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Alex de Minaur has added a new coach and is turning to technology in his quest for a breakthrough major title at next week’s Australian Open.
The 23-year-old Australian continued his strong start to the year by beating former US Open champion Dominic Thiem 6-3 6-4 at their exhibition match at the Kooyong Classic on Tuesday.
De Minaur also posted a rousing victory over reigning Open champion and world No.2 Rafael Nadal in the United Cup last week.
It continued a recent run of winning results against grand slam champions, with De Minaur also beating Marin Cilic, Daniil Medvedev and Andy Murray in the past three months.
Ranked No.24, De Minaur has brought former Australian Davis Cup player Peter Luczak in to his coaching staff, joining Adolfo Gutierrez who has coached him since he was nine.
Luczak also coaches fellow Australians Jordan Thompson and John Millman and will be with de Minaur on a part-time basis.
Alex de Minaur. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
“Peter Luczak is going to be a great addition to the team,” de Minaur told reporters at Kooyong.
“He’s one of the most positive guys out there and he’s done a lot of years on tour as well so it’ll be a great little partnership to kind of split weeks between my basically childhood coach Adolfo and now Peter.
“It’s going to be great to just switch to a couple of weeks here, a couple of weeks there and I think it’s going to bring a different set of eyes, which is always great.”
De Minaur wore a sports tracker during his match against Thiem, desperate to find an edge to help him better last year’s fourth round Open showing, his finest result in Melbourne.
“This is something new, something we’ve been trying recently,” he said.
“This was a good chance to get as close as I possibly can to getting the data that I would in a match, so it will be great to see a little bit more data – see bits and pieces where I can improve and get better. Ultimately that is what I have been trying to do my whole career.”
A finalist at Melbourne Park in 2020, Thiem received a wildcard into this year’s major after a serious wrist injury which led to his ranking plummeting from a career-high of three to outside the top 300 last year.
He has worked his way back up to No. 99, gained a start at Kooyong through the injury-enforced withdrawal of world No.1 Carlos Alcaraz, and says he is ready to tackle the Open.
“It was a decent match – I was happy that I get the chance to play here you know instead of Carlos Alcaraz,” the 29-year-old Austrian said.
“I was really happy about it to get two good matches today and tomorrow and was was really decent.
“Little bit different conditions to Melbourne Park but still a good opportunity and good experience those two sets and will help me for next week.”
Thanasi Kokkinakis has kept his hopes of defending his maiden singles title in Adelaide alive after outlasting fellow Australian Alexei Popyrin in a rollercoaster round-one match.
Kokkinakis, who came flying out of the blocks in front of his home crowd, battled back from a break down in the third set to win 6-0 6-7(5) 7-5 on Monday night.
The 26-year-old was listless after dropping the second set tiebreak, in which he led 4-2 before missing a relatively easy drive volley.
He was broken early in the third but was able to regroup and book a second-round match with top seed Andrey Rublev.
“There’s a curse almost when you win a set 6-0. It was almost going too smooth,” Kokkinakis said on court after the match.
“I was being a bit of a softie for the end part of that match but I got it together … and toughed it out in the end.
(Photo by Sarah Reed/Getty Images)
“I started to get a bit flat and kind of feeling sorry for myself after the second set. But I had to grow a pair and get back to it.”
Kokkinakis had a dream run at the corresponding tournament last year when he beat big hitters John Isner and Marin Cilic on his way to the trophy.
The win comes after Kokkinakis bowed out of Adelaide 1 – the tournament played at the same venue last week – in the second round.
Popyrin, ranked 133, just three below Kokkinakis, was out of sorts early and a long way from the tennis that got him a win over world No.6 Felix Auger-Aliassime en route to the quarterf-inals at Adelaide 1.
He won just eight points and made 10 unforced errors in a first set that lasted only 25 minutes.
But he came to life and had the running until Kokkinakis broke back to level at 3-all in the final set.
Sloane Stephens’ wheels are spinning after a second straight loss to begin the year halted the momentum of the former US Open champion’s resurgent 2022.
Stephens lost 6-2 6-2 to qualifier and fellow American Lauren Davis in the Hobart International first round on Monday, a week after suffering the same fate at a tournament in Auckland.
Stephens, a former world No.3 who won the US Open in 2017, broke a four-year title drought last year and made the French Open quarter-finals to climb back to No.36 in the rankings.
