Two days after “winning ugly” against Francisco Cerúndolo, Alex de Minuar produced some of his best tennis of the summer against American Alex Michelsen to book a quarter-final showdown with world No.1 Jannik Sinner.
On court early after a brief Iga Świątek clinic, de Minaur outclassed and outworked the 20-year-old American on a balmy Melbourne evening 6-0, 7-6(5) 6-3 to book his fourth consecutive Grand Slam quarter-final.
“It means the world,” de Minaur said when speaking to Jim Courier post-match about completing the "box set" of Grand Slam quarters.
"There's nothing I want to do more than play well here in Australia.
"I'm glad I finally made it to the quarter-finals... but let's go for bigger and better things."
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While unseeded, smart money suggested Michelsen would present a significant threat to de Minaur’s chances of progressing to his maiden Australian Open quarter-final after three consecutive round of 16 exits.
Starting his year in Brisbane before flying over the ditch, Michelsen had already picked up six for the season including defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas, Karen Khanachanov, and current quarter-finalist Lorenzo Sonego (in Auckland).
That threat, however, was quickly snuffed out as de Minaur raced to a 6-0 lead in 27 minutes.
Looking to attack and impose himself from the baseline, de Minaur, who incredibly only landed a mere 33 per cent of first serves, was too stable for the American who tried to hit his way through the Australian; which only exacerbated his problems.
The second set looked set to follow a similar narrative. For the first four games in particular de Minaur was impenetrable when defending and irresistible when attacking as he took a 3-1 lead. Even when Michelsen was winning points, he had to produce the extraordinary to achieve the ordinary (like holding serve).
Both players, however, started to regress to their mean. Michelsen’s level rose, and de Minuar began to struggle to defend his still-faltering serve and ferocious groudstroke battles became commonplace.
Nevertheless, as the games ticked over it seemed that de Minaur would always keep his counterpart at arm’s length.
Serving for the set at 5-4, 30-30, de Minuar blinked. Again putting his first serve in the net, a de Minuar body serve was swatted away by Michelsen before a tense exchange ensued and de Minaur cleared the baseline with a cross-court forehand.
Facing only his second break point of the match, the de Minuar serve again failed with both attempts misfiring.
In the end, a tie-break was required. Michelsen got the early mini-break before dumping a put-away forehand volley into the net to give it back.
Serving a 5-5, de Minaur fired an ace, turned to his box, and roared to the crowd’s delight. When Michelsen then fired an approach forehand wide, the set was his.
Facing a two-set-to-love deficit, Michelsen, with a mountain to climb and a crowd to contain, ever-so-slightly dropped his level from that which got him back into the match.
The pair traded blows to 2-2 but de Minaur went for broke on return in the sixth game and pressed Michelsen’s groundstrokes to the point they cracked.
Holding his advantage to 5-2, the New South Welshman closed the match as he outlasted the Michelsen forehand in the final two exchanges.
Like many, de Minaur knew the importance of the second set to conserve his energy and close out the match.
"I had my opportunities in the second set to maybe run away with that," he acknowledged.
"He raised his level and made that a tough match for me.
"That second set was massive.
For his efforts, de Minaur must now face perhaps his toughest opponent and the man who has won his past 18 Grand Slam hardcourt matches, Jannik Sinner.
Sinner, who is an undesirable match-up for anyone at the best of times, has a frighteningly good record against de Minaur leading their head-to-head 9-0.
In what is tough reading for de Minaur fans, the Australian has won only two sets against the Italian dating back to 2019, and none in his last six encounters; three of which occurred in the last 12 months.
Unsurprisingly, de Minaur knows he'll need to bring his A-game but the 25-year-old remains confident of his chances of causing an upset.
"I'm looking forward to it," he told the Rod Laver Arena crowd.
"It's going to be an incredibly tough match and I'm going to have to do something I've never done before... but why not start here?"
In his post-match presser, de Minaur, as expected, was asked about his chances against Sinner given the Aussie's form and confidence leading into arguably the biggest match of his career.
"You know, the great thing about tennis is that once you step out on the court, you both start at 0-0, right? It's a whole new day, a whole new match, and anything can happen. Sports is unpredictable. That's exactly the mindset I'm going to have going into that match," he said.
"I'm looking forward to it. That's the matches I want to be playing. Ultimately, if there is anything, it's going to be my first match this whole tournament where I'm the underdog and don't have all the pressure and expectation of having to win. So it's quite exciting, and I'm looking forward to that."
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