{"id":429761,"date":"2026-01-22T10:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T10:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/429761\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T10:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T10:42:15","slug":"alex-de-minaur-is-one-of-the-best-tennis-players-in-the-world-and-deserves-the-respect-of-the-australian-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/429761\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex de Minaur is one of the best tennis players in the world and deserves the respect of the Australian public"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex de Minaur will probably be our last singles hope, again, at this year\u2019s Australian Open. He is as reliable as your grandma\u2019s Toyota Corolla.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same story as at eight of the past nine majors, during which world No.6 de Minaur reached the quarter-finals five times and the round of 16 in three others.<\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n

Alex de Minaur is our best and most reliable tennis player.Credit: AP<\/p>\n

De Minaur and qualifier Maddison Inglis are the only locals to advance to the third round at Melbourne Park this year. At the time of writing, James Duckworth must upset two-time defending champion Jannik Sinner to join them.<\/p>\n

Our media\u2019s optimistic tennis reporting over the years has become the butt of international jokes.<\/p>\n

The Tennis Podcast has a segment during this Australian Open in which the three hosts poke fun at our penchant for labelling overachieving local underdogs as \u201csensations\u201d, while retired American John Isner described Australia\u2019s media on the Nothing Major podcast as \u201csuper annoying\u201d for how we \u201cpump up\u201d our players.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

\u201cAlexei Popyrin, can he make the run count in Australia this year?\u201d Isner said in a mocking tone.<\/p>\n

Duckworth, Alex Bolt and Sam Groth copped a light-hearted drive-by in the same segment before fellow ex-American player Sam Querrey, to ram home Isner\u2019s point, imitated in a dramatic, broadcast tone: \u201cIs this the year Hijikata makes the second week?\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it is not. Hijikata lost in the second round on Thursday, continuing a torrid two days when eight of the 11 remaining Australians exited the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex de Minaur will probably be our last singles hope, again, at this year\u2019s Australian Open. He is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-429761","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\/429761","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=429761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}