‘S-HERTOGENBOSCH/STARNBERG, June 16, 2024
Alex de Minaur has captured the title of the 33rd edition of the Libema Open. The top seed of the ATP 250 grass-court event in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands defeated seventh-seeded US-American Sebastian Korda 6-2, 6-4 in Sunday’s singles final.
De Minaur converted five of his 16 break-point chances and won 55 per cent of his first-service points to prevail after one hour and 34 minutes.
A NINTH career title 🏆
The moment @alexdeminaur defeated Korda for his 9th career title, and 2nd this season!#LibemaOpen pic.twitter.com/CVkmnTpWZS
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) June 16, 2024
“It feels great to win here. There is no better way to kick off the grass season,” said de Minaur. “I arrived here a bit unsure, but I improved every day and I leave with the title. A perfect end to a top week. This beautiful winner’s trophy will soon be sent home, where it will have a special place.”
Following his triumphs at the ATP Challenger in Nottingham 2018 and the ATP Tour title in Eastbourne 2021, de Minaur clinched his third trophy on grass. It has been the Australian’s ninth tour-level title overall, his second of the season after Acapulco, Mexico in early March. The Sydney native earned €104,985 in prize money as well as 250 ATP Ranking points, which will propel him to a new career high ranking of World No. 7 next week.
Besides his personal success, tennis-mad Australia can also be proud. After Pat Rafter (1998-2000) and Lleyton Hewitt (2001), de Minaur is the third Aussie to win in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.
“It’s incredibly cool to get on that list of greats. It is already quite an honour to be mentioned in the same breath as them, but I will have to win a lot more matches to match their achievements, but I will do my best,” said de Minaur.
Of course, there was also much praise for his fans, who were there in large numbers in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.
“I am incredibly grateful to you. It felt a bit crazy to enjoy so much support in a country so far away from Australia. I really appreciate that you made it such a memorable week and braved the difficult weather conditions with us.”
Lammons/Withrow triumph in doubles
On Saturday, Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow earned their first ATP Tour title of the season when they beat top seeds Wesley Koolhof from the Netherlands and Croatian Nikola Mektic 7-6(5), 7-6(3) in the doubles final. The US-Americans secured victory in in one hour and 34 minutes.
“It was a hard-fought match all the way through. [It was] very typical grass-court tennis, serve games held the whole way,” Lammons said. “Happy to come up with some clutch shots, clutch moments there in both busters. It feels good to start the grass season with a ‘W’. We’ve had a tougher last month or so, so it feels good to get consecutive matches and look forward to the next few weeks.”
Withrow added: “I think we try to enjoy those environments as much as possible. A lot of last year in some of the bigger matches that we played, the crowds maybe were just in favour of a lot of the good tennis and I’d like to think at the end of the day, they’re getting entertainment out of us and hopefully we provide that for them.”
