Félix Auger-Aliassime is the best tennis player in the world for the month of October

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As they did the courtside interview on Sunday after Félix Auger-Aliassime’s latest, and most impressive, title this season, the PA blasted around him. It was playing one of those sweeping, lyric-less, Gladiator-light tunes that make every sports arena in the world sound like every other.

Auger-Aliassime was ticking off his own superlatives after winning the Swiss Indoors championship – his third ATP final in three weeks; his third win in those finals; the fact that he wasn’t broken over five matches.

As the Canadian neared the end of his recitation, the song began to crescendo.

“It’s good with the music, right,” Auger-Aliassime said, pointing upward after he beat Holger Rune 6-3, 7-5.

I guess when the big things are going your way, all the little things tend to as well.

Picking out a moment in time and judging where everyone stands within it is an iffy business in any endeavour, but especially so in sports. It’s not much good being the undisputed heavyweight champion of training camp.

With that proviso, let’s call Auger-Aliassime what he is – the best tennis player in the world (in the month of October, 2022).

Only three men have won three in a row – Andy Murray back in the day and Casper Ruud last year. Neither of them did it as stylishly.

The pinnacle of this continuing masterclass was Saturday’s straight-sets semi-final win over U.S. Open champion Carlos Alcaraz.

Alcaraz, 19, is the new breed of all-rounder – all of Roger Federer’s shots, hooked up to a limitless energy supply. Alcaraz doesn’t wear you down so much as speed you up. The challenge is matching the Spaniard’s max RPMs level for two to five hours.

On Saturday, Auger-Aliassime Alcaraz’d Alcaraz. He strung him around the court as if they were lashed together by a rope tied at the waist.

When Alcaraz came in, Auger-Aliassime lobbed him. When he stayed back, Auger-Aliassime shorted him. Whenever the Spaniard picked an angle, Auger-Aliassime squared it. The result wasn’t close – 6-3, 6-2.

Asked to judge his own level after that match, Auger-Aliassime called it “very close to perfect.”

Some might call it closer than that.

Alcaraz, the No. 1 player in the world, has a few things on his to-do list. Near the top is finding a foil. You can win all you like in an individual sport, but unless you find the human yang to your yin, you will never be legendary.

In the very near future, Alcaraz’s foil will have to be fellow Spaniard Rafael Nadal. Master and apprentice, that sort of thing. But that can’t last. Who’s it going to be long term?

A year ago, you’d have been throwing out names such as Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev, Andrey Rublev, even Denis Shapovalov. These are all young, established players with name-brand recognition. But Alcaraz has already lapped them. Though they are all in their mid-20s, those players now seem ancient when contrasted to the vibrancy of Alcaraz’s youth.

The current top choice is Italy’s Jannik Sinner. The pair are great friends, and played an epic match at Flushing Meadows. More of that, please. Ruud is lurking around there as well, though he’d have to be one of those two-dimensional, Bjorn Borg-type foils.

But what about Auger-Aliassime? Though he’s been around a while, he has managed to maintain a little mystery. He doesn’t seem as beaten up as some others by the rump triumvirate that still holds sway in men’s tennis.

There is a freshness about the Quebecker that suggests he could survive the marketing cull that cuts off one generation to make way for the next. It sounds silly when you realize that Auger-Aliassime is only 22, but there you go. Alcaraz’s teenage emergence has forced everyone to reckon with the present.

This is a whole new idea in men’s tennis. For 15 years, it was a given that no newcomer had any place in the right now. The present belonged to the Fed, Rafa and Djoko LLC. What you wanted people to say about you was that you were the future.

Guys got so hung up on being tagged the definitive next-big-thing that whole careers slipped by without much notice.

Habits of laziness are the hardest to break. While players such as Tsitsipas got used to telling every audience that they were on the cusp of a breakthrough, Alcaraz just went and did it.

Forget about the future. Who wants to be part of the present? A show of hands, please. And don’t bother putting them up unless they are holding trophies. Men’s tennis is no longer a place where people get superexcited about players who consistently make the quarter-finals.

Everyone is being asked to show bona fides, not a whole bunch of promise. At the moment, Auger-Aliassime is the player proving himself most equal to that challenge.

Yes, sure, the timetable is not optimal. If Auger-Aliassime had won three in a row during the lead-in to a Grand Slam, the tennis world would be frothing. Instead, he’s done it in the lead-in to the holiday break, so the tennis world is simmering.

Even if he runs the board and dominates the ATP Finals two weeks from now, that still leaves two months until the Australian Open. Two months is a very long time to stay excited about tennis when there is no tennis.

And there are two important names not on Auger-Aliassime’s list of October victims – Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

Nadal is – what else? – recovering from injury. Djokovic is recovering from reality. Until one player can beat the two of them on the regular, the Big Three Era is not over.

Next season already has its multipronged storyline in place – is the fade for real, or will Alcaraz be held off, and will Djokovic be a part of that, or has he involuntarily retired? We won’t feel sure about any of this until after Wimbledon, at the earliest.

Auger-Aliassime’s sub-arc is also clear. As with every other male player of his vintage, the time for making strides, learning hard lessons and stockpiling experience is over. There’s no longer any such thing as a next-gen men’s player. If he intends on being part of the most elite tier of men’s tennis, he should do that now.

The past month proves he has the ability. Now all Auger-Aliassime has to do is adjust his timing.