Just as the Dubai Tennis Championships is getting started, another ATP 500 Tour began on Monday, 26th February. The schedule is out, the players are ready, and Alex de Minaur vs Taro Daniel will be the 5th match from the top half. Alex de Minaur entered the tournament as a 3rd seed player, whereas Taro Daniel isn’t in the top 8 seeds. Alexander Zverev, Holger Rune, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and Tommy Paul are some of the other important players playing in this tournament.
The Alex de Minaur vs Taro Daniel match will take place at 8:20 PM ET on Monday. The match will be played on the outdoor hard courts at the Arena GNP Seguros.
Alex de Minaur has had some fiery rivalries with tennis stars like Grigor Dimitrov, Andrey Rublev, etc. The Australian tennis star is a quarter-finalist of the 2020 US Open and has reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam as many as 4 times in his career. de Minaur’s win against Dimitrov with 6-4, 6-3 scores saw him play the final of the Rotterdam Open 2024 against Jannik Sinner.
Although winning in Rotterdam was not to be, de Minaur showed the tennis world his potential. However, he was stunned a few days later in the first round of the Los Cabos Open ATP 250 by unseeded American, Alex Michelsen in straight sets.
Taro Daniel lost to Marcos Giron in the Round of 32 match at the Los Cabos Open 2024. He hasn’t been at his best, losing in the Round of 32 of the Delray Beach Open, Round of 16 of the Dallas Open, and crashing out in the first round of the Australian Open this year. However, he has reached the third round of the Australian Open in 2022, his best Grand Slam performance so far, and he will back his strengths to win the match against de Minaur.
Daniel too has defeated Cameron Norrie and Novak Djokovic in his career. He did it at the Indian Wells Masters in 2018. His only ATP title win remains the 2018 Istanbul Open, where he beat Malek Jaziri 7-6, 6-4 in the final.
Taro Daniel ranks 63 in the ATP rankings, whereas de Minaur ranks 11. The Australian even had a great opportunity in between to make it to the Top 10. Considering all such stats, The SportsRush predicts Alex de Minaur to beat Taro Daniel in their first-round match at the Acapulco Open 2024.
What does the Alex de Minaur vs Taro Daniel head-to-head tell us?
Alex de Minaur vs Taro Daniel has happened only twice before in their careers. The first time was at the 2018 US Open, when Alex de Minaur dominated Taro Daniel by 6-0, 6-1, 6-2. The next they met was 5 years later at the 2023 Mexico Open, where de Minaur won 6-2, 6-2. So far, Taro Daniel hasn’t even matched pound-for-pound to Alex de Minaur. But this year, it provides him with a perfect opportunity to get going in the rivalry.
The match will stream live on the Tennis Channel in the US. For the UK viewers, they can catch it live on Sky Sports. Even at 8:30 pm, the temperature in Acapulco will remain high at 33 degrees Celsius. The wind speed will be 19 km/h and the humidity will be 57% with no chance of rainfall.
