Alex de Minaur Is Only Just Beginning

TIMING, all too often, is outside our control. So it is on this spring afternoon, when Esquire meets with Alex de Minaur for a collaboration arranged months in advance. The air is warm, dry and still, ideal for a photo shoot on a residential court in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. Alas, there is little chance of de Minaur’s mood matching the weather, for he is fresh off two of the most painful defeats of his tennis life. On each occasion, facing the media afterwards, he cut the forlorn figure of a man who’s realised he still has a fatal flaw he thought he’d conquered.