Australian teen sensation Alex de Minaur's sizzling summer has continued with an upset win over Fernando Verdasco in the first round of the Sydney International.
Less than a week after reaching the semi-finals in Brisbane, the 18-year-old de Minaur showed off his trademark fighting qualities on Tuesday to beat the Spanish veteran 6-4 6-2.
Australian Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt was in de Minaur's corner as the Sydney-born, Spain-raised talent set up a meeting with seventh seed and world No.30 Damir Dzumhur.
"He's a great kid. Whatever I tell him to do, he does," Hewitt said.
"I enjoy going out there training with him. For him, I think being around the Davis Cup team for the last year and a half, we've tried to fast-track him.
"I saw something pretty special in him at a young age and, so far, he's on the right path.
"He knows he's still got a lot of work to do to get to the top and, obviously, the top 100 is his next goal."
And the exciting talent is certainly on his way, with de Minaur again assuring himself another rankings surge from his current post as world No.167.
As he did when he upset former world No.3 Milos Raonic last week, de Minaur made a mockery of the gulf in rankings by chasing down the powerful shots from the world No.40.
He had the home crowd going early when he broke Verdasco in the third game, before keeping his cool to close out the opening set.
De Minaur refused to let up in the second, twice making inroads into the serve of the former world No.7 to reach the second round in Sydney for the second-straight year.
He insisted feeling physically and mentally stronger than when he made his tour debut at the same tournament one year ago.
"I feel like I have found this belief on court. I'm really happy with my level. I feel like I can just go toe to toe with lots of players out there. It's all about maintaining that," he said.
"At the end of the day, I'm just going to get out there and on court, give it my all. That's what I want to be known for, and that's what I want other players to know about me."
Earlier, Sydney-born Australian qualifier Aleksander Vukic pushed another Spanish star Feliciano Lopez before succumbing 4-6 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 to the one-time world No.12.
Also watched by Hewitt, as well as the great Tony Roche, Vukic stood within two points of victory during the second-set tiebreaker but was unable to pull off the biggest win of his career.
Leonardo Mayer also progressed after defeating Mischa Zverev 7-5 6-3.
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