‘Australia deserves a champion’: Alex de Minaur ready to meet great expectations | Simon Cambers
Share:
World No 8 is coming off a career-best year as pressure mounts to become the first homegrown Australian Open men’s singles champion since 1976. Playing at home in front of a home crowd can go one of two ways. For some, it’s an inspiration, they play their best tennis at the most important moments. For others, it can be crippling, the tension ripping through their body and stopping them from playing the way they so dearly want to.
![[Alex de Minaur in action during a practice session ahead of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/649f08b24b9cf9aacf2dd22b3c6c18fa0f2d877d/0_0_4678_3119/master/4678.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Think Sam Stosur, the Australian who won the US Open in sensational style in 2011, beating Serena Williams in the final, but for whom the expectations at Melbourne Park were simply too stressful. For all his talent, Nick Kyrgios’s best run in Melbourne is a quarter-final effort in 2015. Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo made one quarter-final at Roland-Garros but triumphed in Australia and at Wimbledon.
In a way, the expectations on Alex de Minaur, the world No 8, at this year’s Australian Open are unrealistic. He is yet to make a grand slam semi-final, so becoming the first Australian man to win the home tournament since 1976 is a long shot. In other ways, they’re understandable; the 25-year-old is coming off a best-ever year in which he reached the quarter-finals of three straight majors and qualified for the season-ending ATP Finals. Had he not suffered a hip injury at Wimbledon, when he was due to play an ailing Djokovic, it might have been even better.
“So much of last year I knew deep down that I wasn’t 100% but trying to convince myself that that was the case,” De Minaur told the Guardian Australia at Melbourne Park. “But I can finally say that I’m feeling 100% and the injury is something from the past.
