Alex de Minaur fell a distance short at the Australian Open. Will he ever win a major? | Simon Cambers
There are two ways to look at this.Either Alex de Minaur is not good enough to beat Carlos Alcaraz – and Jannik Sinner, for that matter – or the world’s top two players are in a class of their own.Sadly, for Australia’s top-ranked player, both things are true.De Minaur’s 7-5, 6-2, 6-1 quarter-final defeat by Alcaraz on a hot, breezy evening at the Australian Open on Tuesday was a humbling experience.The manner of his performances in the opening four rounds suggested that he was ready to push the world No 1.
But as the evening unfolded, De Minaur’s chances faded in all-too-familiar fashion,Shortly afterwards, while Alcaraz was conducting his on-court interview with Jim Courier, all smiles, De Minaur was in the cool-down room, surrounded by his coaching team and mentor Lleyton Hewitt,His face obscured, all you could see of De Minaur was his arms, thrust out to each side, palms facing up,The sentiment was obvious,What was he supposed to do?De Minaur has now lost all six of his matches with Alcaraz and – an even more brutal statistic – all 13 of his matches against Sinner, winning just two sets against the Italian.
One of those came in Beijing last September, an indication, De Minaur felt, that he was getting closer.He pushed Alcaraz to a first-set tiebreak when they played at the ATP Finals last year, and here at Melbourne Park, he was close to forcing another in the opener.But in the final cold, cruel analysis, he fell a distance short.By the end, he looked helpless, while Alcaraz laughed and joked with his team, trying out new shots, enjoying himself.De Minaur knows that he can beat everyone else.
Of the rest of the world’s top 10, he has wins over all of them, except for Ben Shelton, who won their only encounter to date,But a closer look at the head-to-heads should be concerning,Of those eight players, De Minaur leads against just two; 6-5 on Taylor Fritz and 3-2 on Alexander Bublik, the current No 9 and No 10 respectively,This was De Minaur’s seventh loss in a grand slam quarter-final from seven attempts,There is no doubt that he is a fine player, who continues to improve every year.
No one is faster than him,But he also lacks natural power,He doesn’t have the serve of a Nick Kyrgios and when he plays the top two, he tends to press too much,For the third time in a row against Alcaraz, his first serve percentage was below 60% (at 55%), leaving his second serve vulnerable,De Minaur won just 38% of points on his second serve and even when he did make the first, he won just 59%.
By contrast, Alcaraz only found the mark 57% of the time on first serve, but he won 77% of points on his first and 54% on his second,De Minaur has no margin for error, his flat groundstrokes constantly flirting with the net,The first set against Alcaraz, in which he competed brilliantly, ended when his forehand caught the tape and flew wide,Alcaraz boasts huge natural power but when he needs to, he can hit almost as hard, with at least a foot of margin over the net, a massive advantage,Sinner can do the same.
On Tuesday, De Minaur ended up hitting almost twice as many forced errors as Alcaraz.The good thing is De Minaur knows it.“There’s a whole lot of risk for me to play at a very high ball speed and Jannik or Carlos, they have so many revolutions on the ball that they’re able to not only play at a higher speed but also have their consistency, because they’re able to get that spin that helps the ball come down and create different angles as well,” he said.Alcaraz and Sinner have split the past eight slams and are playing tennis on a different level to everyone else.But Australian men’s tennis is not in the rudest of health, either.
Lleyton Hewitt remains the last Australian man to win a grand slam, at Wimbledon in 2002, while Kyrgios is the only one to have made a final since 2005,At the end of 2024, Australia had nine men in the top 100; now it’s just six and come Monday, De Minaur will be the only one in the top 50,More worryingly, none of Australia’s 18 entrants in the junior singles events here made it past the third round,De Minaur can’t suddenly come out with a big topspin forehand, so instead he will continue to tweak, to tinker and improve, hoping that one of the top two slips up somewhere and he can capitalise,For now, it remains a slim prospect.
