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Jason Kubler's amazing run of success has continued with the Australian beating top seed Felix Auger-Aliassime to reach the Hall of Fame Open quarter-finals.
Jason Kubler's career-best run has broken more new ground as he knocked out top-ten player and No.1 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime in the Hall of Fame Open after saving a match point.
The Australian, fresh from his heroics at Wimbledon where he reached the fourth round of a grand slam for the first time, triumphed in Newport, Rhode Island on Thursday after his match against the young Canadian star had to be suspended the previous evening because of darkness.
The Brisbane man had found himself in a precarious situation when the match was called off on Wednesday, having to return to serve at 5-6 down in the deciding set to stay in the match.
And he diced with disaster on the resumption when Auger-Aliassime earned match point at 30-40.
But the Australian won the next three points against the world No.9 to take the match into a tiebreak decider.
Then, despite going 3-1 down early in the breaker, Kubler hit back and earned a decisive mini-break at 4-3 up before going on to prevail 4-6 6-3 7-6 (7-4) for his first-ever victory over a top-10 player.
Kubler reckoned the calmness that he's developed over the past couple of months in his giddy rise helped him negotiate his crisis.
"I was pretty nervous, to be honest," he admitted.
"But luckily the last couple months I've been doing so much work on my serve and I was thinking about all the stuff I've done, and that's what gave me a bit of confidence."
Kubler had endured a similar nervous overnight wait at Wimbledon before he resumed to beat Austrian Denis Novak in the second round, which served him well on Thursday.
Kubler, who reckons he's enjoyed his new moniker as the 'Aussie battler', added: "(I'm) just very fortunate to be in this position.
"Today could have gone either way ... fortunate that it went my way, but I'm just happy that I stuck in and tried my best for the whole time."
Kubler's win ensures an Australian will definitely make the semi-finals of the only ATP tour grass-court event to be staged outside Europe, with the Queenslander set to face Sydneysider James Duckworth in the last-eight on Friday.
It also continued the 29-year-old Kubler's amazing late-career renaissance as the former world junior No.1, whose career has been badly hampered by six knee surgeries, has now won 24 of his last 28 matches and reached his first-ever ATP quarter-final.
Not only was he the last Australian man standing at the French Open after getting through qualifying, he's also won a Challenger tournament and reached the final of another in the US, before winning six matches at Wimbledon, including a win over seed Dan Evans on the way to the last 16.
"It's definitely motivating, the last few months, the work we've been putting in with the team," said Kubler of his continuing fine run.
"It's giving me a lot of confidence that we're on the right track. Regardless of how this morning went, I was still very happy with how the match went. Just confident that the process we're taking is heading in the right direction."
