Holding a bye in the first round, the tournament favorite from Quebec had all sorts of trouble finding his rhythm in the first set, where Taberner, who drafted following the qualifiers, registered three breaks on four occasions.

Auger-Aliassime, the world’s 10th racket, then recovered. Taberner also erred in serving, giving up 11 break points in the last two sets, five of which were won by his opponent.

Auger-Aliassime had four aces against no double faults in this duel and he put up 79% (57 of 72) of his first balls in play, and won a score of 60% (34 of 57) of rallies that followed

In the third round, he will face the winner of the duel between Frenchman Benjamin Bonzi and 8th-ranked American Sebastian Korda.