Alex de Minaur on his grand slam dream: ‘Some things may happen, some things may not’
The Australian is pragmatic about his chances of winning a major in the Alcaraz-Sinner era but knows he plays his best tennis when he doesn’t put pressure on himselfIt’s hard to think of anyone in tennis who works harder than Alex de Minaur, 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’s 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’s 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.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 – including five of the past eight – but with Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner having split the last eight majors, opportunities are scarce.
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.De Minaur may not be quite on Murray’s level but the thinking is the same.“That is the narrative, it’s never good enough, right?” De Minaur says.
“For me, more than anything, it’s 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’t 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’s the little wins,I need to be a little bit nicer to myself,”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 “mentally killing him” 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.“You 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,” he says.“It’s something that I’ve been working towards for a while now, to not put so much expectation and pressure on myself, because I know that when I don’t, that’s 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’s 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’t 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’t do that.
”Sign up to Sport in FocusOur picture editors select their favourite sporting images from the past week, from the spectacular to the powerful, and with a little bit of fun thrown inafter newsletter promotionThat means playing a little more aggressively, as Murray did, hoping it will pay off against the top players in the biggest matches.“It is something that’s going to be in the works, in the pipeline, and hopefully I can show it off more often than not,” he says.After the “luxury” 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’ll have Christmas in Spain with his family for the first time in almost a decade before flying to Australia on Boxing Day.“It’s now about building for Australia, making sure I arrive there ready to go but just being wary of not getting too burnt out,” he says.
“I don’t 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’ll gladly play [fewer] weeks,That means I’m doing well,”
Bank of England expects budget will cut inflation by up to half a percentage point
The Bank of England expects Rachel Reeves’s budget will reduce the UK’s headline inflation rate by as much as half a percentage point next year.In a boost for the chancellor after last month’s high-stakes tax and spending statement, Clare Lombardelli, a deputy governor at the central bank, said its early analysis showed the policies would lower the annual inflation rate by 0.4 to 0.5 percentage points for a year from mid-2026.Reeves made cutting inflation a central ambition of her budget alongside a sweeping £26bn package of tax increases to cover a shortfall in the public finances and fund scrapping the two-child benefit policy
Ofgem approves early investment in three UK electricity ‘superhighways’
Three major UK electricity “superhighways” could move ahead sooner than expected to help limit the amount that households pay for windfarms to turn off during periods of high power generation.Current grid bottlenecks mean there is not enough capacity to transport the abundance of electricity generated in periods of strong winds to areas where energy demand is highest.The new high-voltage cable projects linking windfarms in Scotland and off the North Sea coast to densely populated areas in the south of the country could start operations by the early 2030s rather than towards the end of the decade, according to the sector regulator.This should help to cut the rising cost of paying windfarms to turn off when they generate more electricity than the grid can transport. Without better interconnection these payments, which consumers cover via their energy bills, are expected to reach more than £12bn a year by the end of the decade
Trump clears way for Nvidia to sell powerful AI chips to China
Donald Trump has cleared the way for Nvidia to begin selling its powerful AI computer chips to China, marking a win for the chip maker and its CEO, Jensen Huang, who has spent months lobbying the White House to open up sales in the country.Before Monday’s announcement, the US had prohibited sales of Nvidia’s most advanced chips to China over national security concerns.Trump posted to Truth Social on Monday: “I have informed President Xi, of China, that the United States will allow NVIDIA to ship its H200 products to approved customers in China, and other Countries, under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security. President Xi responded positively!”Trump said the Department of Commerce was finalising the details and that he was planning to make the same offer to other chip companies, including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel. Nvidia’s H200 chips are the company’s second most powerful, and far more advanced than the H20, which was originally designed as a lower-powered model for the Chinese market that would not breach restrictions, but which the US banned anyway in April
AI researchers are to blame for serving up slop | Letter
I’m not surprised to read that the field of artificial intelligence research is being overwhelmed by the very slop that it has pioneered (Artificial intelligence research has a slop problem, academics say: ‘It’s a mess’, 6 December). But this is a bit like bears getting indignant about all the shit in the woods.It serves AI researchers right for the irresponsible innovations that they’ve unleashed on the world, without ever bothering to ask the rest of us whether we wanted it.But what about the rest of us? The problem is not restricted to AI research – their slop generators have flooded other disciplines that bear no blame for this revolution. As a peer reviewer for top ethics journals, I’ve had to point out that submissions are AI-generated slop
Questions over Champ playoffs with only two clubs applying for promotion
Behind-the-scenes arguments about the proposed transformation of the top tier of English club rugby into a franchise-based league are intensifying with just two Champ clubs now eligible for promotion this season. Only Ealing Trailfinders and Doncaster Knights have formally applied to be promoted to the Prem with Worcester Warriors having declined to do so.A Rugby Football Union spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday that Worcester have taken the decision because the club is still “getting back on its feet” after its financial collapse in September 2022 with debts of over £25m. But with Ealing unable to satisfy the Prem minimum standards for the last two seasons and Doncaster currently off the pace in 10th place, it raises fresh questions about the raison d’être of the scheduled new end-of-season Champ playoffs, unveiled amid much fanfare earlier this year.Originally it had been intended that the playoff winner should qualify for a merit-based, two-leg showdown with the Prem’s bottom side but other scenarios have since emerged
England’s Ashes approach is scrambling the brains of the next cricketing generation | Mark Ramprakash
The cracks are starting to show with this England team and with the narrative we’ve been fed for three years after another defeat. Their identity of always taking the aggressive option, of relentlessly putting pressure on their opponents, isn’t holding up to scrutiny. So far in this series they haven’t had the strength needed to achieve it, and they haven’t had the skills either.I was confident that they could win the Ashes this time, mainly because I thought there was quality in the squad and that they had adapted their game to add intelligence and adaptability to their armoury. It’s becoming clear that neither of those beliefs were completely true
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