Alex de Minaur’s problem isn’t his tennis, it’s our expectations

MELBOURNE, Australia – Hear the inevitable groans of disappointment. Prepare to hear how he underdelivered again. Brace yourself for the social media comments that he just doesn’t have what it takes to be a great champion. It all comes around like clockwork.

Top-ranked Australian Alex de Minaur exited the Australian Open on Tuesday evening, the fifth year in a row he has fallen in the fourth round or quarter-finals of his home Grand Slam. And while it may seem like frustrating deja vu at first glance, this fortnight at Melbourne Park was both a step forward in his development as a tennis professional and further evidence that the external bar of Minaur expectations is unfairly high.

For two hours and fifteen minutes at Rod Laver Arena, de Minaur scrambled hard, desperately trying to feed the energy of a crowd that was preparing him for victory against the world’s No. 1 player, Carlos Alcaraz.

De Minaur actually made fewer unforced errors than the Spaniard and even broke serve twice in an incredibly hard-fought opening set. But as was the case in the five previous meetings between the pair, Alcaraz showed little respect for De Minaur’s heart and tenacity. He ran away with the match, winning 7-5, 6-2, 6-1.

And you know what, there’s hardly any shame in losing to a man who has accomplished more in tennis in the last forty months than anyone else, bar a dozen names, in the history of the sport.

Still, it won’t stop the inevitable question of whether De Minaur will ever become a Grand Slam champion. Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? But perhaps it’s time we start appreciating De Minaur for what he has achieved, rather than feeling let down when he fails to live up to the audience’s enormously high expectations.

De Minaur is a regular top 10 player in the world and a regular in the second week of Grand Slams. He reached the quarterfinals in six of the last eight majors and reached at least the Round of 16 at the Australian Open five years in a row, the first Australian man since John Newcombe in 1977 to achieve the feat.

Last year he reached at least the fourth round in all but one Masters 1000 event. He participated in a quarter-final four times. He ended the year with a semi-final appearance at the season-ending ATP Finals. He is a model of consistency.

And yet the narrative persists that he is still vastly underperforming. It seems that anything short of hoisting a major trophy leads to a feeling of underachievement. As a reminder, at each Grand Slam, only four men are allowed to compete in the semifinals, and only one is allowed to lift the championship trophy.

“You try to do the right things, you try to keep improving, but when the results don’t come or the score doesn’t reflect those improvements, then of course you feel quite deflated,” De Minaur said at his press conference after the defeat.

‘You just have to keep moving. That’s the only way. I mean, as hard as it is when you get results like that, you get back up, you get back on the horse.”

It is unlikely that De Minaur will ever be the strongest man on tour. He will never have the most powerful serve or lethal forehand weapons that we have historically associated with those on the pointier side of the rankings. What De Minaur has is an almost unparalleled ability to glide around the pitch, track down balls with his electric speed and constantly make opponents play that extra shot. And sometimes that’s just not enough to beat some of these other guys. And that’s okay.

Just look at the names he has faced in the Slam quarterfinals since early 2024. Alexander Zverev, Novak Djokovic, Jack Draper (while dealing with a hip injury), Jannik Sinner, Felix Auger-Aliassime and now Alcaraz. These are players of Grand Slam-winning caliber, and apart from Draper (given the Australian’s injury) and Auger-Aliassime (a hard-fought affair), all were ranked higher than de Minaur at those Slams.

“I can decide to look at it two different ways, right?” he said. “I can look at it, the fact that I lost to – at the Australian Open – I lost twice to Rafa, Novak, Jannik, now Carlos.

“I don’t lose too many games to players who maybe I shouldn’t lose to, right?”

It’s true. He has literally never lost an Australian Open match to an opponent below him. Ever.

For comparison: Nick Kyrgios reached a quarter-final in Melbourne eleven years ago. He did it a total of four times. De Minaur has done it twice in Melbourne and seven times in total, but is nowhere near making the headlines.

De Minaur routinely maximizes his talent and yet the tennis-watching public wants more. But why can’t we just sit back, enjoy the show and give the man his flowers for being one of the best tennis players in the world?