After the longest match in Acapulco's history, the second semifinal match between Holger Rune and Alex de Minaur started around midnight.
Both players had to wait for a very long time to fight for their first ATP 500 final of the season. Last year, Rune and De Minaur met twice within a time span of four days, and the Danish youngster won both of those matches, entering the semifinal at the 2023 Mexican Open with 2-0 in H2H column.
Rune used his experience from previous meetings in the first set, using one of two break points that he had and leading early, 3-1. He then faced four break points on his own serve, but saved all of them to keep the lead. After 47 minutes, the Dane won the first set 6-3 and everything looked good for him.
But that would soon change. Rune couldn't use any of his four chances to break his opponent in the second set and the Australian didn't wait around. Despite hitting 7 double faults in the set, De Minaur used one of his six break points and won the second set 7-5 in an hour and 17 minutes to force a decider.
Rune had two break points in the first game, but his body gave up on him. The young Dane started struggling with cramps and lost the first three games of the third set.
Despite being almost unable to walk, world no. 10 never gave up and kept fighting. In the fourth game, he faced another break point, to put his opponent into a two-break lead, but with his powerful groundstrokes, he was able to fight and win the game.
Rune had to adapt and he did that in the sixth game of the third set. The Dane started implementing an underarm serve to his game and sometimes it worked and helped him to win a point. Despite facing yet another break point and still cramping badly, Rune won his service game again and kept fighting.
But when De Minaur served, his opponent didn't have many chances and therefore the Australian won 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 after two hours and 50 minutes, setting up a final clash with Tommy Paul.
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