De Minaur was competing in his first tournament since claiming the Rotterdam crown two weeks ago. The last two times he competed in Acapulco, he left as champion, having captured back-to-back titles in 2023 and 2024. In stark contrast, Kypson had only earned three tour-level wins, all in 2024.<\/p>\n
“It feels amazing,” Kypson said. “Everything was important. I had to serve well. I had to return well. I hit my forehand really big. Luckily, I was able to do those things for a pretty extended period of time.”<\/p>\n
Kypson was two points from defeat when De Minaur served for the match at 5-4 in the decider. But the American qualifier held firm to force the tie-break and sealed a hard-fought win in two hours and 39 minutes. He won 71 per cent (48\/68) of his first-serve points and converted three of the five break points he faced, according to Infosys ATP Stats. <\/p>\n
“[Staying calm and composed] does not come naturally to me,” Kypson said. “That’s probably one of the hardest parts of playing the sport, just keeping it together.”<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old is up seven spots to No. 93 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings. The former Texas A&M University star was a part of a six-way tie for the most titles won at the ATP Challenger level in 2025, with four. In the second round, he will face Brandon Nakashima<\/a>, who eased to a 6-3, 6-4 triumph against Elias Ymer<\/a>.<\/p>\n In other first-round action, 2025 finalist Alejandro Davidovich Fokina<\/a> launched his Acapulco campaign with a straight-sets victory. The Spaniard moved past Daniel Altmaier<\/a> 7-5, 6-3 in one hour and 34 minutes and will face Rinky Hijikata<\/a> or Mattia Bellucci<\/a> in the second round.<\/p>\n Miomir Kecmanovic<\/a>, Valentin Vacherot<\/a> and Aleksandar Kovacevic<\/a> were also among the winners on Monday in Acapulco. Kecmanovic cruised past Tristan Schoolkate<\/a> 6-2, 6-2 to set a second-round meeting with top seed Alexander Zverev<\/a> or Corentin Moutet<\/a>, while Vacherot outlasted Coleman Wong<\/a> 4-6, 6-3, 6-2. Kovacevic defeated Adam Walton<\/a> 7-6(1), 7-6(3).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Acapulco Kypson shocks two-time champion De Minaur in Acapulco opener Nakshima, Davidovich Fokina advance February 24, 2026 Mextenis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-500635","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\/500635","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=500635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\u201cATP\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768144283_348_atp-no-1-club-banner-article.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n