Alex De Minaur soars past Casper Ruud 4-1 4-0 4-2 in the Round Robin in Milan on Thursday after playing a superlative match to deal with Frances Tiafoe in the semifinal.
Score, report, and key facts
1st set.
De Minaur won the set after he broke the Norwegian in the 3rd (2-1) and in the 5th (4-1) game. That was enough for Alex to conquer the set since he didn’t drop his serve in the rest of the set.
Ruud was completely wiped out in the last 4 games of the set (from 0-1 to 4-1).
2nd set.
De Minaur came out strong at the beginning of the set after breaking Ruud in the 2nd game (2-0) before consolidating his break and lead 4-0. The Australian reinforced his lead after breaking Ruud in the 4th (4-0) game before managing to win the set.
A crucial moment of the match was when Alex won 4 consecutive games in the 2nd set to change the scoreline from 0-0 to 4-0.
3rd set.
The set was pretty even as both sides managed to hold the serve. The only difference was 1 break that De Minaur conquered in the 6th game (4-2).
Statistics
At the end of the match, Alex scored 54 points vs. the Norwegian’s 32 points.
Alex served pretty well to win 86% of the points (18/21) behind his first serve, and he won 71% points (10/14) on his second serve. De Minaur won this match even if he was far from perfect in converting his break points since he converted only 42% (5/12). On the other side, Ruud wasn’t able to conquer any break point (0/2). That was one of the key issues for his demise.
After this encounter, the head to head between De Minaur and Ruud is 1-0 for Alex.
Highlights Alex De Minaur vs. Casper Ruud Next Gen ATP Finals – Milan
De Minaur’s Interview
After the match, Alex commented:
“I knew from playing Casper before that he’d dictate any short ball without a purpose,” De Minaur said after his win. The game plan was to play on my own terms, play aggressively, play different styles of tennis and it sort of worked.
The goal I had was [to take] any half-chance, go up and back myself at the net. I’m glad I was able to execute and worked out today. I’m looking forward to the semi-finals.”
Next Match: Alex De Minaur vs. Frances Tiafoe – stats
De Minaur will compete against Tiafoe in the quarter.
This will be the 3rd time that Alex De Minaur and Frances Tiafoe square off. The head to head is 2-0 for De Minaur (see full H2H stats), but they have never played each other on I.hard.
The last time that they fought against each other, De Minaur won 6-4 6-0 5-7 6-2 in the 2nd round in US Open back in 2018.
Tennis Scores in Milan
- Frances TiafoeTiafoe – Mikael YmerYmer (4-2 4-2 4-2) – See score progression
- Alex De MinaurDe Minaur – Casper RuudRuud (4-1 4-0 4-2) – See score progression
- Casper RuudRuud – Alejandro Davidovich FokinaDavidovich Fokina (3-42 4-32 4-2 3-42 4-1) – See score progression
- Mikael YmerYmer – Ugo HumbertHumbert (4-32 1-4 4-2 4-1) – See score progression
- Miomir KecmanovicKecmanovic – Casper RuudRuud (4-35 4-35 4-2) – See score progression
- Jannik SinnerSinner – Frances TiafoeTiafoe (3-44 4-2 4-2 4-2) – See score progression
