Alex de Minaur is through to the quarterfinal at the Shanghai Masters after a convincing win over Nuno Borges.
The Australian player is on the charge, and as the highest-ranked player left in his section of the draw, he will be hoping to seize the opportunity.
De Minaur has matched a year-long achievement with his latest win over Borges and he will have big ambitions between now and the end of the year.
Much like lots of other players, De Minaur has been forced to play in sweltering conditions, with the weather proving a hot topic of discussion for all of the players.
Borges had no answer to De Minaur’s brilliance on the court during their Wednesday battle and after the match, he was asked about his serve.
Alex de Minaur shares the tweak he’s made
After playing at the Laver Cup and last week at the China Open, De Minaur has arrived at Shanghai in good spirits.
He’s put his good form down to something he’s done with regard to his serve and he’s extremely satisfied with how it’s now paying dividends.
He said in his press conference: “Yeah, I’m very happy with my serving stats. My serving, ever since I did a little bit of a tweak to it, it’s been really good. From the Laver Cup into Beijing to here, I really like the way I’ve been serving. I don’t feel like I have been over-serving. I’ve been able to maintain a pretty high first-serve percentage.
“I think the only time today where I lost it a little bit was the last two service games, which I struggled to make first serves. Which, again, I lost a little bit on my rhythm. Overall, I think it’s been helping me out a lot, and I’ve been suffering a lot less in my service games thanks to that.”
Alex de Minaur proud of performance against Nuno Borges
The 2025 schedule hasn’t always been kind to De Minaur, and after some tough losses, he’s been forced to keep turning up and keep playing.
However, nothing seems to faze De Minaur, and it would appear that he’s now in good shape to finally get over the line and lift some more silverware.
Indeed, he was impressed with his own performance out on the court and said: “Yeah, I think the first set was a very tight set. We both were kind of trying to figure each other out. We hadn’t played each other. He’s quite a tricky opponent. He has a very flat backhand, great forehand, very good end-range skills.
So it was about figuring out what kind of patterns worked for me today. I was able to get a crucial break at the end of the first set and serve it out.
“Then in the second set, I came out firing. I played some aggressive tennis. I was able to play the style of tennis that I wanted to play. Managed to get a very good win in two sets, but still it was a very physical match out there.”
Furthermore, De Minaur also had some very positive words for his opponent, Borges, who was a surprise package in the last 16 of the tournament.
On his opponent, he claimed: “Yeah, he’s a tricky player. He’s got a very flat backhand. He looks to change directions and lean on it quite frequently. His ball stays low on the backhand side. He’s got a great forehand, which is very dangerous. He runs around. End range, I think he’s got some incredible talent. He’s able to pull off some amazing sort of squash shots that are very tricky to kind of deal with. If you decide to come into the net, then that volley is going to be very difficult because he’s able to put the ball in awkward positions.
“Yeah, being the first time that I played him, I wasn’t really sure what to expect, or what kind of patterns suited me and what sort of patterns suited him. So as the match went on, I was able to get a crucial break in the first set and serve it out.
“Then in the second set I was able to free up a little bit more and to play a bit more aggressive kind of tennis. Today it was a little bit colder, which meant that the conditions were even slower, so that was definitely a factor today in the way the ball was coming off the strings.
“There was a lot of different things that kind of went into the match today, but very happy with another very strong mental performance to kind of keep going, keep surviving, and keep putting myself in good positions.”
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