Qatar Open: De Minaur eases past Safiullin to record 200th hard-court win

Alex De Minaur, the second seed, moved into the second round of the Qatar Open by defeating Russian Roman Safiullin 6-1, 7-5 at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex.

Victory today marks the Australian’s 200th hard-court win, and he becomes the first man born in 1999 or later to achieve this feat, just beating world No 1 Jannik Sinner to the milestone.

De Minaur is only the third Australian man in the Open Era to record 200 hard-court wins after Lleyton Hewitt earned 372 and Patrick Rafter with 212.

It is also De Minaur’s first victory since his 26th birthday, having last played in Rotterdam a little over a week ago where he reached the final for the second successive year, going down to Carlos Alcaraz in the showpiece.

De Minaur simply had too much quality for his opponent today, breaking four times in total to seal a comfortable win and sail into the second round in Doha.

It could have been even simpler for the Aussie, however, who served for the match at 5-4 up in the second set. But Safiullin managed to extend the contest, breaking De Minaur to level up the scores at 5-5, but his opponent then did well to break straight back before serving out a relatively straightforward victory.

De Minaur, ranked No 8, will face qualifier Botic van de Zandschulp next, after the Dutchman defeated wildcard Jordanian Abdullah Shelbayh.

The Australian is undefeated against Van de Zandschulp, having beaten him in the opening round of this year’s Australian Open.

Doha ATP 500, other first-round results (Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex, hard, USD 3.035.960, most recent results first):

• Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. Hamad Medjedovic
• Quentin Halys vs. Felix Auger-Aliassime
• Novak Djokovic vs. Matteo Berrettini
• Jan-Lennard Struff vs. Tallon Griekspoor
• Andrey Rublev vs. Alexander Bublik
• Karen Khachanov vs. Daniil Medvedev
• Zizou Bergs vs. Roberto Bautista Agut: tuesday
• Nuno Borges beat Otto Virtanen (LL): 7-6 (6), 6-3
• Botic van de Zandschulp vs. Abdullah Shelbayh: tuesday
• Luca Nardi (Q) beat Zhizhen Zhang: 6-4, 6-3
• Jack Draper (8) beat Alexei Popyrin: 6-2, 7-6 (4)
• Carlos Alcaraz (1) beat Marin Cilic: 6-4, 6-4
• Fabian Marozsan beat Aziz Dougaz (WC): 7-5, 6-3
• Jiri Lehecka beat Grigor Dimitrov (7): 6-4, 6-4
• Christopher O’Connell (Q) beat Hady Habib (WC): 7-6 (7), 7-6 (3)