For most top players, the clay-court season, which begins in earnest in Monte Carlo this week, represents the start of the long, gruelling run to next month’s French Open. Alex de Minaur, however, is thinking further ahead.
“It’s definitely a very physical part of the year,” De Minaur said at the Monte-Carlo Country Club on Sunday. “Obviously, with consistency, developing the points, creativity a little bit as well, right? You’ve got to think of a lot of different ways to try and win the point as rallies extend and it becomes more gruelling and more physical.
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“It is an important part of the season for me. It’s my very big push mentally to kind of get through this clay-court season and play the best I can, because I know the grass is on the other side, and I don’t need extra motivation for that part of the year.”
Grass and hard courts remain De Minaur’s best surface, of course. He reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon for the first time last summer, with only a hip injury denying him the chance to take on an ailing Novak Djokovic for a place in the last four. After recovering from the injury to play the US Open, he made the last eight again, matching that performance on home soil in Australia at the start of this year.
De Minaur had impressed on his way to a first Australian Open quarter-final but found Jannik Sinner way too good, the Italian then marching to his second straight Australian Open title. At the time, De Minaur said it had been like being “slapped in the face” but looking back, he said he did not dwell on it for too long.
“I wouldn’t say it took too much [time],” he said. “I just came to terms with it. It was just him being too good. I wasn’t the only one he beat that week, right? And it did feel better to see him take out the whole tournament after beating me. As a tennis player, one of the hardest things to deal with is if the person you lose to loses in the next round, and you’re like, geez, you know, maybe it was just that one day he had a good day, but him obviously winning made it a lot easier to come to terms with.”
Since then, De Minaur has been solid, if not spectacular, with a runner-up finish in Rotterdam followed by a quarter-final run in Doha, an early exit in Dubai and fourth-round efforts in Indian Wells and Miami. “I would have hoped for more, but that’s just, I guess, the person I am. I’m always wanting more, and very rarely do I feel satisfied,” he said. “I do feel like I could have had some better results in certain tournaments… but we move on. I can’t complain, I’m top 10. We’ve got the clay season to go and hopefully I can play some good matches on the clay.”
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For someone who spent a big part of his youth in Spain, De Minaur does not have a traditional clay-courter’s style, his flat groundstrokes not having the impact of the heavy topspin strokes of a Rafael Nadal or Carlos Alcaraz. Nevertheless, his effort here 12 months ago, when he reached the quarter-finals, showed him that he can perform well on the surface, even if he has major adjustments to make.
“I was brought up more in a different way, I played a different style of tennis and my groundstrokes, per se, were never as spinny and heavy as you would probably have with someone that grew up on the surface. But it’s been a kind of love-hate, and then love relationship with the clay,” he said. “I’ve finally been able to understand my game well enough and know how I can be dangerous on this surface. So it’s been a process, but I’m happy with where I am right now.
“Last year I made final of Rotterdam, won Acapulco, and then Indian Wells and Miami, fourth rounds. But really playing well and making quarter-finals of a Masters on clay was something quite big for me. That gave me a lot of confidence and I was definitely able to grow as a player and know that I can perform on this surface very well.”
This will be De Minaur’s ninth event of the year, including team competitions, and the relentlessness of the Tour is not lost on him. As one of the fittest players in the world, he is able to cope better than most and as he prepares to face Tomas Machac or Sebastien Baez in his first match here, he has one main aim. “The goal is to stay tough and not have any bad weeks or off weeks.”
