{"id":334691,"date":"2025-12-09T14:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/334691\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T14:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:18:09","slug":"alex-de-minaur-on-his-grand-slam-dream-some-things-may-happen-some-things-may-not-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/334691\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex de Minaur on his grand slam dream: \u2018Some things may happen, some things may not\u2019 | Tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to think of anyone in tennis who works harder than Alex de Minaur<\/a>, the Australian who next month will once again carry the hopes of a nation as he tries to become the first home winner of the men\u2019s title at the Australian Open for 50 years. No one is faster around the court, no one more diligent off it than the 26-year-old. It\u2019s a work ethic that has helped him to 10 titles so far in his career and he ends 2025 as the world No 7, his highest year-end ranking, and having won the prestigious Newcombe medal for a fourth time.<\/p>\n

But in a sport where success at the very top level is ultimately judged by performances at grand slams, De Minaur has so far fallen short. He has made the quarter-finals of a major six times \u2013 including five of the past eight \u2013 but with Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner having split the last eight majors, opportunities are scarce.<\/p>\n

The pressure at home to win a big one is immense but with age also comes a little clarity. Andy Murray lost his first four grand slam finals, the fourth a particularly painful one, to Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2012. It was only then, as Murray accepted that he might never win a slam, that he found the freedom to play his best tennis, winning the Olympics just four weeks later, the start of a golden period in which he won three slams, another Olympic gold medal, the Davis Cup and became world No 1.<\/p>\n

De Minaur may not be quite on Murray\u2019s level but the thinking is the same. \u201cThat is the narrative, it\u2019s never good enough, right?\u201d De Minaur says. \u201cFor me, more than anything, it\u2019s using that as motivation towards achieving that [a slam title], which is obviously a big goal of mine, but at the same time, accepting that some things may happen, some things may not. Ultimately, I want to be happy with what I do in my career, and that goes down to what I can control. I can\u2019t control if I win slams or not. I can control if I get better and I put in the right attitude and effort. And at the same time, give myself a pat on the back every now and again. It\u2019s the little wins. I need to be a little bit nicer to myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex de Minaur is seen on a big screen after being
awarded the Newcombe medal at a ceremony in Melbourne this week. Photograph: Graham Denholm\/Getty Images for Tennis Australia<\/p>\n

The eureka moment for De Minaur came last month in Turin, at the ATP Finals. After losing to Lorenzo Musetti from match point up, De Minaur admitted it was \u201cmentally killing him\u201d to continually lose tight matches against the best players. But two days later, he played one of his best matches of the year to beat Taylor Fritz and qualify for the semi-finals. Beaten in the semis by Sinner, he nevertheless emerged from the event a changed man.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou live and die by the results, but ultimately, the best way to perform is to not give results that much importance, and you can play more free,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s something that I\u2019ve been working towards for a while now, to not put so much expectation and pressure on myself, because I know that when I don\u2019t, that\u2019s when my best tennis comes. Instead of focusing on those results, just try to embrace a little bit more the process and the way I want to play, because that\u2019s one of the biggest things [about] all the shifts in mindset I had in Turin. I was going to be completely OK if the result didn\u2019t go my way, but ultimately, I just wanted to stick to my game plan and play my way, and I know that that was going to make me feel a whole lot better than if I didn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That means playing a little more aggressively, as Murray did, hoping it will pay off against the top players in the biggest matches. \u201cIt is something that\u2019s going to be in the works, in the pipeline, and hopefully I can show it off more often than not,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

After the \u201cluxury\u201d of a week and a half off, De Minaur is already well into his pre-season and on Sunday, he picked up a cool $964,000 for winning the UTS exhibition event in London for the second year in a row. He\u2019ll have Christmas in Spain with his family for the first time in almost a decade before flying to Australia on Boxing Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s now about building for Australia, making sure I arrive there ready to go but just being wary of not getting too burnt out,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t think I want to be playing too much more, ideally playing less, but that all depends on results as well. So hopefully the results can help me out, and then I\u2019ll gladly play [fewer] weeks. That means I\u2019m doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard to think of anyone in tennis who works harder than Alex de Minaur, the Australian who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-334691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}