It was a shaky start — but a convincing finish. Alex de Minaur, seeded fifth and Australia's top-ranked player, advanced through the opening round of Wimbledon 2026 on Tuesday, defeating Roman Andres Burruchaga 7:6 (7:5), 6:1, 6:0. The scoreline may suggest a routine three-set win, but a closer look reveals a far more dramatic story.
Troubled opening, tense tiebreak
De Minaur started poorly. He dropped serve early and found himself 0:3 down against an opponent who showed no signs of being overawed despite his inexperience at this level. Burruchaga, playing his very first Wimbledon main-draw match, competed with purpose — backing it up with 17 winners and a 62 per cent first-serve rate that kept him competitive deep into the set.
The opening set developed into an absorbing battle that stretched to nearly an hour before being settled in a tiebreak. At 4:4 in the tiebreak, a fortunate net cord handed de Minaur a mini-break — moments later, Burruchaga compounded the damage with a double fault. Two strokes of fortune that, taken together, proved to be the turning point of the entire match. De Minaur closed out the tiebreak 7:5 to take the first set.
Total dominance in sets two and three
What followed was a completely different match. As if the tiebreak victory had flipped a switch, de Minaur took control of the remaining sets at will. He won 12 of the next 13 games, holding Burruchaga to just one game in the second set before bagelling him in the third — a 6:0 scoreline that underlined the Australian's total authority. The final two sets lasted a combined 52 minutes.
The statistics tell the story of de Minaur's dominance: he converted 75 per cent of his break points and won every second return point on offer. Burruchaga, meanwhile, managed to break serve on just eight per cent of opportunities — leaving him structurally powerless once de Minaur had hit his stride.
Family history and the road ahead
Roman Andres Burruchaga carries a weighty surname. His father, Jorge Burruchaga, scored the winning goal in the 1986 World Cup final for Argentina against West Germany on 29 June 1986 — exactly 40 years and one day before this match at Wimbledon. For the young Argentine, the 2026 tournament nevertheless represented a steep learning curve: a first-round defeat in Eastbourne was the only grass-court match he had played heading into his SW19 debut.
De Minaur, meanwhile, continues to write his own Wimbledon story. He has now reached the second round at SW19 for the fifth consecutive year, where he will face French left-hander Adrian Mannarino — a player against whom he holds a 5:1 head-to-head record. The form is there. So is the occasion.
