Alex de Minaur makes painful reveal about his shocking loss to Jannik Sinner: ‘I feel like I’ve been slapped across the face’

Beaten but not broken, Alex de Minaur isn’t giving up on his belief he can yet contend for a grand slam title – but he has given his fans a raw insight into how hard he was hit by his latest grand slam quarter-final loss.

De Minaur’s latest Australian Open tilt was brought to an abrupt halt via a demoralising, thumping straight-sets 6-3 6-2 6-1 loss to world No.1 Jannik Sinner on Wednesday night.

He has a 0-10 record against Sinner and has failed to claim a set in his four grand slam quarter-final appearances to date.

‘I mean, it’s pretty tough right now for me to sit here after this defeat and tell you that I believe I can go all the way,’ the world No.8 conceded.

‘But saying that, I do think that there are opportunities out there.

‘Tennis is so much about match-ups, right? Yeah, I think right now my worst match-up on tour is probably Jannik. You know, there’s a head-to-head that doesn’t lie.

The Aussie waved farewell to his fans after failing to win a set in a grand slam quarter final once again as he was steamrolled by the Italian

‘If I’m in a different side of the draw, different little section, then who knows? I genuinely think I’m going to give myself opportunities, and I don’t think my peak is making quarter-finals in a slam.

‘I see other players that have made it further, have made semis, have made finals, and I do believe that I can be amongst them. If they have been able to accomplish that, then why not me?’

The Sinner match proved a bitter end to an otherwise positive summer for the 25-year-old, who’s now made a quarter-final at all four slams.

‘The positive’s I think how I handled everything,’ he said.

‘I mean, the fact that I came in this year top 10, and a lot of expectation, a lot of pressure. Obviously, the whole country wanted me to do well. I wanted to do well here

‘ I thought I handled it really well to put myself in this position. I would have loved to do more today, but this is what happens sometimes in tennis.

‘Look, the negative 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 at the Australian Open] a couple of years ago.’

De Minaur said Sinner is his worst match-up on the tour after he fell to his 10th consecutive defeat to the world No.1

In their next match after that drubbing by Djokovic in 2023, de Minaur defeated the Serb for the first time.

A renowned workhorse, he’s determined not to let his latest setback derail him.

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

‘And if anything, I just need to sit with my team and figure out a way to hurt Jannik 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.’