As Alex de Minaur challenged Carlos Alcaraz with his dash and dare at Queen’s last Sunday, he presented as Australia’s leading contender for the 2023 Wimbledon crown. Nick Kyrgios is the headline grabber but the injury doubt surrounding him, combined with the strong form of De Minaur, suggests the latter is the Australian who will be the one to watch at the All England Lawn Tennis Club.
Although the 24-year-old fell to Alcaraz in straight sets in the Queen’s final, the skill set he deployed to test the new world No 1 should hold De Minaur in good stead for the fortnight ahead. In an era where serving-and-volleying is less frequent, the former Wimbledon boys’ finalist is a grass courter for the new age and has won 21 of the 30 matches he has played on the surface since the pandemic began.
The 2021 Eastbourne champion will be seeded inside the top 16 and leads a contingent of eight Australian men, including recent Ilkley title winner Jason Kubler and Jordan Thompson, a finalist in the Netherlands earlier this month. Daria Saville will use an injury-protected ranking and is the sole Australian women in the main draw, though the numbers for both sexes may swell depending on qualifying results.
After a lull following Sam Stosur’s US Open triumph in 2011, Australia has been well served this decade at majors. Ash Barty was outstanding, Kyrgios performed exceptionally well at Wimbledon and New York last year and the injured Ajla Tomljanovic has reached the quarter-finals in London for the last two years. But successes have been sporadic in their absence this year, with only De Minaur reaching the second week of a major halfway through the grand slam calendar for 2023.
The world No 16 looked good at the Australian Open until he was trounced by Novak Djokovic in the fourth round. Thanasi Kokkinakis went no further than the third round in Paris, where one beaten Australian hopeful after another wiped the red dust from their faces and trudged wearily into the press centre at Roland Garros. But the grass is always greener on the other side of the English Channel and as the tournament approaches, Australian players cannot wait to feel the lawn under their feet.
“Ultimately once this kind of tournament finishes, there’s a little sense of relief because we get on to the grass and that’s a surface all of us tend to play well on,” De Minaur said.
The greats of Australian tennis built their reputations on grass and while there is no longer an established professional circuit around the country, it is still a staple for many club players. The best young talents are also exposed to the surface in junior tournaments, which explains why many feel so comfortable with the subtleties needed to excel on it.
James Duckworth, who plays Frenchman Harold Mayot in a second round Wimbledon qualifying match at Roehampton on Wednesday night, said the experience was helpful. “I think generally all Aussies play pretty well on grass,” he said. “We play a few junior nationals on it, and some other junior events on it, though not quite as many now as what there used to be.”
Djokovic is the man to beat as he seeks to level Roger Federer as an eight-time champion at Wimbledon and keep alive his dream of completing a calendar grand slam. Alcaraz was superb at Queen’s in just his third grass court tournament, improving by the match. But Kyrgios, if fit, and De Minaur feature among a small group of outsiders capable of an upset.
It is a decade since De Minaur was dashing around the magnificent grass courts in the Victorian regional town of Mildura on the banks of the Murray River. The traits apparent in his finals appearance against Alcaraz were evident in the Australian junior grass court championships.
His aggressive positioning to return serve, the scorching swiftness of his court coverage, the quickness of his hands and eyes, the clarity of his decision making and his ability to cut the angles and clean the lines with precision ground strokes came to the fore. As an Australian coach said this week, De Minaur was “so far above anyone else playing that tournament” that it was already clear he would soon tackle the world’s best.
At Wimbledon last year, De Minaur lost a heartbreaker when edged in a deciding super tiebreaker by Cristian Garin in the fourth round. That denied him the chance to take on Kyrgios in a clash that would have been fascinating given their contrasting styles and personalities. Prior to that match, he declared that playing well on grass was a matter of the mind.
“I remember I started playing on grass when I was eight. It was a situation where I said to myself that I would love this surface from the get-go,” he said. “Mentally I always loved the grass when I was growing up, so I have convinced myself I am always going to play well on the grass.”
De Minaur’s deeds at Queen’s, where he ousted dual-Wimbledon champion Andy Murray and outstanding Dane Holger Rune, will have only strengthened that belief.
