'He Was Bloody Good' - Alex De Minaur Searching For Answers After Sinner Thrashing At Australian Open - UBITENNIS

‘He Was Bloody Good’ – Alex De Minaur Searching For Answers After Sinner Thrashing At Australian Open

By Adam Addicott
6 Min Read
Alex De Minaur - Australian Open 2025 (X @AustralianOpen)

Alex de Minaur admits he is currently at a loss about how to handle the game of Jannik Sinner after suffering a heavy defeat to the world No.1 at the Australian Open.

The Australian only managed to win six games during his 6-3, 6-2, 6-1, loss to Sinner who produced undoubtedly his best performance of the tournament so far. Sinner dropped just 10 points behind his serve throughout the 110-minute encounter and produced 27 winners. It is the most one-sided men’s quarter-final match (excluding retirements) to take place at Melbourne Park since 2009 when Roger Federer dropped only three games against Juan Martin del Potro.

De Minaur has now lost all 10 of his Tour-level meetings against Sinner and only once has he ever taken a set off him which was back in 2020 at the Sofia Open.

“He was very good today. I think with the conditions a little bit slower and a little bit later at night, it’s pretty tough to make him miss or hurt him. He was bloody good tonight.” De Minaur said of Sinner.

“I think he’s probably my worst matchup, and you can see it in the head-to-head.

“If we’re playing middle of the day on a stupidly hot day, then that’s when you can see some errors come out, and that’s when you probably see Jannik not play at his best. But conditions like today, it’s tough to rattle him at all.”

Perhaps the latest defeat hurts de Minaur the most. He was playing in the last eight of his home Grand Slam for the first time in his career. If he had won, he would have ended Australia’s 20-year wait for a male player to reach the semi-finals of the event. The last to do so was Lleyton Hewitt in 2005 and the last home player to lift the men’s title was Mark Edmondson in 1976.

“I know that whole crowd has got my back. They want me to go out there, make it competitive, try to make it into a match, and I’m trying my best.” De Minaur commented.

“It’s frustrating that I can’t do it. I’m doing my best, but I can’t make it into even a match where the crowd can get behind and start supporting.

“That’s what he (Sinner) does so well. He comes out of the blocks in the sets so well. Whenever we played, it feels like the first three games, four games he gets the early break and then all of a sudden we never really end up getting to later stages of sets where all of a sudden you can have scoreboard pressure, all of a sudden the rallies can get a little bit tense, and I can ask more questions and get the crowd involved, and all that kind of stuff.

“It is disappointing. I don’t want to leave (the tournament) like this.”

It isn’t all doom and gloom for the 25-year-old who has made solid progress in recent months. Last season he won two ATP events, reached the last eight of Wimbledon for the first time before withdrawing due to injury, broke into the top 10 and rose to a ranking-high of No.6. Those results enabled him to enter this year’s Australian seeded eighth in the draw which is his highest seeding at a major event so far.

The issue for de Minaur is taking that next step to beat the very best players in the world in the biggest events on the Tour. He has won only two out of 13 matches against top 10 players at Grand Slam tournaments. Against world No.1 players, he is currently 1-6 with his only victory being over Novak Djokovic at the 2024 United Cup.

“I’ll keep improving,” he states. “If anything, I just need to sit with my team and figure out a way to hurt Jannik on the court. That’s ultimately the way we’ve got to look at it and find different ways because at the moment we don’t have it.  

“So back to the drawing board, like I’ve done my whole career.

“I still don’t think this is my ceiling. I still think I’ve got more in the tank. So I’ll be searching for that.”

“I see other players that have made it further, have made semis, have made finals, and I do believe that I can be amongst them. If they have been able to accomplish that, then why not me?”

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