Gabriel Diallo continues to impress in Granby

The Quebecer Gabriel Diallo continued to surprise at the National Bank Championships, Friday in Granby, he who reached the semi-finals by defeating the Tunisian Aziz Dougaz.

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Diallo, 518th racket in the world, drew on his energy reserves to defeat the Tunisian (353rd) in three sets of 3-6, 6-3 and 7-6 (5).

The representative of the maple leaf notably won the last three points of the tiebreaker to save himself with the victory. Thus, for a second straight game, he had the upper hand in the tiebreak of the third inning.

The 20-year-old giant, however, struggled to use his 6’7″ frame to take the lead in the game on serve. Dougaz had as many aces as Diallo (four) and was more efficient when putting the ball in play, whether on his first or second serve.

The Montrealer triumphed above all thanks to his opportunism. He converted four of the seven break points offered to him, against only two of five for his rival.

Recall that Diallo made the seventh seed, the German Cedrik-Marcel Stebe, bite the dust in the previous round of this Challenger Series tournament.

Diallo will now face in the semi-finals the winner of a duel between Frenchman Ugo Humbert (143rd) and Japanese Hiroki Moriya (290th).

The other duel ahead of the final will feature qualifier Aidan Mayo (842nd) and sixth seed Juncheng Shang (246th).

From the quarters to the final

On the women’s side, Daria Seville went directly to the final of the tournament, since her rival of the day withdrew.

Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine, who is ranked 72nd in the world, likely suffered an injury when she knocked out Canadian Rebecca Marino in three sets on Thursday.

Seville (73rd) will come up against the winner of the duel between Daria Kasatnika (10th) and Diane Parry (81st).

The Australian also seems to want to dedicate all her energy to the singles final, since she and her partner, Ena Shibahara, have withdrawn for their semi-final against the British Alicia Barnett and Olivia Nicholls.