Alex de Minaur has a niggle.
De Minaur defeated Arthur Fils 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 on Monday (AEST) to advance to the quarter-finals of Wimbledon, but picked up an injury with just three points left in the match.
It was de Minaur’s first match point, with Fils serving at 30-40. Fils served wide to the backhand return and then approached down the line to de Minaur’s running forehand. The Aussie sprinted to the ball but jarred his hip trying to recover for the next shot.
De Minaur acknowledged the injury after the match.
“Yeah, just slid out to a forehand on my first match point. Felt like I jarred it a bit. Kind of was a little bit ginger. Again, it’s probably a little bit of a scare more than anything,” he said.
And then he put a positive spin on the moment.
Alex de Minaur slides on the grass during his match against Arthur Fils.Credit: Getty Images
“Situation was tight. In a way, [it] helped me relax and finish off the match.”
When you look closely at de Minaur’s movement on the specific shot that caused the injury, you see him slide to the ball with his right foot and then stop. But when he attempts to push off the right foot and return to where he came from, there’s a slip. An awkward, unplanned extra step resulted. The problem appears to be that de Minaur still had all his energy loaded into the slide. Picking his foot up and slipping shifted all that energy from foot to hip.
There’s the unlucky injury.
De Minaur walked gingerly to the back of the court after losing the pivotal point, in many ways trying to hide from his opponent that anything had happened.
Back at deuce, de Minaur played a very solid point, extracting a forehand error from Fils at the end of an 18-shot rally. De Minaur employed three slice backhands and a slice forehand in the rally, to complement two topspin forehands and two topspin backhands, to keep the rally speed low so Fils could not use his power back against him and stretch him out wide.
On de Minaur’s second match point, he hit a forehand approach to Fils’ backhand and finished it off with a deft forehand volley crosscourt that Fils had no chance to run down.
You would expect jubilation from a player after winning such an important match and advancing further at Wimbledon than ever before. De Minaur gave away nothing. Instead, he slowed down as quickly as he could to avoid injury and visibly limped to the net, walking slower than normal. He knew something was not right, but this was no time to telegraph it to the crowd, his opponent, or his quarter-final opponent.
De Minaur’s facial expression was blank. No smile. No joy. Just concern. He said good match to Fils, shook the umpire’s hand, and took a couple of slow steps back to the court to acknowledge the crowd. He walked like an old man.
De Minaur’s abbreviated movement looked concerning, but he downplayed it.
‘I’ve just kind of backed myself to move almost as if I was on a hardcourt.’
Alex de Minaur
“I’m feeling pretty decent. Again, body went through a pretty physical match out there,” he said. “Body feels a little bit ginger everywhere. I’m not going to lie. I’ve done my recovery. I’m sure I will be feeling great tomorrow.”
De Minaur also spoke about sliding as a key strategy for him on grass rather than something to avoid.
“I think on grass, we’re in a quite interesting dynamic when it comes to movement, right? I think in previous years, we saw very, very few players sliding on a grasscourt,” he said.
“You would have your odd standout person, which normally was Novak [Djokovic], sliding on the grass.”
He then spoke about the evolution of movement on grasscourts.
“I feel like, as the years progress, sliding on a grasscourt is becoming more and more seen or used,” de Minaur said, adding that it takes time to build confidence in this kind of movement on grasscourts.
“Definitely, over the past couple years, I’ve gone through that mental blockage of being a little bit scared of sliding on the grass. Now I’ve just kind of backed myself to move almost as if I was on a hardcourt.”
De Minaur ran a total of 4421 metres against Fils, while the Frenchman moved 4194 metres. This speaks to de Minaur’s defensive prowess, to be able to get to so many balls around the fringes of the court, rather than Fils being more economical with his movement.
Overall, de Minaur averaged moving 18.81 metres a point, while Fils was at 17.85.
In de Minaur’s first two matches, he averaged running 14.36 metres a point against James Duckworth and 18.98 metres a point against Jaume Munar. He received a walkover in the third round against Lucas Pouille. In every match de Minaur has played, he has moved more than his opponent. Great defence wins matches, but great defence also puts a lot of pressure on the body.
Todd Woodbridge spoke glowingly about de Minaur’s chances of progressing at Wimbledon.
“I think he’s got possibly the best chance he’s had in his career to beat one of these big guys in a slam tournament,” Woodbridge said. “He really has played some great tennis. Yesterday was really impressive because Fils can blow you away if you give him that opportunity. So tactically, he plays really, really smart.
“I guess the issue is just coming up a bit and, by all accounts, he’s fine, so that’s good, but that match point was very, very awkward.”
Woodbridge also acknowledged his next opponent, Djokovic, is also recovering from an injury. Their quarter-final will be held on Wednesday night (AEST).
“But Novak [in his win over Holger Rune] got better. And as Novak tends to do, if he can get himself into tournaments, his level is rising,” he said.
“So Alex is going to have to play the match of his life. But he has played him. He’s been in a quarter before. All of the variables of experience are in his favour. So it’s just whether he can turn up and play, as I said, the match of his life.”
Craig O’Shannessy is a world leader in teaching and analysing tennis strategy. He is the creator of the Brain Game Tennis website and was a member of Novak Djokovic’s coaching team.
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