Reform’s Matt Goodwin is sure he’s the right man for Gorton and Denton. He just doesn’t know why… | John Crace
An idiot’s guide to running a byelection campaign. First, know your constituency boundaries. Sometimes easier said than done. On Tuesday morning, Lee Anderson was to be found doing a photo op for the Gorton and Denton byelection by posing outside the Stanley hotel. Which just happens to be in Angela Rayner’s constituency
30% of Britons think Burnham would do better job than Starmer as prime minister, poll suggests – as it happened
Reform UK has announced that Matt Goodwin, the campaigner and former academic, as its candidate in Gorton and Denton.In a news release, Reform said:Matt is a leading writer, broadcaster and academic. He was made by Manchester - which he calls ‘the greatest city in the world’. He lived in the city for many years and considers it home.Matt’s family is from Manchester
Was Labour right to block Andy Burnham’s return as an MP? | Letters
The argument that it would be too costly to run a mayoral election in Manchester and run the risk of its being won by Reform UK is perfectly valid (‘Huge mistake’: Labour in turmoil as Burnham blocked from byelection race, 25 January). The problem is that that is not how the decision of the Labour party’s national executive committee will be read. And this is now a pattern.Kicking off with the foolhardy acceptance of luxury goodies from Lord Alli, fast followed by the removal of pensioners’ winter fuel payments and going on to a failure to read the runes over the grooming gangs and many other depressing own goals, this government has demonstrated a quite astonishing lack of self-awareness.Keir Starmer is now beginning to resemble, of all unlikely people, Boris Johnson in his seeming inability to grasp how badly some of his decisions – and subsequent reversals – reflect on him
‘Not surprised at all’: Fareham voters size up Suella Braverman’s Reform switch
For Jamie Jewell, the pub owner at the Golden Lion, there has been radio silence from his local MP, Suella Braverman. In January last year, the MP for Fareham and Waterlooville visited the pub, offered to help the owners with removing a protected tree that was damaging the property, and posted photos with the staff on her Facebook page and for local media.Jewell has not heard back from her since. “I’ve sent emails saying ‘we need support here’ and never received a response. Not even an acknowledgment,” Jewell said
Burnham accuses No 10 sources of lying about byelection decision
The Labour party’s civil war over the Gorton and Denton byelection has intensified after Andy Burnham accused Downing Street sources of lying about his decision to apply to stand in the Manchester seat.The Manchester mayor was reacting to suggestions by unnamed Keir Starmer allies that he had been told “in no uncertain terms” that any request to the NEC committee to put his name forward for the byelection would be refused.Responding to a post on X by ITV’s political editor, Robert Peston, which suggested sources close to the PM therefore saw Burnham’s move to stand as an explicit attempt to destabilise Starmer, Burnham wrote: “This is simply untrue.” Peston then sent a follow-up message saying a second source had backed up Burnham’s version of events, adding that Burnham was “seeking an urgent call with No 10 about the briefing”.A No 10 spokesperson said it was not true that anyone close to Starmer had told Burnham the NEC would refuse his application
Labour’s Gorton and Denton byelection campaign hit by fallout from ‘vile’ WhatsApp chat
Labour’s campaign for a vital byelection has been dealt a fresh blow after six local councillors were found to have breached standards rules in a “vile” WhatsApp chat.Andrew Gwynne, a former health minister, was suspended last year over offensive messages he sent in the “Trigger Me Timbers” group, including one saying he hoped a 72-year-old woman “croaks it” before an election.Six Labour councillors have now been found to have shown “complete disregard” for standards in public life, the Guardian has learned – including one judged to have made “several remarks that a reasonable person would find racist”.The findings of a damning independent investigation into the WhatsApp group are due to be considered by councillors next week, less than four weeks before the Gorton and Denton byelection expected on 26 February.Gwynne apologised again last week for messages he sent as he announced his retirement as the MP for the south-east Manchester seat
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