Alex de Minaur aiming for bigger and better 2025
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Alex de Minaur won two titles last season and made the quarter-finals at three of the four Grand Slams, while qualifying for the ATP Finals.
PHOTO: AFP
SYDNEY – Alex de Minaur, 25, is coming off a breakthrough year that saw him reach a career-high world No. 6 and the Australian is fired up for an even bigger 2025.
He won two titles last season and made the quarter-finals at three of the four Grand Slams, while qualifying for the ATP Finals.
A hip injury hampered him through the middle of 2024, but he is fit and raring to go again at the mixed-team United Cup this week in the lead-up to the Australian Open which begins on Jan 12.
“The way I see 2024, it was a breakthrough year, 100 per cent,” de Minaur, currently ranked ninth, told reporters on Dec 23.
“I played some incredible tennis, reached a career-high sixth, reached the end-of-year Finals for the first time – but I still think I can do more. That’s what I want, ultimately, that’s what I’m working so hard for.”
He gets his season under way on Dec 28 at Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney against world No. 39 Tomas Etcheverry, when the Lleyton Hewitt-captained Australia face Argentina.
Britain are also in their United Cup group, with de Minaur potentially playing a decisive mixed doubles clash against his partner Katie Boulter. They announced their engagement on Dec 23.
The tournament features 18 teams, with ties comprising one men and one women’s singles and a mixed doubles showdown.
“I wouldn’t exactly say I’m thrilled at the thought of playing him again,” Boulter, who also won two titles in 2024 and is now 24th in the world, told reporters.
“He’s a top-10 player who knows how to play. Then there’s the personal side of it, which is difficult but also great for bragging rights.”
Meanwhile, de Minaur’s compatriot Max Purcell has elected to take a voluntary provisional suspension under the tennis anti-doping programme, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) said on Dec 23.
The ITIA said Purcell, the world’s 12th-ranked doubles player, had admitted to a breach of rules relating to the use of a “prohibited method” and requested to enter into a provisional suspension on Dec 10, which came into effect two days later.
Purcell said on Instagram he unknowingly received an intravenous (IV) infusion of vitamins above the allowed limit of 100ml, adding he was convinced he followed World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) regulations and methods.
“But the records show that the IV was over the 100ml limit, even though I told the clinic that I was a professional athlete and needed the IV to be under 100ml,” he explained.
Purcell, who won the 2022 Wimbledon doubles title and the US Open doubles title in 2024, is prohibited from playing in, coaching at, or attending any event authorised by the governing bodies of the sport or national associations.
Purcell, 26, is the latest Grand Slam champion to have a case opened by the ITIA, an independent organisation established by the governing bodies of the sport to safeguard its integrity.
The agency said in November that French Open champion Iga Swiatek had accepted a one-month suspension
World No. 1 Jannik Sinner had been cleared of wrongdoing
