De Minaur reaches 's-Hertogenbosch final, climbs to new heights

pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alex-de-minaur/dh58/overview'Alex de Minaur/a continues to climb to new heights./p

pThe Australian defeated big-serving lefty a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/ugo-humbert/hh26/overview'Ugo Humbert/a 7-6(4), 6-3 on Saturday to reach the final of the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/s-hertogenbosch/440/overview'Libema Open/a. By doing so, he is guaranteed to reach a career-high No. 8 in the PIF ATP Rankings on Monday. /p

pldquo;It was an interesting one that's for sure. I got off to a very good start playing some great tennis and then I maybe lost focus a little bit,rdquo; De Minaur said. ldquo;Ugo is an incredible competitor, he always fights 'til the end, so he made it very tricky. I was able to just sneak that first set and then happy with the break at the end and happy to be here. Happy it didn't rain and onto the final.rdquo;/p

pThe top seed lost five consecutive games to his French opponent from 4-0 up in the first set, but De Minaur remained calm in 's-Hertogenbosch. He won 62 per cent of his second-serve return points, which proved critical./p

pThe on-court reporter asked De Minaur about competing in rsquo;s-Hertogenbosch as a Top 10 player for the first time. If he lifts the trophy, the 25-year-old will surge to No. 7./p

pldquo;At the end of the day it's just tennis,rdquo; De Minaur said. ldquo;You run for that yellow ball from one side to the other. You try to have fun and yeah, I'm definitely enjoying myself here on the grass, so I'm very happy with that.rdquo;/p

pEarlier on Saturday, Humbert completed a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 quarter-final victory against a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/gijs-brouwer/bo10/overview'Gijs Brouwer/a in a match that began on Friday evening./p

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pDe Minaur's opponent on Sunday, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/sebastian-korda/k0ah/overview'Sebastian Korda/a, will try to snap a three-year wait for a second ATP Tour title.nbsp;/p

p The American charged into the championship match with a 6-2, 6-4 triumph against home favourite and defending champion a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/tallon-griekspoor/gj37/overview'Tallon Griekspoor/a. Korda converted three of the four break points he earned, according to Infosys ATP Stats, while he did not face a break point on his own serve in his 64-minute semi-final win. /p

p ldquo;Overall, Irsquo;m very happy with today,rdquo; said Korda in his on-court interview. ldquo;It was super tricky, super windy, and obviously Tallon is an unbelievable player and he won here last year. Itrsquo;s a nice confidence boost for me and hopefully I can win another match tomorrow.rdquo; /p

blockquote class="twitter-tweet"

p lang="en" dir="ltr"Through to his 7th Tour final ????a href="https://twitter.com/SebiKorda?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@SebiKorda/a's dominant performance against Griekspoor, 6-2 6-4, secured him a spot for a chance at the title.a href="https://twitter.com/LibemaOpen?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@LibemaOpen/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LibemaOpen?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#LibemaOpen/a a href="https://t.co/sJnWIXiXi3"pic.twitter.com/sJnWIXiXi3/a/p

mdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1801923385644954065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"June 15, 2024/a/blockquote

script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script

p Korda now holds a 2-0 lead in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with his good friend Griekspoor. The 23-year-old American is 1-5 in tour-level finals, with his sole victory coming on clay in Parma in 2021. /p

p /p

p [NEWSLETTER FORM] /p