French umpire Kader Nouni recently showcased his incredible reflexes during the match between Felix Auger-Aliassime and Jiří Lehečka, as the Canadian star accidentally shot the ball towards his seat.
The World No. 8 has delivered impressive performances at the ATP 500 tournament, the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, and has advanced to the semifinal round.
Umpire Kader Nouni’s Reflex Saves Him From Felix Auger-Aliassime’s Shot
Auger-Aliassime began his season at the Australian Open, where he retired from his first-round match against Nuno Borges due to cramping. In his next tournament, the Open Occitanie, he clinched the title after defeating veteran Adrian Mannarino and had surpassed Stan Wawrinka, Arthur Fils, and Titouan Droguet to reach the final.
He continued his dominant form at the next stop, ATP Rotterdam, reaching the final after defeating talents including Alexei Popyrin, Hamad Medjedovic, Tallon Griekspoor, and Alexander Bublik in the semifinals. He lost the ATP 500 title to Alex de Minaur in straight sets.
Auger-Aliassime then entered the Dubai Tennis Championships as the first seed and defeated Zhang Zhizhen in the round of 32 and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in the round of 16. In the quarterfinal round, he surpassed former World No. 16, Jiří Lehečka, with a concluding score of 6-3, 7-6(2).
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During the match, a moment occurred when the Canadian was trying to return Lehečka’s forehand shot, and while making the shot, the ball went to the umpire’s chair, where Nouni, with instinctive agility, saved himself from the ball’s trajectory. The Instagram post of TennisTV added in the caption, “Reaction time is a joke 🥶.”
In his last season, Auger-Aliassime had reached the title match of the Dubai Tennis Championships, which he had lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas in straight sets with a concluding score of 6-3, 6-3.
After the loss, he remained in high spirits and shared that he is taking favourable outcomes from the tournament, “Positive things. If Tsitsipas is the happiest guy tonight, maybe I’m the second happiest of the week. I take positive things. I see now, okay, if that opportunity comes again or if I play Stefanos now in the coming weeks, how can I do better.”
He also mentioned, “I was just frustrated after that, I still wasn’t on the court fighting for a third set. I’m a bit sad that I couldn’t find a way. But I’m happy to get a few days of rest and just reset a little bit. I feel like I’ve been digging very deep and pushing my body a lot these last few weeks.”
In the semifinals, he is set to face Daniil Medvedev, who won the 2026 Brisbane International. The Russian star leads their head-to-head with 7-2, and the duo last clashed in 2025 at Doha in the quarterfinal round.
