Alex de Minaur won’t be beating himself up after conceding he felt powerless to stop Novak Djokovic in full flight at Melbourne Park, not a player who supposedly is struggling due to hamstring problems.
A supreme Djokovic crashed de Minaur’s party to send the last home hope packing from the Australian Open with a ruthless fourth-round display on Monday night.
Showing no signs of the hamstring injury that had troubled him during the first three rounds, Djokovic delivered a centre-court masterclass to bully de Minaur 6-2 6-1 6-2 in two hours and six minutes on Rod Laver Arena.
“I don’t know. You tell me how you thought he looked out there,” de Minaur said when asked about his opponent’s court coverage. “Playing him, I thought he was moving pretty well, so I don’t know.”
“I think everyone’s kind of seeing what’s been happening over the couple of weeks. It’s the only thing everyone’s been talking about.
“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.”
Alex de Minaur. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
The emphatic defeat not only abruptly ended de Minaur’s pipe dream of breaking Australia’s 47-year men’s singles title drought in Melbourne but also served as another sobering grand slam reality check for the one-time US Open quarter-finalist.
“There’s lots of things to improve for me if I want to take the next step,” de Minaur said. “I want to do better than fourth round at a slam. It’s great, I’m happy, but I’m not content. I want more.
“I want to be in quarter-finals, be in the semi-finals, really go deep. This 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.”
While disappointed not to have offered fans on RLA anything to really cheer for, de Minaur hailed the Monday night version of Djokovic as the best opponent he had ever faced.
“Maybe I’m being very hard on myself right now, but it did seem like I played a pretty faultless Novak today,” the world No.24 said. “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, you’re just slightly off your game, this is what happens.”
Try as he might, the lightweight baseliner simply could not compete with Djokovic’s firepower as the former world No.1 clubbed 26 winners to nine and broke de Minaur six times to book a quarter-final date on Wednesday with fifth seed Andrey Rublev.
“Tonight it wasn’t obvious I was dealing with an injury,” Djokovic said. “I didn’t feel anything – today was great. I thank my medical team, my physio, thank God, anybody that really helped me.
“I kept my focus all the way through and I played the best match of this year so far. I cannot say I’m sorry that you haven’t watched a longer match, to be honest. I really wanted to win in straight sets.”
Moving more freely and growing in confidence, Djokovic will be a hot favourite against Russia’s Rublev as he continues his pursuit of a mind-boggling 10th Open title after heaping yet more pain on Australians at the majors.
The super Serb broke Nick Kyrgios’ heart in last year’s Wimbledon final and has now improved his win-loss record over Aussies at the slams – including Lleyton Hewitt, Bernard Tomic and John Millman – to 12-1.
His lone grand slam defeat to an Australian came against de Minaur’s mentor Hewitt more than 16 years ago in New York when Djokovic was still a teenager.
Despite copping his heaviest defeat in 22 grand slam appearances, de Minaur still declared his summer a success after matching his career-best run in Melbourne and taking down 22-times grand slam winner Rafael Nadal, the dethroned Open champion, at the United Cup in Sydney.
“I had a great match against (Adrian) Mannarino (in round two). That was a positive. Made the second week of a slam again. That’s another positive,” he said.
“Over the Aussie summer I got a win over Rafa, which is pretty positive. There’s definitely positives out there.”
Kyrgios in awe of Djoker
Nick Kyrgios has emerged from surgery on the knee injury that ruled him out of the Australian Open in upbeat mood.
The Australian No.1’s post-op recuperation began with tuning into Melbourne Park to watch Alex de Minaur take on Novak Djokovic.
After the Serbian nine-times Australian Open champion blew away his compatriot 6-2 6-1 6-2 Kyrgios tweeted “Watching Novak tonight makes me feel good about my tennis in general. how have I beaten this guy”, accompanied by two laughing-with-tears emojis.
Sounds like a way of reminding everyone that he is one of the few players on tour who have defeated Djokovic.
Although Djokovic beat Kyrgios in last year’s Wimbledon final the Aussie has a better head-to-head record against the 21-times grand slam champ, defeating him on both their previous encounters, albeit both were back in 2017.
The 27-year-old Canberran had gone under the knife earlier on Monday in his home city.
He had been ruled out of the Australian Open after an MRI scan on his knee revealed a cyst as a result of a small lateral meniscus tear.
Coincidentally it was a practice match against Djokovic that confirmed to Kyrgios his knee was too badly affected to play in the tournament.
Before the operation he tweeted a photo of himself ready for the operating theatre with the words ‘It’s time’ and an anxious emoji.
Afterwards he sent one of himself on a hospital bed with air tubes in his nostrils and making a middle finger gesture, but with four green ticks seemingly indicating the op went well.
That was confirmed when he posted on Instagram: “Surgery complete. I’ll be doing everything I can do get back to my best. To the real ones checking in and sending the vibes.. I love you.”
Pegula hungry for semi-final slam showing
The highest seed remaining in the women’s field, American Jessica Pegula, says she never been better positioned to make her first grand slam semi-final.
The world No.3 has made the quarters at Melbourne Park three years straight while in 2022 she also made the final eight at Roland Garros and the US Open.
The 28-year-old, who was eliminated last year by world No. 1 and eventual champion Ash Barty, feels this is her time to shine.
Two-time champion Victoria Azarenka is her next hurdle, with the pair meeting on Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday night.
“I definitely want to reach a semi – it will be my first semi and I have a great shot here,” Pegula said. “I think I’m playing probably the best I have than in any of my other grand slam quarter-finals and that helps.
“I feel more experience coming in here … I definitely feel very confident going into this quarter-final, that I’m playing the best tennis and I have a very good chance of making a semi.”
Pegula described the honour of holding the highest ranking as a “cool stat” but said there were plenty of other threats still in the field despite the early exit of the top two seeds Iga Swiatek and Ons Jabeur.
“I still don’t really feel like that – I mean I look at the draw and there’s (Elena) Rybakina, who won Wimbledon last year, you have Vika (Azarenka) who does really well here.
(Jelena) Ostapenko is a slam champion as well so there’s so many people I think that are playing well and also have big games where they can really kind of take you off the court.”
Belarusian mum Azarenka won the Open in 2012 and 2013 and bowed out in the fourth round last year.
The 33-year-old has been playing well above her 24th seeding.
“Vika is just a super aggressive baseliner and she loves to play here,” Pegula said.
“She’s just a great competitor and when she’s on and she’s playing her game, she can just be relentless with her style.”
In other Tuesday quarter-final matches, Kazakh Rybakina, who eliminated Swiatek, takes on 2017 French Open champion Ostapenko in the day match on Rod Laver Arena.
Russian Karen Khachanov and American Sebastian Korda, whose father Petr is a former Open champion, meet in the men’s final eight in an afternoon affair.
Third-seeded Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas and Czech surprise packet Jiri Lehecka are the last match onto the main arena.
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