Nitto ATP Finals
Alcaraz hits his vary vs. De Minaur, kicks off Nitto ATP Finals bid
Spaniard improves to 1-0 in Jimmy Connors Group
November 09, 2025
Corinne Dubreuil/ATP Tour
Carlos Alcaraz improves to 5-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head collection with Alex de Minaur.
By Jerome Coombe
After a career-best season, Carlos Alcaraz started his Nitto ATP Finals marketing campaign in becoming vogue — with a long-awaited opening victory.
The highest seed on Sunday powered previous Alex de Minaur 7-6(5), 6-2 to ignite his quest for a maiden crown on the prestigious season finale. Alcaraz, who had fallen to Alexander Zverev (2023) and Casper Ruud (2024) in his two earlier opening matches in Turin, regarded decided to rewrite the script, even when he did have to beat a nail-biting first-set take a look at within the course of.
First Match Beneath Wraps! 👌@carlosalcaraz kick-starts his 2025 #NittoATPFinals marketing campaign with a straight units win over De Minaur pic.twitter.com/6qqfQMniGY
— ATP Tour (@atptour) November 9, 2025
“This match is without doubt one of the finest tournaments now we have on Tour, for sure,” Alcaraz mentioned. “We’re enjoying towards the perfect gamers on the earth, which reveals how troublesome and essential it’s. I’ve been struggling up to now few years to return to the top of the yr with motivation. This yr is a bit bit completely different, which I’m proud about [as] I’m doing the suitable issues to offer myself a shot to try to win this match.”
Alcaraz impressed the group inside Inalpi Enviornment early together with his shotmaking en path to a 4-1, 40/0 lead in simply 25 minutes. But that benefit shortly slipped away as De Minaur clawed again, forcing Alcaraz right into a tense tie-break. The highest seed settled in, nonetheless, twice rallying from a mini-break down and reeling off 4 straight factors from 3/5 to finally clinch the set.
Despite the fact that Alcaraz’s 21 winners have been coupled with 19 unforced errors within the opener, he maintained his daring aggression all through the second set. The massive-hitting Spaniard earned one other wholesome lead, however this time he contained his unforced errors and raced by way of the end to enhance to 5-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head collection with De Minaur.
“It was a extremely troublesome match,” mentioned Alcaraz. “On this floor, Alex makes the many of the velocity of the ball, he’s tremendous quick and actually troublesome on return. I’m simply actually glad to get by way of this actually troublesome problem, and proud of how I’m enjoying [going into] the subsequent matches.”
Together with his one-hour, 40-minute victory, Alcaraz additionally strengthened his push to say ATP Yr-Finish No. 1 introduced by PIF honours for the primary time since 2022. He now wants 250 extra factors in Turin to safe the honour over rival Jannik Sinner, with every round-robin win price 200 factors.
Alcaraz will subsequent search a win on Tuesday, when he faces both Taylor Fritz or Lorenzo Musetti within the Jimmy Connors Group. He owns a Tour-leading 68 wins and eight trophies in 2025, in accordance with the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index.
