Before Christmas with Katie Boulter, Alex de Minaur tops Holger Rune to win 2024 UTS Grand Final

More than 21,000 fans watched as Alex de Minaur swept aside Holger Rune in Sunday's UTS Grand Final in London, bringing the latest season of the Patrick Mouratoglou-engineered tennis exhibition series to a close after stops in Oslo, New York and Frankfurt.

The world No. 9 won all three of his round-robin matches over three days at the Copper Box, and beat Gael Monfils in the semifinals earlier on Sundau. He started the tournament with victory over Rune in the group stage on Friday before returning on Saturday to beat Jan-Lennard Struff and Alexander Bublik.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend in London,” de Minaur said after winning his second career trophy at the innovative event that sees players given just one serve, and use "bonus cards" to boost their score, among other rule changes.

Rather than sets, players play eight-minute quarters, where the player who wins a majority of the points is declared the winner. De Minaur defeated Rune, 14-8, 14-11, 16-10, to lift the trophy after finishing runner-up to Andrey Rublev at the Oslo edition in February. The Aussie also pocketed a $421,800 purse, plus a $375,000 bonus for playing three of the four UTS events this year.

The windfall is a sweet ending to de Minaur's first year-end Top 10 season, in which he reached three Grand Slam quarterfinals, earned his first win over a world No. 1 player (Novak Djokovic, in January) and qualified for the year-end ATP Finals in Turin for the first time.

That, in spite of a hip injury that derailed his summer between Wimbledon and the US Open, and impact him throughout the season's final months.

“It definitely has been the best season yet, but I don’t think it’s going to be the best season of my career," he said. "I want to keep on improving, keep on being better.

“I want to use everything I’ve learned this year and put it towards 2025.”

The Aussie will stay in London for a proper Christmas season with girlfriend Katie Boulter, he said, before jetting off to Australia to celebrate the actual holiday and begin his countdown to 2025.

"Katie's cooking, and she's a great cook," he said, "and I'm definitely looking forward to eating a lot, a lot of food."