On the stage of the Australian Open this year, Alex de Minaur is giving irresistible main character energy. Just one round in he has survived the elimination of would-be co-stars, is romantically intertwined, and in his first real scene delivered his lines with aplomb.
The Australian No 8 seed produced a flashy opener in the first set against Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp, before the plot threw up just enough intrigue to entertain a full Rod Laver Arena. Of course, the local hero prevailed 6-1, 7-5, 6-4 in 142 minutes.
But even he admits his mind wasn’t always on his match. A rotating scoreboard on Rod Laver Arena flashed intermittently with the score of the contest of Katie Boulter, De Minaur’s fiancé, on the neighbouring Kia Arena.
“You want to be focusing on your own match, then all of a sudden you see the results of Katie’s match,” he said. “You try not to pay too much attention and focus on yourself, but the sheer fact that it’s always coming around, it makes it difficult.”
Even without the stress of the scoreboard, the Australian faces pressure enough. De Minaur rose as high as No 6 in the ATP rankings last year, the highest an Australian man has reached since Lleyton Hewitt in 2006. No local has won men’s singles at Melbourne Park since 1976. These two forces have conspired to elevate expectation on the 25-year-old. “No one is going to put more pressure on myself than myself,” he said. “It’s perspective, right? It’s what way you choose to look at pressure.”
It was clear he was using it for his own benefit in the clash against Van de Zandschulp. Twenty six minutes of whirlwind tennis delivered the Australian a first set in which he dominated with his serve and on the baseline, forcing his opponent into 12 errors. Although the match slowed, the Australian remained relentless in chasing down Van de Zandschulp’s best.
“The body is exactly where I wanted it to be,” De Minaur said. “I put in countless hours over the better part of six months to get to this point and be feeling good, feeling comfortable, moving, sliding from one side to the other, and not really thinking about my hip.”
The tournament has already seen the elimination of seeds Stefanos Tsitsipas, Grigor Dimitrov and Andrey Rublev, De Minaur’s conqueror in the third round last year. Injury clouds have hung over Australia’s other leading men and were at least partly to blame for the exits of Nick Kyrgios and, on Tuesday night, 25th seed Alexei Popyrin.
In comparison, De Minaur’s health is a patch of blue sky. His straight sets victory couldn’t have been scripted any better for someone so reliant on his mobility. “Now I’ve got to see how the body pulls up from this type of physical tennis,” he said. “But it should be all right.”
The body is one thing, the heart is another. De Minaur raced over to watch Boulter immediately after the match to see the British 22nd seed win in three sets against Canadian Rebecca Marino.
But she was in a state of low-level anxiety until the Australian finally arrived. “I wish his score was popping up on my screen, but it wasn’t,” Boulter said. “You’re hearing cheers here and there, and you’re hoping that’s for him, but you never know.”
It was actually the voice of De Minaur’s mother she heard first, a sign her fiancé would soon be there too. “I felt comfortable that he’d won, and that I could fully relax,” she said.
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De Minaur’s next opponent is trying to do the same. The 136th-ranked American Tristan Boyer survived a five-setter against Federico Coria in round one, but has had to endure worse recently.
The Californian has had a torrid few days, after wildfires swept through his hometown of Altadena. “My dad had to evacuate our house, luckily it’s OK, but we have friends and family who are homeless now. It’s really, really devastating to see,” he said.
While Boyer’s mother and grandfather are in Melbourne, his father is still without electricity, and is likely to watch the match sheltering at a friend’s.
“I’m obviously trying to do what I need to do to prep and play tennis, control what I can control in this moment,” Boyer said. “But, yeah, it’s hard for sure. I mean, I just want to give people good news.”
A Hollywood story at Melbourne Park, perhaps with a plot twist to come.
