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Alex de Minaur has earned an encouraging see-saw victory over Ugo Humbert at the Barcelona Open but John Millman has been knocked out of the Serbia Open.
Alex de Minaur has demonstrated his heart for clay court battle with a see-saw, rain-interrupted triumph over dangerous French cavalier Ugo Humbert in the Barcelona Open.
But John Millman's own famed heart wasn't enough to earn him a match-up with Novak Djokovic on the world No.1's home clay court as he bowed out of the Serbia Open in Belgrade earlier on Wednesday.
With the clay court season getting into full swing, Australian No.1 de Minaur, who's endured plenty of struggles on the red stuff, demonstrated encouraging signs for his 2022 campaign on the surface at the Real Club de Tenis Barcelona.
The Sydneysider, ranked No.25 in the world, survived a blistering fightback from his fellow 23-year-old hot shot Humbert to prevail 6-3 4-6 6-3.
De Minaur had beaten the 46th ranked Humbert in the ATP Cup earlier in the year and looked to be powering to a straight sets triumph when he broke for a 4-2 lead in the second stanza, with the Frenchman looking increasingly frustrated with his form.
But the flamboyant left-hander then went for broke, unleashing his superior firepower to win six straight games, taking the second set and opening up a 2-0 advantage in the decider.
Again, de Minaur rallied, showing tremendous resilience in defence as Humbert stuttered, taking the next five games only for the rain to intervene just as he was about to serve for the match at 5-3.
The 22-minute delay looked to have unsettled the Australian as he returned to swiftly face a break point but he got the job done five minutes after the resumption on his first match point, prevailing after nearly two and a quarter hours.
It set up a last-16 meeting for de Minaur with South African world No.40 Lloyd Harris, who earned a notable victory over Spain's Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6-3 6-4.
In Belgrade, hardened by his three-set win over the returning Dominic Thiem on Tuesday, Millman was thrown into the deep end again against local Serbian favourite Miomir Kecmanovic, ranked 42 places higher on the ATP computer.
The 32-year-old Queenslander had won their previous encounter on clay and was buoyed by the prospect of a possible quarter-final meeting with Djokovic at the 20-time grand slam champion's home Novak Tennis Centre.
But after a 28-shot rally on the first point showed what sort of endurance battle Millman could expect, his 22-year-old opponent eked out the only break in the opening set, showing real patience in defence.
Kecmanovic held firm to take the second set in a tiebreak as he ended up winning 6-4 7-6 (7-5) after two and a quarter hours.
Djokovic later had an almighty struggle to tame his Serb colleague Laslo Djere 2-6 7-6 (8-6) 7-6 (7-4) in an arm wrestle that lasted almost three and a half hours.
Djokovic struggled to find any rhythm in what was just his fifth match of the year as the 50th-ranked Djere created break-point opportunities in all four of Djokovic's service games in the opening set.
Djokovic, coming off rare back-to-back defeats after opening his clay-court season with a surprising loss to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina at the Monte Carlo Masters last week, needed all his famed resolve to hold on to his record of not having lost to a compatriot in 10 years.
