De Minaur overpowers home favourite Elias in Millennium Estoril Open debut

Australian youngster Alex de Minaur defeated Portuguese No.2 Gastão Elias 6-3, 6-1 in round one of Millennium Estoril Open and earned his first ATP tour level clay-court victory of his career.

The #NextGenATP Aussie, who is being mentored by former World No.1 Lleyton Hewitt - with whom he’ll play doubles this week, was showed great consistency all match and saved all nine break points he faced to seal his first win on the Portuguese clay in one hour and 26 minutes. The 19-year-old wild card, who is on the verge of breaking into the ATP Top 100 will face British No.1 and third seed Kyle Edmund in the second round. It will be the first official match between the two players.

“I played a very high level match against a high level opponent, especially on clay. There were tricky conditions out there. I just tried to weather the storm early, I was able to win a lot of those long points and I stayed solid through that first set. The the last set I was able to play better tennis so I’m very happy with my level,” said De Minaur after the match.

The 19-year-old wild card, who is on the verge of breaking into the ATP Top 100 will face British No.1 and third seed Kyle Edmund in the second round. It will be the first official match between the two players.

“I know Kyle and I’ve trained with him a lot. He has a very high quality tennis so my next round will be a very tough match, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m going to leave it all out there and we’ll see what happens at the end of the day,” concluded De Minaur.

De Minaur returns to action this Tuesday in the doubles draw alongside Hewitt, the Australian duo will face second seeds Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus.