Hamburg

De Minaur sets Paul SF showdown in Hamburg, Kovacevic wins thriller

Buse upsets Humbert, reaches second ATP 500 semi-final

May 21, 2026

Alex de Minaur continued his spectacular return to form on Thursday at the Bitpanda Hamburg Open, where the third-seeded Australian dropped just three games in a quarter-final rout of Luciano Darderi.

The No. 9 player in the PIF ATP Rankings, De Minaur entered Hamburg on a three-match losing streak but he danced past World No. 16 Darderi 6-3, 6-0 to book a semi-final spot on debut at the clay-court event in northern Germany. The Australian, who at one point led 6-0, 5-1 before Darderi threatened a late comeback, saved 11 of 12 points he faced in the last-eight clash, according to Infosys ATP Stats.

“The last 20 or 30 minutes of this match, the conditions couldn’t have been any slower and any heavier,” reflected De Minaur, who prevailed in one of the match points of the 2026 season so far to seal his win. “The balls were humungous. It was very physical, very tough to get the ball past him and I thought he was able to use his strength to move the ball around a bit better. So it got quite tight at the end but overall, I’m very happy with the match.”

De Minaur is the first Australian to reach the Hamburg semi-finals since former World No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt in 2007. The 27-year-old has risen two spots to No. 7 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings as a result of his quarter-final triumph.

Standing between De Minaur and his first ATP Tour championship-match appearance on clay will be Tommy Paul. The sixth-seeded American earlier overcame home favourite Daniel Altmaier 6-2, 7-5 to become the first American to reach the Hamburg semi-finals since Pete Sampras in 1995 (later on Thursday, Paul’s fellow American Aleksandar Kovacevic also reached the last four).

De Minaur leads Paul 5-1 in the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series, although the American prevailed in the pair’s most recent clash on the Rome clay in 2025.

The other semi-final in Hamburg will be between Kovacevic, who overcame Camilo Ugo Carabelli 6-4, 6-7(10), 6-2 in a two-hour, 43-minute battle, and Ignacio Buse. The Peruvian qualifier Buse booked a spot in his second ATP 500 semi-final of the season (after Rio de Janeiro) with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 upset of Ugo Humbert.

Buse is already guaranteed to become just the fourth Peruvian to break the Top 50 in the PIF ATP Rankings on Monday, regardless of what happens in Friday’s semi-finals. The 22-year-old is currently up 16 spots to No. 41 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings.