Majchrzak beats three top-10 players in a row to win a maiden title in ‘s-Hertogenbosch

Pole Kamil Majchrzak completed one of the runs of the season on Sunday, edging Australian second seed Alex de Minaur 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (5) to win the Libéma Open and claim the first ATP title of his career at the age of 30.

The manner of it was as striking as the result. Majchrzak, ranked No 76, beat three top-10 opponents in succession to take the trophy – top seed Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada in the quarter-finals (6-4, 6-3), Russian third seed Daniil Medvedev in the semi-finals (7-6 (4), 6-1) and now de Minaur, the world No 6, in a final that ran two hours and 26 minutes.

He becomes only the second man to win an ATP 250 title with three top-10 wins since the series began in 2009, after Grigor Dimitrov at Brisbane in 2017.

Without them, I probably would have quit long ago

An emotional Majchrzak struggled to put the moment into words. “I honestly don’t know what to say. This is an incredible moment for me, an incredible run and fight to make it happen,” he said. “Alex is one of the toughest opponents you can face, so I knew I had to play my best to win, and I think I did for the most part of the match. I’m really grateful for this moment.”

Majchrzak made no attempt to hide how much it meant. “This is a very emotional moment for me, I’m not gonna lie, so I’ll try not to cry,” he said, before thanking his team in Poland and Germany and his family. “Without them pushing me every day to the limits, through the good moments and the bad moments in my life, I probably would have quit long ago. I couldn’t ask for better people around me.”

Majchrzak’s tears

The final was settled on the finest of margins. The deciding set went to a tie-break, and that too was level at 5-5 in points after more than two hours of play, the two men trading blows until Majchrzak pulled clear to take it 7-5 and end a contest that had swung throughout. The victory left him in tears, his face buried in his towel before he crossed the court to embrace his coach, with more tears in his box.

It is a result that transforms his standing in the game. Majchrzak becomes the third Polish man to win a tour-level title in the Open era, after Wojtek Fibak and Hubert Hurkacz, and the run will carry him to a new career high inside the top 50 for the first time. Having entered the week with a 1-4 record against top-10 opposition, he leaves it with three such wins and a title.

His earlier matches had demanded resilience of their own: he came through a three-set battle against Finn Otto Virtanen (6-7 (7), 6-4, 7-6 (4)) and dismissed Australian James McCabe (6-0, 6-3) before the sequence of upsets began.

De Minaur’s pain

For de Minaur, the defeat denied him a notable double after his win in 2024. The Australian, who beat Frenchman Adrian Mannarino (6-4, 6-0), other Frenchman Benjamin Bonzi (6-2, 6-4) and American Martin Damm (7-6 (8), 7-5) to reach the final, had been seeking a 12th career title and, having won Rotterdam earlier in the season, the chance to become only the second man after Richard Krajicek in 1997 to win both Dutch ATP events in a single year.

De Minaur was gracious in defeat. “I’d have loved to get the job done today, but congrats to Kamil and his team, not just for today but for an unbelievable week – you deserved it,” the Australian said. “You were the better player. It was a great battle.”

He framed the week as a marker for the grass swing ahead: “A great start to the grass-court season. We’re going to keep building, and hopefully this is the first of many great weeks on the grass.”