De Minaur survives dogfight to reach Open’s second week

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De Minaur survives dogfight to reach Open’s second week

Alex de Minaur has survived a huge scare to keep his *********** Open dream alive and etch his name in the tennis history books.

De Minaur stood three points away from a precarious two-set deficit before fighting back to clinch a spirited 5-7 7-6 (7-3) 6-3 6-3 win over a fatiguing Francesco Cerundolo on Saturday.

De Minaur has never won a grand slam match from two sets to love down and had to pull out all stops to avoid needing to in a desperate three-hour, 53-minute scrap on Rod Laver Arena.

The great escape vaulted the home hope into the last 16 for a fourth consecutive year and kept alive de Minaur’s chances of becoming the first *********** man to win the Open since Mark Edmondson in 1976.

The 25-year-old also joins legends Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, John Newcombe, Tony Roche and his Davis Cup captain and mentor Lleyton Hewitt as only the sixth *********** man ever to make the fourth round at six consecutive majors.

But the narrative could have been very different.

From 5-3 up in the opening set, the world No.8 crumbled to find himself in a desperate dogfight.

First he served for the set at 5-4 but double-faulted to allow Cerundolo back on level terms.

Then he gifted the South American the set with another shocking double-fault on set point.

Off his game, de Minaur again gave up an early break in the second set before using a short timeout to regroup while a spectator was escorted from RLA after a medical episode.

The eighth seed sought advice from his courtside box, including Hewitt, and immediately lifted, almost breaking from 40-0 down on Cerundolo’s serve.

De Minaur was again in trouble after being unable to break back and was staring down the barrel of a two-set deficit serving at 5-6, 15-30.

But he rallied to take the set in a tiebreaker and urged the crowd to will him to victory.

He sure needed them to.

Despite the 31st-seeded Cerundolo needing treatment for a quad strain early in the third set, de Minaur couldn’t shake the Argentine.

But he finally prevailed when Cerundolo double-faulted on match point to send de Minaur through to a fourth-round meeting with unseeded American Alex Michelsen on Monday.

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