De Minaur fights through Nagging Hip Injury
Coming off back to back quarterfinal finishes at Wimbledon and the French Open, Alex de Minaur has high standards for the US Open this year.
Unfortunately for the tenth ranked Aussie he is operating at less than 100%. It was questionable whether he was even going to be play in New York due to the nagging hip injury he suffered at Wimbledon.
He was matched up with American Marcos Giron in the opening round and although it wasn’t an outstanding performance, he got the job done.
Despite his movement not being as crisp as usual due to his hip, he still commanded points from the baseline.
This led him to winning the first two sets somewhat comfortably 6-3, 6-4.
In the third set however he was unable to find a service break and at 5-6 was broken by the American to lose the set 7-5.
The scare was short lived as he broke Giron in the fourth set and went on to win it 6-4. Despite many positives, de Minaur’s serve was disappointing as he put just 41% of his first serves in and double faulted 12 times.
The second round saw a much improved de Minaur as he double faulted only three times and put in 58% of his first serves.
This led to him losing serve just once whilst he broke his Finnish counterpart Otto Virtanen five times.
De Minaur cruised to victory, winning 7-5, 6-1, 7-6 (7-3). And setting up a meeting with Dan Evans in the third round.
Thompson Upsets Hurkacz
Jordan Thompson missed out on being seeded at the US Open by just one ranking spot. This hasn’t seemed to massively affect the Aussie as he is now in the third round after upsetting Hubert Hurkacz.
Thompson cruised through the first round beating Frenchman Constant Lestienne 6-1, 6-3, 6-2.
His second-round matchup with sthe eventh seeded Hurkacz was expected to be a different story.
Even early in the match that seemed to be the case. Hurkacz powered his way to a 5-2 lead in the first set before Thompson rattled off five of the next six games to force a tiebreak which he subsequently won 7-2.
Thompson carried this momentum into the second set breaking one of the best servers in the sport three times en route to a 6-1 set win.
Hurkacz showed fight in the third set but Thompson was just playing at a higher level. Leading 6-5, Thompson broke Hurkacz to claim the match.
The win sends Thompson into the third round to face Matteo Arnaldi.
Popyrin & O’Connell Impress
Alexei Popyrin, seeded 28th, cruised through the opening two rounds in New York. He defeated both Kwon Soon-Woo and Pedro Martinez in straight sets without need for any tiebreaks.
He is now set to face Novak Djokovic at a Grand Slam for the third time this year and will be looking for a different result that the losses he received in Australia and England.
Chris O’Connell is the lowest ranked Australian man still standing. To make the second round he upset 26th seeded Nicolas Jarry in four sets.
In round two he again won in four sets against Mattia Bellucci. O’Connell now has the difficult task of facing number one seed Jannik Sinner in the third round.
The US Open round of 32 will be graced by four Aussie men for the first time since 1997 thanks to a few upsets and battling through injury. Though this is a great accomplishment, each man will look to take their success a step further this weekend.
