The top-seeded Australian was handed an immediate challenge in the form of heavy-hitting Arthur Fils<\/a> on Tuesday, but he passed the test with a composed 7-6(3), 6-2 victory. After finishing runner-up at the indoor hard-court ATP 500 event in both 2024 and 2025, De Minaur wasted little time in reminding the field why he is the player to beat this week.<\/p>\n \u201dIt was never going to be easy. I told myself I was ready for a battle, up for the challenge, and excited for it,\u201d De Minaur said of his clash with Fils, who was competing in his second tournament since returning from an eight-month back injury. \u201cI haven\u2019t had too many easy matches this year and I\u2019m looking at this as a challenge, which I\u2019m enjoying. It pushes me to be ready from the first point.\u201d<\/p>\n De Minaur will next face Dutch lucky loser Thijs Boogaard<\/a> or 2015 Rotterdam champion Stan Wawrinka<\/a>, who is playing his final season on Tour. The No. 8 player in the PIF ATP Rankings also extended his lead for the most ATP 500 wins since the start of the 2023 season.<\/p>\n ATP 500 Win Leaders (since start of 2023 season)\n<\/p>\n Earlier, seventh seed Tallon Griekspoor<\/a> delighted his home crowd with a classy 6-4, 6-4 win over Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard<\/a>. With his 11th victory in Rotterdam, the 29-year-old tied Tom Okker<\/a> for the fourth-most among Dutchmen in tournament history.<\/p>\n Griekspoor saved all six break points he faced, according to Infosys ATP Stats, against Mpetshi Perricard and fired 10 aces. He will next meet Quentin Halys<\/a>, who rallied past 18-year-old home qualifier Mees Rottgering<\/a> 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 in one hour, 54 minutes.<\/p>\n Jan-Lennard Struff<\/a> surged past French qualifier Hugo Grenier<\/a> 6-0, 6-4 in just 64 minutes to improve to 2-0 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series. It marked Struff\u2019s second tour-level win of the season after defeating Juan Pablo Varillas<\/a> en route to Germany\u2019s 4-0 Davis Cup victory over Peru. Struff awaits Hubert Hurkacz<\/a> or third seed Alexander Bublik<\/a> in the second round.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rotterdam De Minaur passes Fils test in latest Rotterdam title bid Griekspoor, Struff, Halys also all advance at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-473392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n