The highlight of the opening round at the Queen’s Club. Andy Murray takes on De Minaur

The fans at the Queen’s Club have finally arrived. Home playing legend Andy Murray kicked off his run with a first round match. The fates put a very good opponent in his path right from the start. That was Australian Alex de Minaur. How did Murray, the five-time local champion, fare?

The grass part of the year is the centrepiece of the Brit’s season. In recent weeks, he’s been focused on playing well in challengers. That’s worked out perfectly for him, reigning supreme at both Surbiton and Nottingham. He hasn’t lost a set in ten matches won.

It remains to be seen if he can apply his form in the higher category tournaments. The one at Queen’s Club is in the ATP 500 category. Only Wimbledon is more prestigious on grass courts. His opponent in the first round was Australian Alex De Minaur.

A tough opponent to open

Alex de Minaur is seeded number seven at the London event. He played in the quarter-finals in Hertogenbosch last week and has a positive 3:1 record against Murray, including three matches in the last year.

The Glasgow native is gradually rising from the not-so-flattering ranks of the rankings, so he could have run into a seeded player right from the start. Despite the ranking loss, Andy Murray entered the match as the favourite.

The highlight of the opening round

Murray took to the court when virtually the entire first round at Queen’s Club had already been played. Tournament number two Holger Rune had already pocketed his first career win on grass.

Carlos Alcaraz was coming off an unexpectedly tough win against French lucky loser Rinderknech. The home crowd was anxious to see if the Glasgow native would emulate their progress.

The opening games of the match were a battle for every ball, with both tennis players reaching break points, but the Australian was the only one to take advantage of his. He even managed to do it twice and won the first set for himself with a 6:3 ratio. Murray would certainly have liked a higher first serve success rate than 52%.

In the second set, Murray had a better start, but he didn’t break De Minaur’s serve. On the other hand, he lost his serve with a clean game and in these moments the Australian was the better player.

At 1:5, the British tennis player managed to delight the fans with a beautiful break, which he used to break his opponent’s match point. He eliminated three in total, but it was all just the champion’s swan song. Murray bids farewell to the event at the Queen’s Club unexpectedly early and, moreover, after sets 3::6, 1::6 also unexpectedly easily.

In the end..

Thus, the experienced British tennis player did not fulfill his dream plan and did not move up the ATP rankings high enough to be one of the seeded players at Wimbledon. However, he is not giving up on his main goal, which is success at the third Grand Slam of the season.

Source: ATP