De Minaur’s Straightforward path
Alex de Minaur has yet to face a seeded opponent at the US Open and has dropped just two sets in his three matches. His third-round matchup, Daniel Evans, ensured he would avoid a seeded adversary after upsetting 23rd ranked Kharen Khachanov in the opening round.
Despite a path that some would consider lucky, it is still quite impressive what de Minaur has been able to achieve. He is not 100% healthy and has been dealing with injury ever since pulling out of his Wimbledon quarterfinal.
Because of this, to be featuring in the second week of the US Open is a testament to his perseverance.
His serve has been a bit of a struggle for him all tournament. This was true in his third-round matchup with Evans as the Australian double faulted nine times.
This didn’t massively affect the match in the first set as he was able to hold serve and find two breaks of the Englishman to win the set 6-3.
The second set was a bit of a different story as de Minaur was broken at love in the ninth game of the set and despite immediately breaking back, he was unable to find his stride in the tiebreaker, losing it 7-4.
The third and fourth sets unfortunately didn’t offer much to fans in terms of excitement as a combination of de Minaur raising his game and Evans suffering an injury led to a pair of 6-0 wins for de Minaur.
Thompson Looking for Yet Another Upset
As opposed to his highly seeded compatriot, Jordan Thompson has had quite a difficult draw.
He was a heavy underdog in the second round against seven seed Hubert Hurkacz but was able to put together a brilliant match and sweep the big server in three straight sets.
Thompson then faced Italian 30th seed Matteo Arnaldi and was again an underdog heading in. Unlike de Minaur, Thompson’s serve worked magic for him.
He finished the match tallying nine aces and not one double fault. His overall win percentage on his first serve was a whopping 83%.
This high quality serving combined with his typical consistent play from the baseline led him to winning the match 7-5, 6-2, 7-6 (7-5).
Now matching up with the 10th seeded de Minaur, Thompson will look to keep his upset streak alive.
Analysis of the All-Aussie Affair
These two men are very familiar with one another. Given that they are two of the top male talents Australian tennis has to offer, they have trained together, and played on teams together many times in the past.
Competitively, they have matched up five times on the ATP Tour. De Minaur leads this head-to-head matchup 4-1, although they haven’t played each other in two years and Thompson is in the best form of his career.
Expect Thompson to try and take advantage of the fact that de Minaur’s movement isn’t at the same level it typically is because of the injury. He will likely look to take control of rallies early and move de Minaur side to side.
As for de Minaur, he is one of the tour’s very best at winning points from a defensive position. So long as his body doesn’t betray him, he’ll likely stick to that M.O.
This should be a fun matchup between two Australian friends looking to make their way to a Grand Slam quarterfinal.
This matchup is great for Australian tennis. It has been 31 years since two Australian men last matched up in the round of 16 in New York. Both Thompson and de Minaur will do all they can to be on the winning side of this historic matchup.
