#NextGenATP De Minaur Battles Hard In Shenzhen

Australian Alex de Minaur stepped up his bid for a place at the Next Gen ATP Finals on Thursday after a second-round victory at the Shenzhen Open. The 19-year-old Australian recovered from a set and 2-4 down to beat American Mackenzie McDonald 1-6, 7-6(1), 6-0 in two hours and 40 minutes.

“I was watching winners go past me in the first set,” said De Minaur. “He was playing some incredible tennis. I’d experienced that level when I hit with him earlier this week. I knew I had to keep going and try to make the extra ball, then, at some stage, I hoped that his level and intensity would drop so I could turn it around.”

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World No. 80 McDonald won the first five games and broke for a 3-2 advantage in the second set, prior to seventh seed De Minaur working his way back. The Australian needed four set point chances to clinch the second set and, despite the third set scoreline, he saved four break points in the decider to complete his 20th match win of the season (20-17 record).

De Minaur is in fourth position in the ATP Race To Milan for one of seven automatic qualification spots into the Next Gen ATP Finals, to be held from 6-10 November. He has reached two ATP World Tour finals this year, at the Sydney International (l. to Medvedev) and the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. (l. to A. Zverev).

Looking ahead to playing fourth seed Damir Dzumhur on Friday, De Minaur said, “It’s going to be a tough match tomorrow. There will be some extremely long rallies and I intend to put all my effort into the match.”

In Thursday’s first match, which lasted 87 minutes, Dzumhur swept past Indian qualifier Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-4, 6-2.

Do You Know?
Alex de Minaur began the 2018 ATP World Tour season at No. 208 in the ATP Rankings and has since achieved career-high ranking 16 times, peaking at No. 38 on 10 September.