Alex de Minaur names the only other player who has made him feel like Jannik Sinner did during his heavy defeat at the Australian Open

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Alex de Minaur lost to Jannik Sinner in the quarter-finals of the 2025 Australian Open.

As the last Aussie left in the competition, the ATP world number eight had the hopes of a nation resting on his shoulders as he took to the court on Wednesday.

De Minaur faced the unenviable task of beating defending champion and world number one Jannik Sinner in the quarter-finals.

The 25-year-old had lost his previous nine career meetings with Sinner but was hoping to finally get a win on the board in Melbourne.

It wasn’t to be, however, as Sinner beat De Minaur, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1, dumping him out of his home Australian Open.

The defeat was one of the most convincing of De Minaur’s career, as he remembered a similar dominant loss just two years ago during his post-match press conference.

Alex de Minaur says Jannik Sinner loss reminded him of 2023 Novak Djokovic match

Speaking to the media after the match, De Minaur recalled a defeat at the 2023 Australian Open that he was reminded of while playing Sinner.

“I would have loved to do more today, but this is what happens sometimes in tennis,” he said.

“Look, the negatives is after playing some great tennis on home soil and gaining so much, you feel like you just have been slapped across the face, to be honest, to finish off like that.

“I guess the other positive is it’s not the first time that I’ve felt that, I felt the same thing when I played Novak [Djokovic] a couple of years ago.”

De Minaur went on to lay out his plan for the coming weeks after suffering another defeat to Sinner.

“So, hey, I’ll survive, I’ll keep improving,” he said.

“If anything, I just need to sit with my team and figure out a way to hurt Jannik [Sinner] on the court. 

“That’s ultimately the way we’ve got to look at it and find different ways because at the moment we don’t have it.

“So back to the drawing board, like I’ve done my whole career.

“As I said, I still don’t think this is my ceiling, I still think I’ve got more in the tank, so I’ll be searching for that.”

De Minaur has now lost ten straight matches to his Italian rival, as he continues to struggle against the world number one.

The Aussie has won just one set in ten matches against Sinner, grabbing the first set of their Sofia Open quarter-final match in a tiebreaker five years ago.

He may have come up short against Sinner once again, but De Minaur is still keen to take the positives from the year’s first Grand Slam tournament.

“I mean, the positives, I think how I handled everything,” he said.

“I mean, the fact that I came in this year top ten, and a lot of expectation, a lot of pressure.

“Obviously the whole country wanted me to do well. I wanted to do well here.

“Yeah, I thought I handled it really well to put myself in this position.”

What happened when Alex de Minaur played Novak Djokovic at the 2023 Australian Open?

De Minaur was reminded of his 2023 contest with Djokovic during his defeat to Sinner in the 2025 quarter-finals.

The Aussie star took on Djokovic in the last 16 two years ago, and suffered an even bigger defeat, as he picked up just a handful of games as he lost in straight sets.

Seeded 22nd for the tournament, De Minaur suffered a brutal defeat at the hands of the Serb as he lost, 6-2, 6-1, 6-2.

The result remains De Minaur’s worst at the Australian Open, having now competed in Melbourne eight times.

De Minaur will hope that he can learn from his tough defeats at the Australian Open, and come back stronger next year to topple his rivals on Rod Laver Arena.

The 2026 Australian Open is set to begin on January 19.