Lately much of the media attention around Australian tennis, whether fairly or unfairly, seems to concentrate on the misdemeanours of Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic.
Yet at the Brisbane International last night, a young man made his ATP debut who may well be a player of the future.
Although Alex De Minaur was beaten somewhat convincingly by the German world number 51, Mischa Zverev, he showed the sort of potential that should excite Australian tennis fans.
It was a match that put a seasoned professional, who plays a serve and volley style reminiscent of a bygone era, up against an up-and-comer still very much finding his feet as a professional tennis player.
Commentating on the match for the Seven Network, two-time Grand Slam doubles champion Geoff Masters made the point that although De Minaur may not be as physically strong as the more experienced players on tour at this stage of his development, he still had a “great feel and sound technique”.
To qualify for that match De Minaur defeated current world number 89 Mikhail Kukushkin in the first round of men’s qualifying 6-4, 7-6. Such a victory over a man who reached a career high ranking of number 46 in the world in October 2015 demonstrates that De Minaur must have a significant degree of talent.
De Minaur, whose mother is Spanish and father is Uruguayan, has spent parts of his young life so far moving between Australia and Spain. In 2015, he made the semi-finals of the U.S. Open boys and was part of the Australian squad for the 2015 Junior Davis Cup final.
Last year he progressed to the Junior Boy’s Wimbledon final and improved his professional ranking by nearly 1200 places.
Towards the end of 2016, De Minaur managed to make a final of the highly competitive Challenger tour in Germany, along the way defeating former world top 100 player, Jurgen Melzer, before succumbing to world number 86, Belgium’s Steve Darcis, in the final.
All of this suggests that the future appears to look very bright for this 17 year-old and that Australian tennis may be on the cusp of producing a group highly competitive male players in the not too distant future.
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