Alex de Minaur recorded yet another impressive win when he managed to beat Carlos Alcaraz in their 2024 Australian Open charity match.
After the charity match between Emma Raducanu and Naomi Osaka was cancelled yesterday, fans finally got some tennis action at the Rod Laver Arena in the Melbourne Park.
Although not official, it was the first match of the year 2024 for Alcaraz, who previously managed to beat Novak Djokovic in Riyadh during an exhibition that was held on December 27th, 2023.
His opponent managed to do the same thing recently. However, De Minaur beat Djokovic in a competitive match at the United Cup, so it was clear both were coming into this match in solid form, as they both beat the current world no. 1 and the 24-time Grand Slam champion in the past two weeks.
Still, their match was only an exhibition for charity, but it was clear that neither of the players wanted to lose the match. The Spaniard managed to break his opponent's serve already in the opening game, but he lost the advantage immediately after.
Both players than managed to hold their serves without any signs of struggles, but when serving to stay in the set at 4-5, Alcaraz couldn't extend the opening set, as the Australian used his chances and won the opening set 6-4.
It seemed that De Minaur would record another impressive win, and comfortably so, as he led already 4-1 with one break and looked to close out the match. Since the match was an exhibition for fans, there were also on-court interviews between some of the changeovers and one of those created a funny situation.
De Minaur was asked how does he stay calm when trying to close out the match, to which the Australian responded quite hilariously.
"I try not to think about closing the match, and just keep on playing. So, thanks for that (laughing)."
It seemed that it was maybe the question that made De Minaur do exactly that, as he lost his one-break lead, and Alcaraz was seemingly back in the match. But it wasn't so much about the Australian's level dropping, but about the Spaniard significantly improving.
The two-time Grand Slam champion seemed to be getting more used to the conditions as he started firing balls left and right, paining the lines in the Rod Laver Arena. Thanks to that, he was able to turn the second set around while saving a match point to win 7-5.
The third set, as is usually a practice during exhibition matches, was decided by a match tie-break to ten points, in which every mistake would count even more, as there is usually no time to respond.
And it was about mistakes from Alcaraz early on, as he lost both of his serves and faced an early 0-5 deficit. What started after that was an attempt to delete the deficit from the reigning Wimbledon champion.
Despite Alcaraz's best attempts, De Minaur was just the better player in the match tie-break, and thanks to that, he was able to win the match 6-4, 5-7, 10-3. It will certainly be an important win for the Australian, who showed an incredible level ahead of the season's first major.
On the other hand, before heading into the 2024 Australian Open, Alcaraz will play one more exhibition charity match, taking on Casper Ruud on Friday.
0 Comments