Alex “The Demon” de Minaur defeated Alexander “The Bublik Enemy” Bublik in a match of two halves at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells on Sunday.

The two top 20 ATP players, who also featured in the most recent UTS event in Oslo, fought it out for one hour, 27 minutes in the third round of the Masters 1000 tournament.

Initially, the clash was a close contest, with The Demon sneaking across the line 7-5 thanks to some wayward serving from The Bublik Enemy. However, set two was a different story, as De Minaur well and truly put his foot on the gas to bagel his UTS rival.

“It’s never easy playing Bublik out here,” said De Minaur after his win over Bublik. “I’m happy to be still in the tournament and playing some good tennis. He’s such a tough guy to play because he at times takes the racquet out of your hands, he’ll bait you into making mistakes. He’s had a great year, played a lot of matches, so I’m happy with the win.”

Demon makes fourth round again, Bublik looking to improve

The win sees De Minaur make the fourth round of Indian Wells for the third time, having never advanced beyond this point previously.

“I’m just happy to put myself in the position,” The Demon declared. “Got to focus on the next one now, and keep getting better and better.”

For The Bublik Enemy, he’ll be disappointed in his performance. This season on the ATP Tour has been a strong one for the Kazakh, reaching a career-high of No 20 in the world and claiming a title in Montpellier. 

However, his tally of 13 winners to 24 unforced errors with 10 double faults was never going to be good enough to get past The Demon on Sunday.

In other Indian Wells news, UTS Frankfurt and Oslo champion Andrey “Rublo” Rublev was upset by Jiri Lehecka, going down 6-4, 6-4 to the Czech in the third round.