‘Stoked’ de Minaur seals exclusive tour finals spot with dominant Paris Masters win

6 days ago 3

Alex de Minaur can breathe easy after becoming the first Australian since Lleyton Hewitt in 2002-03 to qualify for the ATP’s exclusive end-of-year tour finals twice in a row.

After weeks of stress – and fear a hip injury could derail his season again – de Minaur locked in his Turin spot with a 6-2, 6-2 demolition of Russia’s Karen Khachanov to reach the Paris Masters quarter-finals and keep alive his hopes of breaking into the top five for the first time.

Australia’s Alex de Minaur is into the Paris Masters quarter-finals.

Only the tour’s eight best-performed players make the cut at the prestigious event in the Italian city, and the Australian star was surprised to find out after his win that he was in.

“That’s actually confirmed? It is? Geez, that feels amazing,” de Minaur said.

“There’s a lot of stress going on the last couple of weeks – you just made my day a whole lot better. I did my best not to keep an eye out on the race [to Turin], but it was too hard. You don’t want to add extra elements to your head.

“There’s a feeling in the back of your mind – you kind of know where everyone’s at – but I didn’t know that with the win today, I was actually qualified, so I’m extremely stoked.”

De Minaur, who is already at an equal-career-high No.6 in the rankings, made his debut at the tour finals last year, but the serious hip injury he suffered at Wimbledon four months earlier left him a shell of himself.

He lost all three of his round-robin matches – against Jannik Sinner, Daniil Medvedev and Taylor Fritz – and won only one set as he competed under duress.

De Minaur believes it will be a different story this time around as he prepares to face a Turin field that so far includes Carlos Alcaraz, Sinner, Alexander Zverev, Novak Djokovic, Ben Shelton and Fritz. Lorenzo Musetti and Felix Auger-Aliassime are battling it out for the eighth spot, but there is a chance Djokovic will not play.

“One hundred per cent, it’s a different feeling [this time],” de Minaur said.

De Minaur is thrilled to make the ATP Tour finals again.

“I’m feeling physically great, which is already a much better version of myself than last year, and I’m extremely stoked with my level. I’m looking forward not just to making up the numbers this time, and hopefully being able to do some damage over there.”

De Minaur has never reached a Masters 1000 final, but is in good form after reaching the quarter-finals or better at his previous three tournaments at Beijing (ATP 500), Shanghai (Masters 1000) and Vienna (ATP 500).

It took Sinner to stop him in Beijing and Vienna, but de Minaur pinched a set off him in China, while Medvedev eliminated him in Shanghai.

De Minaur is the highest-ranked player left in the top half of the draw, which lost world No.1 Alcaraz in a shock second-round upset to Brit Cameron Norrie. He needs to win the title to overtake fifth-ranked Djokovic.

The Australian next faces his Roland-Garros conqueror Alexander Bublik, who dumped Fritz out of the event, before a potential semi-final against Auger-Aliassime or shock Shanghai Masters champion Valentin Vacherot.

Bublik stunned de Minaur from a two-set deficit in the second round on Parisian clay in May, so he will have plenty of motivation.

Four-time grand slam winner Sinner looms ominously in the bottom half. The Italian superstar can reclaim the world No.1 ranking if he wins the Paris title after Alcaraz’s early exit.

De Minaur’s optimistic outlook is an excellent development from only a fortnight ago, when he withdrew from the Ultimate Tennis Showdown event in Hong Kong as the defending champion due to hip concerns.

De Minaur could crack the top five in the rankings for the first time.

He told Tennis Majors at the time that he was dealing with “a lot of pain” and would undergo scans to determine his next steps, but the decision to skip the exhibition tournament was mostly about being cautious.

“It’s a hip injury – the one I sustained last year after Wimbledon which sidelined me for a long time so it is an area of concern,” he said.

“So, this is something that I can’t take any chances with. Last year it sidelined me for three or four months, and I played the rest of the year with pain. Now, it’s warning signs. I need to make sure everything is good. I don’t want to have the same problem as last year. I need to be smart and look after the body.”

De Minaur returned to action in Vienna last week, and his comment after the Khachanov win about being in great physical shape means he appears to have dodged an injury bullet.

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.