Alex de Minaur explains what was pretty surreal about facing Jannik Sinner as he makes ‘honest and transparent’ comment

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Alex de Minaur won only six games against Jannik Sinner, as their one-sided head-to-head continues.

De Minaur beat Alex Michelsen in the fourth round to achieve his best result at the Australian Open this year.

Despite having lost his nine previous matches against the world number one, some gave De Minaur a chance against Sinner in the quarter-final.

This was heightened after Sinner struggled physically against Holger Rune, that included taking a lengthy off-court medical timeout.

Sinner appeared to have recovered against De Minaur, as he won his 10th consecutive match against the world number eight.

Alex de Minaur explains how it feels to suffer Australian Open defeat to Jannik Sinner

Not only has De Minaur never beaten Sinner, he has also only won one out of 24 sets against the Italian.

De Minaur made big improvements last year, breaking into the top 10 of the ATP rankings for the first time, and was asked in his press conference about how mentally difficult he found the experience of playing Sinner on Rod Laver Arena.

“Yeah, look, I’m going to be completely honest and transparent. It’s tough,” said De Minaur. “Honestly, it’s tough going out there and playing someone like Jannik because ultimately, like, I think there are a lot of factors that are vary into the scoreboard today. But matchup. I think he’s probably my worst matchup, and you can see it in the head-to-head.

“In these types of conditions it’s even tougher to play against him. So you go out there, you compete. You try everything. You bring every sort of different look that you can. But in these types of conditions where it’s a little bit colder and you can’t really get the ball out of his strike zone, he can just unload and not miss. It’s tough.

“You know, I think if we’re playing middle of the day on a stupidly hot day, then that’s when you can see some errors come out, and that’s when you probably see Jannik not play at his best. But conditions like today, it’s tough to rattle him at all.”

Sinner had a breakthrough year of his own in 2024, winning two Grand Slam titles and losing only six matches all year to finish the season as world number one for the first time.

Continuing to answer the media’s questions, De Minaur revealed the aura that Sinner now carries around the locker room and highlighted the Australian Open semi-final with Novak Djokovic last year.

“Yeah, I mean, he’s built this aura up from beating everyone,” answered De Minaur. “Like, that’s the thing about it, right? It’s not like he’s just had a good week here or good week there. He’s just beaten everyone.

“I think the best way to describe it is the fact that he was able to, I don’t know if it was last year or two years ago, play Novak [Djokovic] here and play pretty flawless, and, again, give him not too many games, right? Novak out here is probably the best player to have ever played on these courts, right?

“The fact that he’s got this top level that he can do this to players, it’s pretty tough. You go into the match, and you know it’s going to be a battle, it’s going to be tough, you’re going to try different things. But then you’re an hour and 30 in, and you’re struggling to win games, and you’re trying to find ways to get on the board. It’s pretty surreal.”

Alex De Minaur reveals what separates the top five players from the rest

De Minaur has reached the quarter-final stage of his last four major tournaments, but trails the head-to-head with all but one of the top five ATP players.

Taylor Fritz is the only one of those not to have a positive record against De Minaur, but the American has won five of their last seven meetings.

When asked about playing Sinner and other top ranked players, De Minaur described what makes them so challenging as opponents.

“Yeah, I think what Jannik has in these conditions is he’s got, one, very little unforced errors, and his ball speed is very high,” explained De Minaur. “When you are trying to go toe-to-toe with him, naturally you’re lifting your ball speed. So all of a sudden you’re pressing more than you’re used to, right, which obviously creates a couple more unforced errors unless you’re feeling the ball and feeling great.

“He’s got amazing movement that he can absorb and defend. And he’s so good out of the corners as well. So sometimes he can change defense into offense so quickly.

“Yeah, if you decide to be passive with him, he’s got the firepower to hit those winners. And I think today he served at a very high level as well, which ultimately was what made the difference.”

After being knocked out of the Australian Open, De Minaur will now head to join Nick Kyrgios for the Davis Cup Qualifiers as Australia take on Sweden in Stockholm.