De Minaur’s Run to the Quarters
Alex de Minaur’s first-round matchup was with Argentinian Mariano Navone. After just inching out the opening set 7-5 on the back of some terrific serving, de Minaur pulled away in the second set and won the match 7-5, 6-1.
He then faced a tougher task in Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic. De Minaur’s serve was much less effective in the match as he double faulted five times. However, he was still able to take care of business in two sets.
He won the opener somewhat comfortably 6-4 and then narrowly took the second set, winning 7-5 in a tiebreak.
In the round of 16 he matched up with Jack Draper who came out firing and won the opening set. Draper was able to break De Minaur at 6-5 to claim the victory.
De Minaur then raised his level and began playing the match on his terms, forcing long baseline rallies and keeping Draper moving. This led him to two breaks in the second set and a 6-2 win to force a third deciding set. In that set, De Minaur broke in the opening game and never looked back, winning 6-3 and taking the match.
Against Holger Rune in the quarterfinals, De Minaur looked as though he would try to win in a similar fashion. Simply putting the ball in play and making Rune move around is not a bad idea as the youngster can be susceptible to over-swinging at times. In this case however, he was playing well, and as such took the opening set 6-4.
In the second set each man took turns holding serve until at 5-4 in favour of De Minaur, he was able to convert his break point and tie up the match.
The third set was a battle with both men having found their best by this point. It was Rune who drew first blood, breaking in the fifth game. De Minaur would come right back and get a break of his own to tie the match at three’s however. Then, tied at 5-5, Rune broke again and was able to serve out the match in the next game to end De Minaur’s tournament.
Thompson reaches first Masters 1000 Quarterfinals
Jordan Thompson has not had quite the success that De Minaur has in these big tournaments. Although, this has been the most successful year of his career and he has seen great results in major tournaments.
This was the first time he made the quarterfinals of a Masters 1000 tournament, however. After beating Pedro Martinez, upsetting Casper Ruud, and taking down Adrian Mannarino, he faced Ugo Humbert in the quarters.
Humbert was riding high after ousting world number two Carlos Alcaraz in the round of 16. He would keep this high level of play against Jordan Thompson, jumping on the Aussie quickly in the opening set. In just the fourth game Humbert would find his break to lead 3-1. He didn’t faulter when consolidating the break and then again won on Thompson’s serve in the final game of the set to win it 6-2.
The second set was much more competitive as the pair exchanged holds up until the 11th game of the set when Thompson found the pivotal break.
Unfortunately for the Aussie he couldn’t serve out the match and the two headed to a tiebreaker. In said tiebreak, locked at 4-4, Humbert came up clutch, winning three points in a row and in turn the match.
Alex de Minaur and Jordan Thompson both had solid showings at the Paris Masters as they made their ways through to the quarterfinals. Unfortunately, that was where the tournament would end for both of them as neither was able to find victory.
