Alex de Minaur was able to beat Carlos Alcaraz in their match ahead of the 2025 Australian Open.
Fans were treated to another high-quality match during the AO Opening Week. After Jannik Sinner won his match against Alexei Popyrin on Tuesday and Holger Rune won the Red Bull Bassline event, the schedule on Wednesday was very interesting as well.
It started with Qinwen Zheng taking on Elina Svitolina. Unfortunately for the fans at the Rod Laver Arena, it was a short match, as the Chinese player won 6-2, 6-2.
Quite the opposite was true for the match between Alcaraz and De Minaur. The two had met twice before, with the Spaniard winning both matches, but in their first meeting, De Minaur had match points to beat his opponent.
This time, Alcaraz had a great start to the match. Both players held their serve to start the match, and already in the third game, fans in Melbourne were entertained by an incredibly lucky double net-cord bounce that helped De Minaur.
How's your luck, Alex 🤣🍀
A double bounce on the net cord that left everyone in disbelief!#AO2025 pic.twitter.com/jxvJflqaBY
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 8, 2025
Although the Australian was helped to win that point, his opponent overpowered him in the following moments. Alcaraz was clearly the better player at the start of the match, and that’s why he easily built a 4-1 lead in the opening set.
At 4-2, however, the four-time major winner experienced first issues. Despite leading 40-15 and later leading by advantage multiple times, he couldn’t win the game, as De Minaur recovered the break, making it 3-4 from his point of view.
It seemed that both players would be able to hold their serve and let the tie-break decide the outcome of the opening set, but De Minaur broke his opponent’s serve once more to win the first set of the match 7-5.
Alcaraz produced just too many unforced errors in that first set. Since being up 4-1, he disappeared from the court, allowing De Minaur to win one rally after another, which is why the Australian ultimately won the first set.
In the second set, the ATP World No. 3 improved. He broke first, but this time very late, to win the second set 6-4, as De Minaur got no time to respond. The third set had to decide this match, and it was decided with a match tie-break played to 10 points.
Alcaraz had a terrible start, falling behind 0-3. That got even worse when he made a double fault to fall behind already 2-7, further struggling to trouble his opponent, who just controlled play and let the Spaniard make mistakes.
De Minaur got himself to seven consecutive match points when leading 9-2, and he tried to be aggressive on the first one, going for a powerful forehand return, which ended in the net, with players changing sites at 9-3 for the Australian.
De Minaur then went for a cheeky front-facing tweener on a shot that could have won him the match, essentially gifting his opponent a point. He gifted Alcaraz yet another point when he made a double fault right after it.
Still, Alcaraz couldn’t produce the comeback needed, and he ultimately lost the match 5-7, 6-4, 5-10. It was certainly not the most positive showing for Alcaraz shortly ahead of the first Grand Slam of the season. Although he had moments of brilliance, he once again struggled with consistency.