One defending champion is out and one remains after Wednesday afternoon’s action at the DC Open.
Top seed Alex de Minaur finally got on court, beating Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. The Australian should have had Wednesday off, but after thunderstorms Tuesday delayed the start of the evening session, his match was bumped by a day.
“I think it’s probably one of the perks of having played here frequently that I know that sometimes there’s a little bit of rain here in Washington,” de Minaur said. “I had done my warmup and everything [on Tuesday] … But it was good to kind of reset. As soon as we got called off, I thought they did a good job of doing it quite early. They called us off. We could go home, have a nice dinner.”
To go back-to-back, he’ll now have to win five matches in five days due to the ATP field’s newly-truncated format, shrinking from 48 to 32 this year. He started his potential run with holding off the tricky Tsitsipas, who generated more break point chances (seven to six), but only converted two and committed nearly double the amount of unforced errors as de Minaur, 56 to 31.
“I think for the tournament, for the spectators, for the viewers, it’s obviously better, right? Because you’re going to get stacked draws. You’re going to get potential first-round clashes that are brutal,” de Minaur said. So I think it’s a good thing, right? I think it helps everyone on board.”
He will return to action Thursday afternoon against someone he’s known nearly all his life — compatriot Cruz Hewitt, son of two-time Australian tennis legend Lleyton.
It’s going to be a weird situation, right? There’s no denying that,” de Minaur said. “I’ve seen Cruz grow up for the last ten years. I’ve seen him become the man that he is right now. I’ve hit with him countless of times.”
The 17-year-old Hewitt has been playing “big boy” tennis, de Minaur said, and tennis that isn’t like that of his father.
“I think it’s a funny kind of contrast to how the dad used to play, right? That’s always kind of an inside joke that they play quite differently. Cruz, he’s got the ability to kind of take the racket out of your hands. He’s very comfortable going after the ball and having big swings at it.”
On the women’s side, No. 7 Leylah Fernandez’s run as defending titlist ended at the hands of the tournament’s biggest draw, who once again suddenly turned the fortunes on an opponent.
For the second-straight day, Alex Eala mounted a comeback, rallying down 1-5 in the second set to force and then roll through a tiebreak to win 6-2, 7-6 (1).
“I think for a couple of games maybe my intensity dropped a little bit or the intention, and Leylah stepped up. I just tried my best to stick it out and wait for my opportunities and kind of try to continuously find solutions,” Eala said.
“The mindset I tried to have was be ready for anything. So I tried each point to stay there, keep the second set longer, especially when I was down.”
In only their second meeting, Fernandez struggled in returning, specifically on second serves, winning only 38% of those points compared to Eala’s 63% rate on Fernandez’s seconds.
“I wasn’t playing my best and kind of tried to switch it up a little bit in the second set, and it was working. At 5-1, I guess I wanted it too much and started reverting back to how I played in the first set, which obviously that didn’t help, and started making more mistakes, forcing some errors,” Fernandez said.
After coming back from a set down on Tuesday against Qinwen Zheng and ousting Fernandez, Eala will next play Friday against either No. 2 seed Elina Svitolina or Polina Kudermetova in the quarterfinals. Joining her in that round is former Washington champion Liudmila Samsonova, who advanced in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2.
Two other seeds punched quarterfinal tickets on the men’s side. American and No. 3 Taylor Fritz advanced, 6-3, 6-4, in a breezy 76 minutes over Kamil Majchrzak of Poland, and No. 4 Lorenzo Musetti of Italy needed three sets to oust Aleksandar Vukic of Australia, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3.
Thursday afternoon will see the first DC Open action for top women’s seed Jessica Pegula, who will play Magdalena Frech of Poland.
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