De Minaur’s First Taste of the ATP Finals
Alex de Minaur qualified for the ATP Finals this year for the first time in his young, budding career. The Australian number one is the seventh seed at the event in Turin and has become the first Australian man to participate in the end of the year tournament in singles since Lleyton Hewitt in 2004.
Although de Minaur is still working his way back from injury, he’s always a tough out due to his ability to keep balls in play. Unfortunately for de Minaur, he didn’t have much time to ease into the event as his first match was against world number one Jannik Sinner, playing in his own country.
De Minaur Unable to Solve the Puzzle That is Jannik Sinner
It was always going to be a tough ask for de Minaur to take down Jannik Sinner on home soil. Add the fact that de Minaur has been fighting injury for the past few months and it makes for a difficult equation.
After exchanging holds in each of their first service games de Minaur drew first blood. The Australian forced Sinner into a number of long rallies and took the upper hand on his first break point of the night with Sinner putting a backhand into the net.
Unfortunately de Minaur was unable to consolidate the break as Sinner came right back to break the Australian with ease. After then holding at love, Sinner smelt blood in the water. He fell behind 0-30, then got aggressive with the forehand and overpowered de Minaur. After saving one break point de Minaur was unable to stop the second from converting and went down 4-2.
Sinner would then hold again at love and after de Minaur held his own serve, the Italian would serve out the set, winning it 6-3.
The second set was cleaner as a whole with both men more dominant on serve than in the first. It was Sinner who was expending much less energy to hold however, not giving up a point on serve in his first two games.
Knotted at two games apiece, Sinner upped his level on de Minaur’s serve. He took a commanding 40-0 lead to which de Minaur miraculously battled back to deuce before eventually surrendering the break after Sinner bludgeoned a second serve return at his feet.
De Minaur did all he could to get the break right back in the next game and brought it to deuce but again just couldn’t quite put the finishing touches on the game.
After holding his own serve to make the score 3-4, de Minaur would again have a chance to level the set but was unable to do so as Sinner was hitting with depth and pace, causing unforced errors for the Aussie.
In the final game of the match Sinner would hold at love to wrap up the win 6-3, 6-4. With the loss, Alex de Minaur is now 0-7 versus the Italian superstar.
What’s Next for De Minaur
Next on the agenda for de Minaur is Daniil Medvedev who suffered a similar fate in his opening match of the tournament to Taylor Fritz.
The match is crucial for both men as a second loss would see them fall out of contention for the knockout stage of the event.
Alex de Minaur fought to the end in his first ever ATP Finals match. It just wasn’t enough against the world’s top player Jannik Sinner as the Italian won in two sets. De Minaur must now defeat Daniil Medvedev to keep his hopes of winning the tournament alive.
