Less than 48 hours after celebrating an impressive tournament win in the Netherlands Alex de Minaur has had to rewrite his plans for Wimbledon after suffering an upset loss at Queen’s.
Newly promoted to world No.7 de Minaur looked on course for an easy win when he brushed aside Lorenzo Musetti 6-1 in the opening set in west London.
But the No.2 seed began to show signs of his exertions in winning in s’Hertogenbosch and his Italian opponent took advantage of a few errors to level the match in the second.
De Minaur, who was runner-up here last year, then faded fast, going 4-0 down in the third before getting on the scoreboard and avoiding a bagel. But he had too much to do to come back and Musetti, ranked 30 in the world, won 1-6 6-4 6-2.
“I lost a tennis match,” he said afterwards, “sometimes it happens. If it didn’t tennis would be a very easy sport when you win every match you play.
“It was a very quick turnaround from s’Hertogenbosch. I did my best to adapt and thought I came out really well. I had so many chances in the second set. It is one of the few matches where I would walk off and say, ‘I think I got unlucky’.
“That could easy be a 6-1 6-3 type of match. If I end up getting the break … I had an easy ball and I hit the net cord and it sails long. A couple of break points here and there in the second set.
“I played a lot of tennis recently and it got the better of me in the end.”
De Minaur visibly dropped off in the final set with the energetic returning and scurrying that is such a feature of his game rarely apparent.
He won 44 and 86 per cent of points when returning Musetti’s first and second serves respectively in the opening set, but 19 and 50 per cent in the third. His own serve dropped off too.
He did, though, win more points in the match and felt he had played well, just missed opportunities. Having gone into this match with nine wins in his last ten matches he still feels in good fettle heading into Wimbledon, albeit with more practice time now than planned.
Alexei Popyrin battled hard against five-time winner Andy Murray, but to the delight of a partisan crowd lost to the Briton 6-3 3-6 6-3 in just under two hours.
It was 37-year-old Murray’s 739th win in his 1,000th tour-level match, and his first since March. He next faces another Australian, Jordan Thompson, who beat Holger Rune in the first round.
No.1 seed Carlos Alcaraz began his title defence with a straight-sets win over Francisco Cerundolo stretching his winning streak on grass to 13 matches.
Alcaraz won 6-1 7-5 but had to fend off three set points at 4-5 in the second before winning in 82 minutes.
“The first match in every tournament is never easy and even more difficult on grass,” he said.
“I’m really happy with the match I played and to have a really good test.”
Besides de Minaur’s exit there were other upsets with Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard beating sixth-seed Ben Shelton, Matteo Arnaldi defeating eighth seed Ugo Humbert and British wildcard Billy Harris downing Tomas Martin Etcheverry.
In other first round matches there were wins for Americans Sebastian Korda, Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul and Brandon Nakashima plus Alejandro Tabilo and Jack Draper.
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