De Minaur cops brutal Australian Open draw<\/a><\/p>\nAlex de Minaur is slated to begin his Australian Open campaign with a clash against former semifinalist Matteo Berrettini. Here is everything you need to know about this year’s draw.<\/p>\n
Slated to face de Minaur in the first round of the Open on Monday, Berrettini’s run-in with illness is the latest of fitness troubles after an injury-ravaged 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n
Knocked out in the second round at last year’s Australian Open, Berrettini was forced to retire from the Italian Open due to an oblique injury.<\/p>\n
Berrettini, currently ranked 56th in the world, then ruled himself out of the French Open and the US Open following a flare-up of the same issue.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old has now missed seven grand slams in four years, but was able to return in time to play a pivotal role in Italy’s Davis Cup win in November.<\/p>\n
Berrettini \u2014 who reached the Australian Open semi-finals in 2022 \u2014 boasts a 3-2 lead against world number six de Minaur in the head-to-head count.<\/p>\n
But the Sydneysider’s wins over the Italian have both come on hard courts.<\/p>\n
Berrettini is the first opponent in a nightmare draw for de Minaur, who enters his home grand slam with his highest-ever seeding.<\/p>\n
Argentina’s world number 74 Mariano Navone or Serbia’s 96th-ranked Hamad Medjedovic wait for de Minaur should he defeat Berrettini.<\/p>\n
American 29th seed Frances Tiafoe is a likely opponent in round three, with potential shootouts against grand slam nemesis Alexander Bublik in the last 16, before the top-ranked Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matteo Berrettini has hit a speed bump ahead of his Australian Open clash against local hope Alex de…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[18278,64,63,6571,32648,647,197107,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-418646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-alex-de-minaur","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-open","12":"tag-matteo-berrettini","13":"tag-melbourne","14":"tag-oblique-injury","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418646","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=418646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}