De Minaur drops just one game in Barcelona Open launch

From his European base in Alicante on Spain's eastern coast, de Minaur always enjoys the 500km trip north to Catalonia where last year he savoured his best-ever clay-court tournament by reaching the semi-finals.

De Minaur, who had even held match points against home gun Carlos Alcaraz in that last-four encounter in 2022 before being edged out, is looking for another successful week after launching his clay-court season with mixed results in Monte Carlo last week.

His launch pad promises much as he quite outplayed Shevchenko, the world No.98, with six breaks of serve and even homed in on a rare 'double bagel' 6-0 6-0 victory before the Russian finally staved off that potential humiliation by getting on to the board in the 11th game.

It was just a brief stay of execution as the world No.19 raced through the final two games to earn his most one-sided victory ever on clay.

It set up a last-16 tie for the Australian with Grigor Dimitrov, repeating their mini-classic at the Rotterdam Open in February which was won by the Bulgarian in a deciding tiebreak.