De Minaur Battles From The Brink: 'I'm Very Proud How I Hung In There'
Alex de Minaur made an impressive comeback on Sunday at the Mutua Madrid Open, rallying for a 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 victory against Jaume Munar to reach the second round.
The Australian No. 1 arrived in Madrid having lost five of his past six matches. But even though Munar led 6-4, 4-2, De Minaur continued to battle and eventually prevailed after two hours and 23 minutes.
[WATCH LIVE 2]“This is one of those wins that really helps your morale, helps build a lot of confidence,” De Minaur told Tennis Channel. “It was about an hour and a half of me not being too comfortable out there, not playing my best tennis knowing I could bring a higher level, but just not executing. I’m just very proud how I hung in there. I just kept going, kept trying to stay positive and eventually kept putting myself in a position to break.
“It finally went my way and I was able to play some much better tennis and tennis that I wanted to play. [I am] very happy.”
Munar, a wild card, got to within two service holds of a victory without dropping his serve. But De Minaur ultimately broke the Spaniard four times on Stadium 3 to set a second-round clash against 13th seed Grigor Dimitrov or South African Lloyd Harris.
“I’m glad that today I told myself that whatever happened, I was going to stay positive the whole way. Even if it didn’t go my way, at least I wasn’t going to lose that match because of my attitude,” De Minaur said. “It worked out today.”
De Minaur now leads Munar 2-0 in their ATP Head2Head series. In their only previous tour-level clash, the Aussie triumphed in five sets at the 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan.