Rotterdam Open: Dimitrov ruins de Minaur birthday party, makes semi-finals

Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov moved into the last four of the Rotterdam Open by edging out birthday boy Australian Alex De Minaur 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (6) at the Rotterdam Ahoy on Friday.

The Bulgarian saved two match points and won it on a sensational shot of his own, a delicious angled forehand as he slid across the court, finishing the match in two hours and 32 minutes.

Dimitrov admitted afterwards that he hadn’t been able to see exactly where his last shot was going.

“I needed that one,” he said. “When you have those Hawkeyes, sometimes you don’t know what is going to happen…when I hit it, it felt really good but until it was confirmed I didn’t want to shake his hand!”

The 31-year-old is into his 44th career tour-level semi-final at the site of his last ATP Tour final nearly five years ago, where he lost to Roger Federer in the 2018 final.

He also levelled up their head-to-head to two wins apiece – with all four of their encounters so far coming on hard court.

It was another Rotterdam quarter-final disappointment for de Minaur, who lost at the same stage last year to Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Dimitrov, ranked No 28, will play the winner of the match between Russian Daniil Medvedev, the No 6 seed, and Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, the No 3 seed, next.

In the previous rounds of the Rotterdam tournament, the Bulgarian won against Russian qualifier Aslan Karatsev (6-1, 6-3) and Pole Hubert Hurkacz, the No 5 seed (7-6 (4), 7-6 (5)).

De Minaur, ranked No 25, beat Russian Andrey Rublev, the second seed (6-4, 6-4) and American Maxime Cressy (7-5, 3-6, 6-3) earlier in the tournament.

Rotterdam ATP250, other quarter-finals results (Rotterdam Ahoy, hard, EUR 2.074.505, most recent results first):

• Gijs Brouwer vs. Tallon Griekspoor
• Jannik Sinner vs. Stan Wawrinka
• Daniil Medvedev vs. Felix Auger-Aliassime

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