Australia’s Alex de Minaur has began the North American hard court season with the best result humanly possible. For the 10th time in his career, the native of Sydney is an ATP champion. On Sunday in the final of the 2025 Citi Open in Washington, District of Columbia, de Minaur defeated Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain, 5-7, 6-1, 7-6. In the third set tie break, de Minaur won 7-3.
De Minaur was the seventh seed in Washington and Davidovich Fokina was the 12th seed. One statistic that was heavily in de Minaur’s favour were aces. De Minaur had nine, while Davidovich Fokina had two.
This was the third time in five meetings that de Minaur has beaten Davidovich Fokina. De Minaur also won in the round robin of the 2019 ATP Next Gen Finals in Milan (4-2, 3-4, 4-1, 4-1), and the semifinals of the 2023 National Bank Open in Toronto, 6-1, 6-3.
Throughout the tournament, de Minaur defeated three seeded players. De Minaur also beat the 11th seed Jiri Lehecka of the Czech Republic in the third round, 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, and the 14th seed Brandon Nakashima of the United States in the quarterfinals, 6-4, 6-4.
This was the second time de Minaur reached the final in Washington. In 2018, he lost to Alexander Zverev of Germany, 6-2, 6-4.
It was also the third time de Minaur has won an ATP 500 event. He previously won the 2023 Mexican Open (beat American Tommy Paul in the final, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1) and the 2024 Mexican Open (beat Casper Ruud of Norway in the final, 6-4, 6-4).
De Minaur is the first Australian in 2025 to win an ATP tournament. Sunday was also the beginning of the National Bank Open in Canada, where Sydney’s Alexei Popyrin is the defending champion.
