The second round match at the Kinoshita Group Tennis Championships took place today between world number 113 Diego Schwartzmann and number 13 and 4th seed, Alex De Minaur. They have only met once before at London Queens Club in round 16, in July this year where De Minaur won 6-2, 6-2.

De Minaur started off this second round match in total control taking the break immediately. Schwartzmann struggled to find form but there was a glimpse of hope in the 5th game when he finally got an opening on a deuce game but was unable to convert. He tried to come to the net in a last ditch effort to save the set at 0-5 but failed to put the ball away and De Minaur’s return flew past him. De Minaur prowess showed in the 1st set statistics with a 75% 1st serve return point percentage compared to Schwartzmann’s 29%. A supremely confident De Minaur took the first set 6-0 with little resistance in a mere 26 minutes finishing off with an ace.

Schwartzmann came out for the second set bruised but not finished taking a 40-15 lead in the first game in a concerted effort to put his name on the scorecard. In a deuce/advantage spat, De Minaur delivered a perfectly executed lob to get the early break. In the 3rd game Schwartzmann’s drive finally paid off when he won on a net shot and finally went on the scoreboard with 1-2. He consolidated that further by breaking back at 3-3.

Schwartzmann saved three break points in the next game to take the lead for the first time in the match 4-3. Another hard fought deuce/advantage game gave Schwartzmann a 5-4 lead when De Minaur’s ball clips the net and goes wide. Schwartzmann gave De Minaur the break on a poorly executed net shot which allows De Minaur to smack the ball convincingly down the line past Schwartzmann for a 6-5 lead. The last game on De Minaur served with an ace on second serve, set the tone for a 40 love match point which he converted to win 7-5 beating Shwartzmann in straight sets. Schwartzmann was particularly vulnerable on second serve where he was only able to win 25% and on second serve return he was only able to win 29%.

At the press conference afterwards, De Minaur said he had a game plan which he executed, he was particularly happy with his tennis especially in the second set and with all the pressure mounting from Schwartzmann pushing for the break, he was happy he held it all together mentally. He goes on to face Aslan Karatsev in the next round and hopefully earn some points to help move him up from his 13th place position 595 points behind the number 8 seed in the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin in November.