Road to the Final
As the tournament’s top seed, Alex de Minaur earned himself a bye through the first round in the Netherlands.
He then matched up with Zizou Bergs. Though he won in straight sets, the match wasn’t as straight forward as the Aussie would have liked.
It was Bergs who would strike first, breaking de Minaur in his second service game to go up 3-1. He would then consolidate his break to take a 4-1 lead.
At 5-3 with Bergs looking to serve out the set, de Minaur would take control. He broke to get back on serve, held easily, and then broke again to go up 6-5 with a chance to serve out the set.
He would make no mistake, holding at love to take the opening set.
In set number two, it was de Minaur striking first, breaking to go up 2-1 and consolidating at love.
The Aussie wouldn’t look back from there, simply holding serve the rest of the way to close out the set 6-4 and subsequently the match.
He would then find himself up against the hard serving Canadian Milos Raonic in the quarterfinals. On serve at 2-2 in the opening set, de Minaur found a break, but gave it right back as the set was knotted at threes.
At 5-5, de Minaur would break again, and then hold serve to win 7-5.
The second set was much more straight forward for the Aussie as he broke Raonic in the fifth and seventh sets to cruise to a 6-2 win and move to the semifinals.
His next challenger was the world no.16 Frenchman Ugo Humbert.
De Minaur had gone up four games to none early, but Humbert battled back, breaking in the sixth and eighth games to tie it at fours.
In the tiebreak they were tied at 3-3 before de Minaur upped his level and ended up winning 7-4.
As was the case in his previous two matches, the second set went more according to plan for de Minaur. He held confidently before eventually breaking Humbert to go up 5-3 and serving out the set.
De Minaur Outclasses Korda in the Final
The final against Sebastian Korda ended up being de Minaur’s most lopsided victory of the tournament.
After holding back-and-forth to start the match, de Minaur broke in the sixth game to lead 4-2. After consolidating, he would break again to take the opening set 6-2.
He picked up in the second set right where he left off, as he held with relative ease and then broke Korda in what was a seven-minute, back-and-forth game.
Korda would show fight however, breaking right back. De Minaur then broke again in the sixth game.
Although Korda would get the break back, the consistency of de Minaur’s return game was too much as on serve at 5-4, de Minaur would break to win the match.
The win represents the ninth ATP tournament victory of de Minaur’s career.
Storylines Surrounding Rankings
This was the first time in de Minaurs career that he entered an ATP event as the top seed, and he dealt with the pressure brilliantly, not dropping a set en route to the win.
With the win, he achieves a career high world ranking of no.7. This number also signifies the highest ATP ranking for an Australian man since Lleyton Hewitt reached the same mark in 2006.
Alex de Minaur headed to the Netherland’s to take part in the ATP 250 Libema Open looking to start his grass court season with a bang. He did just that, as he dominated the field, winning every set he played on the way to his ninth career title.
