Alex de Minaur hailed his "great mental effort" as he battled successfully with both his own frustration and an inspired home favourite to book another semifinal spot at the Rotterdam Open. In doing so, he equalled a 50-year-old landmark.
Australia's No.1 looked somewhat out of sorts for much of his quarterfinal against Dutch world No.65 Botic van de Zandschulp on Friday, but still managed to finally wear down his big-hitting opponent to prevail 3-6 7-6 (4) 7-5 at the Rotterdam Ahoy arena.
It's set up the world No.8 with a third successive semifinal at one of his favourite hard-court tournaments, where he'll play French left-hander Ugo Humbert on Saturday.
'Demon' is the first man since Dutch favourite Tom Okker back in 1976 to make it to three-straight semis at the tournament, where only one Australian man has ever won – Lleyton Hewitt back in 2004.
But Humbert demonstrated his danger to De Minaur by ending the adventure of another Australian, Chris O'Connell, who finally succumbed 6-4 6-1 at the end of an encouraging week in which he'd won four matches in qualifying and the early stages of the tournament.
De Minaur knows he'll have to play better than he did against Van de Zandschulp if he's to progress to a third consecutive final in Rotterdam, following defeats in last year's showdown to Carlos Alcaraz and in 2024 to Jannik Sinner.
This time, the onus is all on him as the top seed, but he nearly came a cropper against the resilient van de Zandschulp, who may not be the player he was when he reached the verge of the top-20 in 2022 but remains a real threat on his day with his big game.
De Minaur cut a frustrated figure at times during a contest in which his forehand misfired alarmingly -- he dished up 30 unforced errors all told -- and Van de Zandschulp worked wonders with his serve whenever seemingly threatened.
It got to the point after he'd won the opening set and brought up three break points with the scores locked at 3-3 in the second when De Minaur felt "it wasn't looking good."
"But I managed to find some of my better tennis today at the end of the second set -- another great mental effort," he added.
De Minaur has at times found it a slog at times at the indoor venue arena this week. Still, few can match his fitness levels and once he'd repelled those break points, he was always in the ascendancy against the seemingly tiring 30-year-old Dutchman.
After prevailing in the second-set tiebreak, he found an early break in the decider to look in full command only for the stubborn Van de Zandschulp to break back straight away and turn the contest into a nail-biter.
"He's such a tough opponent and he makes it so difficult," De Minaur said. "We both made each other play badly, in a sense.
"In these types of conditions where it's hard to really hit through the court, you get some pretty long rallies and gruelling exchanges. I'm happy I got through."
The key came at 5-5 when Van de Zandschulp, put under the utmost pressure, missed a couple of volleys to get broken before De Minaur served out for victory after two hours 44 minutes.
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