Auger-Aliassime shakes off Montreal loss with easy victory at Cincinnati Open

Montreal's Felix Auger-Aliassime moved on to the third round of the Western & Southern Open Masters-level tennis tournament with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Australia's Alex de Minaur on Wednesday.

Auger-Aliassime, the seventh seed in Cincinnati, overcame 17 unforced errors and won 71 per cent of service points and 48 per cent of return points in a match that took one hour 18 minutes to complete.

It was the first meeting on the ATP Tour between Auger-Aliassime and world No. 20 de Minaur. They split a pair of matches at the Challenger level, with Auger-Aliassime winning in the quarter-final of a 2017 tournament in Drummondville, Que., and de Minaur coming out on top the next year in the quarter-finals at Braga, Portugal.

Auger-Aliassime had nine aces in Wednesday's match to three for de Minaur, and converted four of his six break points while saving break point three of four times.

WATCH | Auger-Aliassime cruises past de Minaur:

Auger-Aliassime, ranked ninth in the world, rebounded after a 6-1, 6-2 loss to Casper Ruud last week in the quarter-finals of the National Bank Open in Montreal.

"I never thought it would be ending like this today," he said after that match.

Auger-Aliassime will next face the winner of a match between 10th seed Jannik Sinner of Italy and Serbia's Miomir Kecmanovic.

Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., was scheduled to face American Tommy Paul later Tuesday. Paul has won both his previous matches against Shapovalov, including the final of a 2021 tournament in Stockholm.

Venus Williams will be back in the U.S. Open this year after being given a wild card on Wednesday into what could be younger sister Serena's final tournament.

Venus Williams won back-to-back U.S. Opens in 2000 and 2001, and this year marks 25 years since she reached the 1997 final in Flushing Meadows as a 17-year-old in her first full season on tour.

Now 42, Williams did not play in the U.S. Open last year because of injury, but the seven-time Grand Slam singles champion recently returned to tour after missing nearly a year.

Dominic Thiem, the 2020 U.S. Open men's champion who has since dealt with injuries and fallen to No. 228 in the world ranking, also was granted a wild card by the U.S. Tennis Association.

The USTA also gave a wild card to Sofia Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion who didn't compete in New York last year because of injury, along with fellow Americans CoCo Vandeweghe, Elizabeth Mandlik, Peyton Stearns and Eleana Yu.