WHAT HAPPENED: No. 10 seed Alex de Minaur must have felt like he was walking on a battleground in the Grandstand Thursday afternoon. Against big-hitting qualifier Otto Virtanen of Finland, de Minaur withstood a barrage of heavily fired shots and 130-plus mph serves during their second round match at the 2024 US Open.
But with a little patience and consistency, de Minaur was able to diffuse the 23-year-old Finn’s game, taking a 7-5, 6-1, 7-6(3) victory to continue his charge in the Big Apple.
The Australian was forced to skip the hard court summer swing after he suffered a hip injury at Wimbledon, but as he gets his reps in on the courts of the US Open, the 25-year-old’s body seems to be holding up well, having endured a three-and-a-half hour, four-set tussle with Marcos Giron in the first round.
Escaping with a win against the 6-foot-4 Virtanen’s punishing game was another positive sign for the Australian, as he enters the US Open third round for the sixth time in the past seven years.
“I’m very happy to be back on tour playing in front of you guys, and happy to keep going,” de Minaur said in his post-match interview. “Every day I'm getting a little bit better. Still not a lot of expectations, but every time I step out there I'm going to compete and try my hardest and give you guys a show.”
The big-serving Finn played fearlessly against his first-ever Top 10 opponent. He quickly shut out de Minaur, conceding only three points in the first three games to jump on a 3-0 lead. Though the Aussie struggled with landing his first serve—he connected on 11 of 33 in the opening set—he stayed patient in the rallies and, at 2-5 down, reeled off five straight games to put away the first set thanks to a dip in Virtanen’s level.
The second set was all de Minaur, as he struck only one unforced error and used three breaks of serve to take a two-set lead. Virtanen came back to life in the third with a cleaner, more consistent service game that pushed to a deciding tiebreak. A string of costly errors off Virtanen’s racquet gave de Minaur a commanding 6-1 lead, and on the Finn’s 53rd unforced error, the No. 10 seed advanced.
WHAT IT MEANS: In the third round, de Minaur awaits the winner between Mariano Navone of Argentina and Great Britain’s Daniel Evans, who set a US Open record for the longest match recorded at five hours and 35 minutes in the first round against Karen Khachanov.
De Minaur looks to equal or surpass his result here last year, a Round of 16 appearance. His best result at the US Open was reaching the quarterfinals in 2020.
MATCH POINT: de Minaur has proven a tough contender on hard courts this season, extending his win record to 21-6 on the asphalt. Earlier this year he won the hard-court title in Acapulco and reached the final in Rotterdam.
Can his game rise to the occasion this fortnight and take him deep into the draw in New York?
