Alex de Minaur finally defeats Stefanos Tsitsipas for first time in quarterfinals of Acapulco

Alex de Minaur has already had a great year—we’re only two months in and he’s already broken into the Top 10 for the first time and reached the 15th ATP final of his career in Rotterdam.

And on Thursday night he hit another, more personal milestone.

De Minaur rebounded from a first set blow-out to defeat Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarterfinals of Acapulco, 1-6, 6-3, 6-3, which was his first win in 11 career tour-level meetings with the Greek.

Tsitsipas had won all 10 of the pair’s previous tour-level meetings, which all came during a five-year span between 2018 and 2023—he had won 21 of the 24 sets they played in those 10 matches, too.

And things looked headed the same way this time as the Greek blew through the first set in just 28 minutes. But then De Minaur started sinking his teeth into the match, breaking for 2-0 in the second set, which started a string of four straight breaks—but the Australian emerged on the winning end of that and eventually served out the second set, then broke twice more in the third en route to victory.

Tsitsipas, who dipped just outside of the Top 10 two weeks ago for the first time since in almost five years, would have guaranteed himself a return to the elite had he beaten De Minaur on Thursday night.

It's also worth noting that De Minaur did have one previous win against Tsitsipas, but it was below tour-level, in the qualifying of a Challenger event on grass in Surbiton, England in 2017.

De Minaur, who won the biggest title of his career in Acapulco a year ago, is now two wins away from successfully defending his title—but the No. 3 seed won’t be letting his guard down anytime soon as up next in the semifinals will be the always-dangerous Jack Draper.

The unseeded, No. 50-ranked Draper has already taken out a seed this week—No. 7 seed Tommy Paul in the first round—and he’s barely been dropping games here, winning that one, 6-0, 6-4, before taking out Japan's Yoshihito Nishioka in the second round, 6-3, 6-0, and Serbia's Miomir Kecmanovic in the quarterfinals, 6-2, 6-2.

Draper also won’t be afraid of De Minaur’s No. 9 ranking—the British lefty has beaten Top 10 players twice before, both on hard courts in 2022, taking out a No. 5-ranked Tsitsipas in Canada and a No. 8-ranked Felix Auger-Aliassime at the US Open.

He’s also taken a set off of De Minaur in both of their previous meetings, with the Australian prevailing at Wimbledon in 2022, 5-7, 7-6 (0), 6-2, 6-3, and in Tokyo in 2023, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (1).