Alex de Minaur will get his Barcelona Open campaign underway this week after an indifferent start to his clay season.
De Minaur bowed out in the quarterfinals of the Monte-Carlo Masters, losing to home hope Valentin Vacherot in three sets.
Since clinching the Rotterdam Open title in February, the Australian has found wins hard to come by on the ATP Tour.
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He suffered first-round exits at both the Mexican Open and the Miami Open, and earned just one victory in Indian Wells.
In Monte-Carlo, De Minaur finally won two matches in a row, which he took positives from heading into Barcelona.
Alex de Minaur discusses his form after Monte-Carlo Masters
Asked how his clay-court game is feeling at the moment in an interview with Tennis TV, De Minaur said: “Yeah, look, it could be better, it could be worse, right? If you get a couple of wins under your belt, it’s always a good thing.
“It always gives you a little bit of confidence. But at the same time, I still feel like there’s plenty of things I would like to improve on and get better with.
“But it was the first week on clay, so you take the positives, you move on to the next week, and hopefully you can tweak a couple of things and play even better.
“What did I like? I liked that I got back into the winner’s circle. I felt like after a tough month, which wasn’t really like myself, I got a couple of early losses.
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“And even though my level wasn’t bad, or I didn’t feel like I was too afraid about my level, I just wasn’t able to win those matches, right?
“So to get back, win a couple of tough matches, play the bigger points a little bit better, it kind of gives you a little bit of confidence.
“And obviously, just movement and feeling comfortable and adapting to a completely different game style on the clay has worked so far.”
Alex de Minaur reveals his goal for the clay swing
The clay swing leading up to Roland Garros features a packed stretch of big tournaments, with three ATP Masters 1000 crowns up for grabs in Monte-Carlo, Madrid and Rome.
“It is a very long stint,” said De Minaur. “And these first couple of weeks, they’re great because they’re one-week events, right?
“And then kind of everything’s a lot more straightforward. You play, you back up the next day, and it makes it kind of easier to get into routines. It’s normally the Madrid-Rome stint, which is quite a long one.
“And ultimately, the only way to make it shorter really is to win a lot of matches, right? So that’s going to be the goal to hopefully be in the tournaments, to get a lot of matches.
“It’s an opportunity for me to try and gain some points, gain some momentum going into Paris, but it’s all going to come down to me being fresh mentally. I think that’s going to be the biggest thing.”
De Minaur will take on Austrian star Sebastian Ofner in the first round of the Barcelona Open.
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