{"id":416213,"date":"2026-01-16T05:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T05:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/416213\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T05:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T05:40:13","slug":"australian-open-2026-carlos-alcaraz-interview-off-season-alex-de-minaur-exhibition-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/416213\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Open 2026 | Carlos Alcaraz interview, off-season; Alex de Minaur exhibition match"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> wasn’t in the mood to give away any of his off-season secrets after dominating Alex de Minaur<\/a> in a Rod Laver Arena exhibition match.<\/p>\n

The final score read 6-3, 6-4 with de Minaur telling Nine’s coverage the Spaniard “came out hot and stayed hot”.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz comes into the Australian Open<\/a> as world No.1 and is coming off a season where he won the French Open and US Open.<\/p>\n

Watch the Adelaide International and Australian Open qualifying live and free on 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, Alcaraz’s record at the Australian Open isn’t as pretty, with his best result a quarter final.<\/p>\n

Keeping the hunting pack at bay and a better Australian Open would’ve been a focus for improvement during Alcaraz’s off-season but he wasn’t giving much away.<\/p>\n

“If I tell you, I think the other players are listening to you, so I’m not sure if I [should say],” he told Nine’s Wally Masur.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Carlos Alcaraz. \u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Tennis has found an unlikely golden goose born from chaos<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Smith’s surprise take on England’s pink-ball boycott<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Sinner admits ‘doubts’ ahead of ‘difficult’ title defence<\/a><\/p>\n

Masur joked everything was in-house but Alcaraz stayed smooth.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got to still watch out for the other players,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Obviously everyone is putting in hard work so you have to be ready for that.<\/p>\n

“About myself, I just need to maintain my focus, and don’t lose the focus during the matches or tournament. So I’ve tried to maintain things off the court much better … which I think will help on the court and you can give 100 per cent.<\/p>\n

“That’s something I’ve been working on, to be happy, to behave well, to stay positive all the time, so I think those things that some people may think aren’t important, for me in tennis it’s the most important thing.”<\/p>\n

One of those rivals Alcaraz could play later in the tournament is de Minaur<\/a> with the two slated for a quarter final showdown if they’re successful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz wasn’t in the mood to give away any of his off-season secrets after dominating Alex de…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-416213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}