In men’s tennis this past week, there were two ATP 500 point events. Ugo Humbert of Metz, France won the 2024 Dubai Tennis Championship, and Alex de Minaur of Sydney, Australia won the 2024 Mexican Open. In the final in Acapulco on Sunday, de Minaur defeated Casper Ruud of Norway in the final, 6-4, 6-4.
De Minaur was the third seed in Mexico, while Ruud was the sixth seed. Ruud is a three-time grand slam finalist, as he reached the finals at the 2022 and 2023 French Opens and 2022 United States Open.
In the 2024 Mexican Open final, de Minaur was reading Ruud’s serve significantly better than Ruud was seeing de Minaur’s serve. The Australian broke Ruud three times, while Ruud broke de Minaur only once. When it came to receiving points won, de Minaur won 36, while Ruud only won 17.
De Minaur has now beaten Ruud twice in his career. The first time came at the 2019 Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan, 4-1, 4-0, 4-2 in the ATP’s quirky scoring system.
In Acapulco this past week. de Minaur defeated Taro Daniel 0f Japan 6-2, 6-1 in the first round, and Sebastian Ofner of Austria 6-1, 6-3 in the second round. In the quarterfinals, de Minaur defeated the fifth seed, Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, 1-6, 6-3, 6-3. This was the first time in 11 outings de Minaur defeated Tsitsipas, the two-grand slam finalist. Tsitsipas made the 2021 French Open final and 2023 Australian Open final. Then in the semifinals, de Minaur defeated Great Britain’s Jack Draper 6-3, 2-6, 4-0. Draper withdrew due to an illness.
De Minaur has now won eight ATP tournaments. Two of them have been at the Mexican Open as de Minaur beat Tommy Paul of the United States 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 last year. de Minaur has also won the 2019 Sydney International, the 2019 and 2022 Atlanta Open, the 2019 Zhuhai Championship in China, the 2021 Antalya Open in Turkey, and 2021 Eastbourne International.
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