ATP Tour

De Minaur weathers Machac’s Vienna whirlwind for crucial R1 win

Alex de Minaur showcased all of his trademark resilience to notch a potentially vital victory on Monday at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna.

Currently 10th in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin, De Minaur was facing a hammer blow to his Nitto ATP Finals qualification hopes when Tomas Machac raced to a 6-1, 4-2 lead in the pair’s first-round match in the Austrian capital. Yet the Australian rallied to a 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 triumph, taking his tally of ATP 500 match wins for 2026 to a Tour-leading 18.

“He’s incredibly talented. There’s no other way to put it,” De Minaur said when reflecting on Machac’s early blitz. “Normally you could say he is not always able to bring that level, but he can. We’ve seen him do it. So he’s got that ability to hit through the court, through everything. He wasn’t giving me any chance.

“These conditions are quite heavy, and I felt like he could just unload on the ball and not really miss. He made it very tough for me for three quarters of that match. Honestly, I dug deep, found a way to get a crucial break when I needed it and then all of a sudden the momentum kind of changed.”

Machac red-lined his way to within two games of victory with some stunning baseline hitting, utilising his power to his advantage under the Vienna roof. But after De Minaur finally earned a breakthrough on return by converting his seventh break point of the match to move to 3-4 in the second set, the Australian showed little let-up in pursuit of the win.

Even after dropping serve in the opening game of the decider, De Minaur promptly reeled off five consecutive games to take complete control of the encounter. He wrapped his two-hour, three-minute win with an ace down the T and will next prepare for a second-round clash with Learner Tien or Luca Van Assche.

Earlier, Matteo Berrettini opened the first day of main-draw play in Vienna by easing past Tomas Martin Etcheverry 6-3, 6-4. The Italian, a 2019 semi-finalist in Vienna, will next take on fourth seed Flavio Cobolli or Grigor Dimitrov.