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It’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.”
awarded the Newcombe medal at a ceremony in Melbourne this week. Photograph: Graham Denholm/Getty Images for Tennis Australia
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.”
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That 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.”
