Alex de Minaur and Adrian Mannarino will be squaring off for the sixth time in their careers and for the third time on grass when they collide in the semifinals of the Libema Open on Friday. De Minaur leads the head-to-head series 4-1 and has won three in a row over Mannarino, including a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 victory at the 2023 Queen’s Club event. Mannarino won their other grass-court matchup 6-2, 6-3 at this same ‘s-Hertogenbosch tournament in 2022.
This is simply a fantastic grass-court matchup. It is by far Mannarino’s best surface — especially at this point of his career — and he is already capitalizing as the most important month of his season gets underway. The 37-year-old Frenchman has advanced in ‘s-Hertogenbosch with victories over Gabriel Diallo, Arthur Rinderknech, and Zhizhen Zhang. De Minaur followed up an opening-round bye with defeats of Martin Damm and Benjamin Bonzi.
Tales of Mannarino’s prowess on the green stuff are well known, but don’t sleep on De Minaur when he takes his talents to lawn tennis. The sixth-ranked Australian is 56-25 lifetime on grass and reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals in 2024.
De Minaur has mostly dominated this matchup and there is no reason to think that anything will change now that Mannarino is past his prime whereas De Minaur remains in peak form.
Pick: De Minaur in 3
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