Australia’s 19 year-old star Alex De Minaur has been rewarded for his scintillating early season form with a wildcard for the ATP event in Estoril.
De Minaur set the bar high early on this season, as he earned wins against the likes of Steve Johnson, Milos Raonic, and Fernando Verdaco. He made the semi-finals in Brisbane, and the final in Sydney, bowing out to Daniil Medvedev.
He drew a tough first round at the Australian Open, losing in four sets to Tomas Berdych, and has played selectively since. He took Alexander Zverev to five sets in a Davis Cup encounter before taking a break.
He played his next event courtesy of a wildcard in Indian Wells, where he defeated Jan-Lennard Struff before losing to eventual champion Juan Martin Del Potro. He picked up two Challenger wins in Irving before a quarter-final defeat, and lost to Yoshihito Nishioka in the first round of the Miami Masters as a qualifier.
Despite awarding the wildcard to De Minaur, tournament director in Estoril, Joao Zilhao, remained bullish about the awarding of the other three “We have requests from top 80 players that we won’t accept. There are players like (Kei) Nishikori, (Milos) Raonic, (Novak) Djokovic, (Stan) Wawrinka who have been injured and that can ask in any moment.”
Pablo Carreno Busta won the title last year, defeating Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller in the final.
