‘Night and day a different player’: Why the future is bright for de Minaur

De Minaur held his own in the baseline battle with Rublev – finishing with more winners and fewer unforced errors, although he significantly lost the crucial 0-4 shot rallies – and his willingness to step inside the baseline, take greater risks and adopt a more aggressive approach generally was obvious.

“I think night and day a different player,” de Minaur said of his evolution.

“Maybe a couple of years ago, or even last year, I would be sitting here, maybe even happy with the result, saying, ‘I probably shouldn’t have won, he’s higher ranked than I am, I took him to five sets, pretty decent effort’.

“But it’s completely changed because now I’m sitting here, and I’m absolutely devastated because I saw it as a great opportunity and a match that I strongly believed I could have won, but it just slipped away.”

De Minaur spoke in the lead-up to the Rublev showdown about how he had to be more aggressive against the tour’s best, and he went out and did it. Words are easy, actions are hard.

This growth in his game, under coach Adolfo Gutierrez’s watch, is a long time in the making. He is both physically and mentally stronger.

Alex de Minaur was close, but not close enough, to Andrey Rublev. Credit: Eddie Jim

Since ending his drought against top-five rivals with his defeat of Daniil Medvedev at the Paris Masters in late 2022, he has made a habit of beating the best. De Minaur boasts nine top-10 scalps since the start of last year – and Rublev was very nearly his 10th.

Roland-Garros is his next chance to contest a major but that event, on Parisian clay, always projects as his most difficult to thrive. He is sure to be a threat to make it deep at Wimbledon and the US Open.

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That will come later. For now, de Minaur will briefly go into reflection mode about a summer that did not end how he wanted it to but that still continued his positive trajectory.

He will slip outside the top 10 after the Australian Open after climbing into that territory for the first time this month thanks to his wins over Taylor Fritz, world No.1 Novak Djokovic and Alex Zverev.

But that is a temporary setback to de Minaur’s longer-term ambition, which remains on track.

“It is a bit disappointing [but] in due time, I’ll take the three top-10 wins at United Cup, I’ll take it as confidence,” he said.

“Even this match, I’m playing some great tennis. It’s the start of the year. Importantly, if I can keep this level throughout the whole year, I’m quite confident that I’ll be able to finish where I want to.”

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