2 weeks ago
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In Alex de Minaur’s own words, his quarter-final loss at the US Open was a “wasted opportunity”.
His shattered reaction to his 4-6, 7-6 (9-7), 7-5, 7-6 (7-4) defeat to Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime across more than four hours of drama was another illustration of how desperately he wants more.
The six-time major quarter-finalist has established a well-earned reputation as one of the world’s best and most dependable tennis stars. He is Australia’s best men’s player since Lleyton Hewitt.
De Minaur joins world No.1 Jannik Sinner and fellow grand slam champions Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic as the only men to reach at least the last eight at five (or more) of the past seven majors. That is elite company, yet Australia’s standard-bearer knows he does not belong in that conversation.
Djokovic has won more major titles than any man in history, while Sinner and Alcaraz are on pace to do the unthinkable and be just as dominant as Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer before them.
Meanwhile, de Minaur is coming to terms with being unable to capitalise on his greatest grand slam chance.
Alex de Minaur lost his sixth grand slam quarter-final against Felix Auger-Aliassime at the US Open.Credit: AP
This was only the second time de Minaur faced a lower-ranked opponent in the last eight at a major, but he was a shadow of his physical self when he did so against Brit Jack Draper in last year’s US Open quarter-finals.
There were no such concerns this time: he was physically fit, confident after winning a lead-up tournament in Washington, and had dropped only one set in advancing to the Auger-Aliassime showdown.
With all due respect to Auger-Aliassime, also in de Minaur’s favour was not having Sinner, Alcaraz, Djokovic or even Alexander Zverev staring at him from across the net.
Another of his quarter-final conquerors, Dominic Thiem, is almost a year into retirement. But there was a familiar theme: de Minaur’s serving woes.
There have been many words written and spoken about de Minaur’s serve, particularly his attempts in more recent years to add speed to it, which delivers him more cheap points but comes at the expense of accuracy.
It let him down in his equally devastating loss to Djokovic in the fourth round at Wimbledon two months ago, and was a liability against Auger-Aliassime.
De Minaur landed only 42 per cent of his first serves and delivered 11 double faults, including two in the fourth-set tie-break – the second after getting back on level terms. At one stage in the third set, he had made only six of 22 first serves.
Australian doubles great Todd Woodbridge put it simply on Nine’s coverage: “You can’t have such a poor percentage and expect to get through”.
Woodbridge, two-time grand slam finalist Mark Philippoussis and respected coach Craig O’Shannessy spoke to this masthead about de Minaur’s serve after his Wimbledon loss this year. They agreed that “Demon” had to make technical changes if he were to go deeper at these events.
“He’s got to rotate his shoulders, get his right shoulder back, and get more turn and torque. What he does is take the racquet head out to the right, and that opens him up, and he gets too front-on,” Woodbridge said.
“That [results in] lack of control and trajectory. The best players have great shoulder rotation, hold it in there, and then they uncoil.”
Woodbridge and de Minaur had a heart-to-heart outside the players’ locker room at the All England club, and his serve was part of that discussion.
Significantly, de Minaur addressed his serve before journalists in New York even quizzed him on it after losing to Auger-Aliassime.
“The biggest thing for me is my serve. My serve has been letting me down in big matches,” de Minaur said.
“I put myself in and gave myself every chance to extend this match again, and be in the fifth set, like I did against Novak at Wimbledon. But, it’s pretty tough to win a high-quality match serving the way I did today.
“It’s something that needs to improve because, if not, I’m going to put myself into a lot of trouble frequently against the top players in the later stages of these tournaments.”
De Minaur has crashed through a threshold where there is no doubt about his legitimacy or place in Australian tennis history. But what that also creates is a hunger for more, not only from him but his legion of fans.
A player who has famously done everything possible to eke the most out of himself needs to find a way to do so again. It might even take de Minaur looking outside his close-knit team for help.
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“I’ve served quite well and got a lot of free points [at times], and it’s just in those big matches, that’s the first thing that goes away,” he said.
“It’s a shame because it creates a lot more pressure on everything else, and then as the match goes on, I’m playing with second serves, I’m on the back foot, and I feel like I’ve got to do a little bit more, then I start missing ground strokes, which I probably wouldn’t do.”
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