2026 Australian Open \u2013 Alex de Minaur chases first Slam semi at Melbourne Park<\/p>\n
De Minaur comes into the Australian Open at a joint-career high of No. 6 in the ATP rankings, safely established as one of the tour\u2019s most consistent and explosive players.<\/p>\n
With that comes towering expectations, not least because the 26-year-old is on the verge of a Grand Slam semi-final debut. He has been beaten in all six quarter-final appearances, including at last season\u2019s Australian Open to eventual champion Jannik Sinner<\/a>, and the 2025 US Open in a four-hour, 10-minute marathon.<\/p>\n The Sydney native will hope to build on a successful season, where he clinched 10 ATP titles and a personal-best 55 wins on tour. The next step is to be able to challenge tennis\u2019 ruling elite, having yet to beat Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> in 18 meetings.<\/p>\n De Minaur was expecting a tough run-in ahead at this year\u2019s home Slam, starting in the first round against former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini<\/a>, before the Italian announced on Saturday that he was withdrawing from the event due to fitness concerns, leaving De Minaur to instead face lucky loser Mackenzie McDonald of the US**.** With a potential quarter-final against Alcaraz. Can this be the season he makes it to the final four of a major?<\/p>\n Talking of Alcaraz, he begins his campaign against another Australian, world No. 79 Adam Walton, who is in the main draw for the third year in a row.<\/p>\n With 2022 doubles champions Thanasi Kokkinakis<\/a> and Nick Kyrgios<\/a> choosing to channel their efforts towards a second title, Rinky Hijikata<\/a> is one to keep an eye on. The Youth Olympic doubles silver medallist won the Australian Open men\u2019s doubles titles three years ago, and now enters the singles main draw on a wildcard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2026 Australian Open \u2013 Alex de Minaur chases first Slam semi at Melbourne Park De Minaur comes into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-243029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}