Alex de Minaur will console himself in the postmortem of his Australian Open fourth-round hiding from Novak Djokovic that he was beaten by a “pretty faultless” opponent.
The world No.24 walked onto Rod Laver Arena with the host nation’s hopes resting on his shoulders as the last Australian standing, but could wrest only five games off a brilliant Djokovic in a ruthless 6-2, 6-1, 6-2 result.
Alex de Minaur walks off after losing in straight sets to Novak Djokovic in their fourth round match.Credit:Getty Images
He said afterwards he had almost certainly never played anyone better than the version of Djokovic he faced on Monday night, even admitting he “didn’t really know what to do out there”.
De Minaur also stopped narrowly short of questioning the validity of Djokovic’s much-scrutinised left hamstring issue – pointing out that the Serbian was “moving pretty well” – but left little to the imagination.
“Look, I don’t know. I think everyone’s kind of seeing what’s been happening over the past couple of weeks. It’s the only thing everyone’s been talking about,” he said.
“Today, I was out there on court against him. Either I’m not a good enough tennis player to expose that, or … it looked good to me. He was just too good in all aspects.”
After career-best upsets of Daniil Medvedev and Rafael Nadal spiked his confidence to all-time levels, de Minaur must now find a way to avoid mental scarring from his latest bout with a top-five star.
“Ultimately, these are the matches I want to play. Maybe I’m being very hard on myself right now, but it did seem
like I played a pretty faultless Novak today,” de Minaur said.
“I could be wrong. I could then look at the match and see what I could have done better to expose him in any way, shape or form. The feeling I’ve got just walking off the court is that I played a pretty high-level Novak, which I feel like if he has that level, he will win another title here.
“I’ll try not to take it too hard on myself because ultimately these guys; they’ve done a lot in the sport. If they bring their best level, and you’re just slightly off your game, this is what happens.”
A frank de Minaur, who discussed his top-10 goals in the week leading up to this year’s Open, said he was no longer satisfied with making the round of 16 at grand slams, something he has now achieved five times.
The 23-year-old made it to the quarter-finals just once from those opportunities, at the COVID-weakened 2020 US Open.
“I’m happy with the summer I’ve had, but really I want to do better than fourth round at a slam. It’s great, I’m happy, but I’m not content,” he said.
“I want more. I want to be in the quarter-finals, be in the semi-finals, really go deep. I want to take the next step. That’s what I want to do.
“Like everything, it will add fuel to the fire. I’ll get my head down, I’ll speak to my team, and work on the things I
need to work on to take the next step because this is not where I want my goals to be, making fourth rounds of slams.”
De Minaur was still able to draw positives from his hard-fought four-set victory over French veteran Adrian Mannarino in the second round at Melbourne Park, as well as his defeat of Nadal at the United Cup.
“There are definitely positives out there,” he said.
“Now, it’s just about forgetting what happened out there today and moving on because ultimately in this life you’re going to have a couple of these performances, nights, days, where things just don’t go your way.
“There’s plenty of them. If you take it too hard, then it’s going to linger for a while. You’ve got to get ready for the next week.”
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