Miami Open 2024 tennis: Alex De Minaur advances into third round; Christopher O'Connell enters pre-quarters
Australian tennis player Matthew Ebden along with his Indian doubles partner Rohan Bopanna also progressed.
Tennis
Christopher O'Connell entered the men’s singles pre-quarterfinals at the Miami Open 2024 tennis tournament while Alex de Minaur and Alexei Popyrin also produced second-round wins in Florida on Sunday.
O'Connell, 66th in the ATP tennis rankings, defeated American wildcard Martin Damm Jr 7-6(5), 7-6(5) in his round of 32 match and will be up against second-seeded Jannik Sinner of Italy in the next round. O'Connell had scored an upset over world No. 22 Frances Tiafoe in the second round.
Alex de Minaur, seeded ninth, downed Kwon Soon-woo of the Republic of Korea 6-3, 6-2 to move into the third round. De Minaur hit 20 winners during the contest to set up a contest against 24th seed German Jan-Lennard Struff in the third round.
Alexei Popyrin, world No.45, got the better of Czech player Jiri Lehecka 6-4, 6-4 in his second-round match. He will face Hungarian Fabian Marozsan next.
The Australian tennis players also enjoyed a successful day in doubles.
Top-seeded Indo-Australian men’s doubles pair of Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden defeated Italy’s Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori 4-6, 7-6(4), 10-4 for a spot in the second round against Monaco’s Hugo Nys and Jan Zielinski of Poland.
The all-Australian men’s pair of Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson scored a 6-4, 7-5 win over Uruguay’s Ariel Behar and Czechia’s Adam Pavlasek. Alternate pair of Australia’s John-Patrick Smith and Dutch player Sem Verbeek also advanced into the second round of men’s doubles after winning 7-6(8), 4-6, 10-5 against Kazakhstan's Alexander Bublik and Austria’s Sebastian Ofner.
John Peers, along with Finnish partner Harri Heliovaara, went down 7-6(4), 7-6(6) against Croatia’s Mate Pavic and El Salvador’s Marcelo Arevalo.
In women’s doubles, Ellen Perez and USA’s Nicole Melichar-Martinez defeated Veronika Kudermetova and Anastasia Potapova 6-2, 6-2 while Australia’s Daria Saville and Poland’s Magdalena Frech’s run ended after losing to Chinese pair of Wang Xinyu and Zheng Saisai 5-7, 7-5, 10-8.
The Miami Open 2024 tennis tournament will conclude on March 31.