the biggest upset so far," the 2003 US Open champion added.
In late 2025, Auger-Aliassime won Brussels and finished as runner-up at the Paris Masters. Also, he was a semifinalist at the US Open and the ATP Finals.
So far in 2026, Auger-Aliassime is only 1-2, having gone 1-1 at the United Cup before kicking off his Australian Open campaign.
