{"id":434254,"date":"2026-01-26T12:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T12:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/434254\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T12:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T12:19:15","slug":"home-hope-de-minaur-destroys-bublik-at-australian-open-to-set-up-alcaraz-showdown-australian-open-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/434254\/","title":{"rendered":"Home hope De Minaur destroys Bublik at Australian Open to set up Alcaraz showdown | Australian Open 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fuelled by revenge, dismissing doubters and upturning narratives, Alex de Minaur is within reach of somewhere he has never been. The home hope blitzed his bogeyman Alexander Bublik in just 92 minutes on Sunday night to book a place in his seventh grand slam quarter-final \u2013 and a tantalising showdown with the top seed Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s match finished in a blink, 6-4, 6-1, 6-1, before the sun went down over a surprisingly chilly Rod Laver Arena that left the Kazakhstani cussing to his coach about the conditions.<\/p>\n

De Minaur said he \u201cwanted my revenge\u201d against an opponent who had come back to beat him twice in 2025 and who is already a tournament winner in 2026. \u201cI was very pleased with getting over the line and not getting into trouble,\u201d the No 6 seed said. \u201cHe can so easily get back into a match, slap a couple of winners, and all of a sudden, the match just goes sideways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alcaraz now stands in front of Australia\u2019s highest Melbourne Park men\u2019s seed in two decades. The career-best form of De Minaur only builds anticipation for a clash that had already been circled when the draw was released 10 days ago.<\/p>\n

Famously, De Minaur has never gone beyond the quarter-finals of a grand slam despite getting there six times, including last summer in Melbourne when he was helpless against a rampant Jannik Sinner<\/a>. He has not beaten Alcaraz in five meetings.<\/p>\n

The Australian said he recognised Tuesday would be his \u201ctoughest test yet\u201d, and he believed Alcaraz was becoming more focused in matches. \u201cIn the past, he\u2019s maybe had times where he\u2019s maybe been able to give you a couple of cheap points here and there and let opponents get into the match, and he\u2019s been working on that, so he\u2019s going to only make it harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Minaur seems to be a different player at Melbourne Park this year, too, after trouncing first No 29 seed Frances Tiafoe and now Bublik. The latter had already won a lead-in tournament in Hong Kong three weeks ago and, at No 10, is at a career-high rank. Now, he is also the first top 10 player De Minaur has beaten at his home slam. \u201cI\u2019m just showing the people that I have improved, right?\u201d De Minaur said. \u201cI\u2019ve got more to give. I got tired of the narrative that these big hitters can take the racket out of my hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

A packed Rod Laver Arena was just settling into his contest with Bublik when the score was 4-4 in the opening set. They weren\u2019t expecting De Minaur to find an entirely new level. But he won 14 of the next 16 games to end the match as a contest.<\/p>\n

\u2018It was my fault, I didn\u2019t adjust to the conditions as fast as I usually would do,\u2019 reflected Alexander Bublik. Photograph: Jaimi Joy\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Midway through the barrage, Bublik was caught on a microphone complaining about the speed of the court, saying to his team: \u201cHow can I hit? It\u2019s a fucking ping pong ball, it doesn\u2019t fly.\u201d To the awaiting press afterwards, he repeated the point more eloquently, but was also gracious towards his opponent. \u201cIt was my fault, I didn\u2019t adjust to the conditions as fast as I usually would do,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s tennis, he played a great match, he deserved to win. Definitely, he was the better player.\u201d<\/p>\n

The De Minaur v Alcaraz match is set to be played on the hottest day in Melbourne since 2020. The Australian doesn\u2019t mind the heat \u2013 \u201cI mean, I\u2019m Aussie,\u201d he said \u2013 but he seems resigned to the roof being closed, as it was on Saturday when the temperature topped 40C.<\/p>\n

Whether the area is open or not, De Minaur will go into the match as the clear underdog. After his victory on Sunday, he was adamant that it is not his responsibility to tell people \u2013 despite his record in grand slams and against Alcaraz \u2013 that he has a chance. Rather, he just wants to show it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to come out here and plead Australia to believe in me, [that] I can do it,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m going to go out there, I\u2019m going to compete. I\u2019m going to go after the match, I\u2019m excited for the battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, ultimately it\u2019s something that I have never done, but, you know, there is always a first time for everything. I\u2019m hoping that will be on Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fuelled by revenge, dismissing doubters and upturning narratives, Alex de Minaur is within reach of somewhere he has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-434254","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\/434254","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=434254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}