Alex de Minaur got to see Rafael Nadal close-up earlier this year when he played him in back-to-back tournaments on clay. One win and one defeat was a healthy return for the Australian on Nadal’s favourite surface, even if the 22-time grand slam champion was only making his way back from injury at the time. But as he continues to plot his way through the draw at the US Open, it is Nadal’s philosophy that is helping De Minaur impose himself on his opponents.
It was back in 2012, when he was assessing Andy Murray’s defeat by Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals of the Australian Open, that Nadal gave an insight into the attitude that helped to make him such a formidable competitor. Murray had led Djokovic two sets to one, only to suffer a physical and mental dip in the fourth set. He recovered in the fifth but Djokovic held on to reach the final. Murray’s mistake was to let Djokovic get away just when he had the momentum himself.
“Winning two sets to one… winning with 7‑6, to win a tournament like this and to play against a player like Djokovic, you cannot start the fourth set like this,” he said. “It’s the moment to play with more intensity than ever, not start with 3‑0 down and two breaks in five minutes. That way you lose the match. You want to win the tournament, you cannot start – you can lose, the other can beat you – but you cannot lose in the beginning. When the other has more doubts, is in real trouble, you [can’t] make it easier than what should be, no?”
De Minaur is cut from the same cloth. Whereas a Pete Sampras or a Boris Becker used to cruise through their service games and only engage on their opponent’s serve when the set got to the business end, De Minaur fights for every point, runs for every lost cause, tears around the court as if his life depends on the outcome. It’s an attitude and philosophy based around the fact that he believes he can outlast his opponents, physically, which also gives him a mental advantage, as happened in his win over Dan Evans in the third round when the Briton’s hip locked out at the start of the third set.
“I knew going in, and it didn’t matter whatever the score, I was going to make him play until the end,” De Minaur said. “I was going to fight until the end. I knew he obviously had a lot of hours in his legs. And, realistically, I backed myself in a physical battle. I knew from the get-go, [it] doesn’t matter what happened throughout the match, whether I was winning or losing, I knew I was going to stay positive. I was going to extend rallies, I was going to move him around the court and if he wanted to beat me today, he was going to have to go through me, and it was always going to be visible.”
With Carlos Alcaraz gone, De Minaur is the highest-ranked player in his section of the draw and he is a big favourite to beat another Australian, Jordan Thompson, when they play on Monday (Tuesday AEST). With Briton Jack Draper or Czech Tomas Machac to follow, a semi-final spot is well within his grasp, a scenario even he would not have forecast at the start of the tournament, having not played since Wimbledon, where he had to withdraw before his quarter-final against Novak Djokovic with a hip injury. Before playing Evans, he said he was probably 80-85% fit; now his assessment is closer to 100%.
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With three men into the last 16 for the first time since 1988 – Alexei Popyrin is playing Frances Tiafoe – this is the first all-Australian fourth-round clash at the US Open since Wally Masur played Jamie Morgan in 1993. Thompson, who is into the fourth round of a slam for the second time, showed he can live with top-10 players when beating Hubert Hurkacz earlier in the tournament and there is no way De Minaur will allow himself to take anything for granted against a man he regards almost as a big brother, having looked up to him as a kid in Sydney.
“I think Tommy deserves a lot of respect as a player and not only because he’s in the fourth round, which he’s earned by beating quality opponents but just the way he’s been going about the last couple of years, career highs, playing positive, aggressive tennis against the best players in the world and taking a lot of big scalps,” he said. “It’s great that Aussie tennis, we’re showing what we can do. We’re putting ourselves in the deep end of tournaments. And look, it’s a good problem to have the fact that we’re playing each other in the fourth round. It’s exciting. Obviously, I’ve grown up with him. We have played many times and I’m expecting an absolute battle.”