But Davis, ranked almost 50 places further back, was in complete control in sunny but testing conditions in Tasmania.
“I felt really good; it was pretty gusty out there, the wind swirling a bit. It could have got under my skin,” Davis said.
“I’m really happy with how I handled myself. It got a little bit stressful there towards the end but I got it together and (I’m) really happy to have won here.”
It leaves Stephens short of match practice heading into next week’s Australian Open.
Tournament top seed and World No.26 Marie Bouzkova also suffered some yips in the wind before coming back from 2-5 down in the first set to beat Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian 7-6 (7-2) 6-3.
The two Australian hopes in the draw, wildcards Olivia Gadecki and Talia Gibson, were both ousted in straight sets.
Gadecki showed plenty of fight in her 6-4 7-5 loss to lucky loser Xinyu Wang, while 18-year-old Gibson – the youngest player in the Hobart main draw – fell 6-3 6-2 to 35-year-old German veteran Tatjana Maria.
The pair will both get a crack in round one of the Australian Open, after being granted wildcards.
“I’m a bit disappointed, but fought to the very end. There’s a lot of things to take from this match, a lot of positives,” Gadecki said.
In other first-round action, Laura Siegemund rallied from a set behind to beat Tereza Martincova 5-7 6-1 6-2 while Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina was too good for Canada’s Rebecca Marino, 6-2 6-1.
Three locals have been knocked out in the opening round of men’s qualifying at Melbourne Park after Australian Open boss Craig Tiley stood by the call to overlook Bernard Tomic for a wildcard.
Jeremy Jin lost to Belgium’s Zizou Bergs 7-6 (7-3) 6-1, James McCabe was beaten by Frenchman Alexander Muller 7-6 (7-2) 6-7 (4-7) 7-3 and Derek Pham was knocked out by German Peter Gojowczyk 6-2 6-2.
All three were chosen ahead of Tomic for wildcards.
Tomic, the one-time world No.17, is missing the Australian Open for the first time in 16 years.
“It’s our performance team that look at the decision of wildcards,” Tiley told reporters on Monday when asked about Tomic.
“What it goes into is the player coming in, or the strength of their play, how they’ve been playing, what events they’ve been playing, how much they’ve been playing. Are they the younger part of our future generation, the younger players?
“There’s many factors that go into it and it’s not a quick decision they go through.
“One thing that’s great, we’ve got a new problem, and we’ve got a lot more Australian players than we’ve had before to choose from, and that’s a great, great problem to have.”
Max Purcell, Alex Bolt and wildcards Dane Sweeny and Adam Walton all reached the second round.
Purcell was leading No.2 seed Marco Cecchinato 6-2 3-2 when the Italian retired while Bolt made light work of Renzo Olvio, taking an hour to beat the Argentine 6-1 6-2.
Walton swept aside Spaniard Pablo Andujar 6-1 6-2 and Sweeny beat Vit Kopriva 6-1 6-1.
In the opening round of women’s qualifying, Destanee Aiava easily accounted for Ipek Oz 6-3 6-3 while Zoe Hives beat Harmony Tan 6-2 5-7 6-1.
But Arina Rodionova suffered a tough loss to veteran American CoCo Vandeweghe, going down 6-4 7-6 (10-8).
Wildcard Seone Mendez was knocked out by Elena-Gabriela Ruse in three sets 6-1 3-6 6-1, Lizette Cabrera lost 6-2 6-3 to Elina Avanesyan and Kaylah McPhee was thrashed 6-4 6-0 by Cristina Bucsa.
American Ashlyn Krueger knocked out former Wimbledon finalist Eugenie Bouchard, winning 6-3 1-6 6-4.
Petra Kvitova has sent a reminder to the Australian Open field she is no spent force, showing off her powerful serve in defeating fellow Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina in Adelaide.
The Czech 32-year-old arrived for the second instalment of the Adelaide event in good spirits after an impressive United Cup campaign and it showed in a 6-3 7-5 first round win.
Kvitova won Wimbledon in 2011, when she peaked at No.2 in the world, before adding another All England triumph in 2014.
Rybakina became the first Kazakhstani player to win a major title at Wimbledon last year but couldn’t make a dent on the Kvitova serve on Monday.
“I lost (to her) last season and she played really great, serving really well, so I focused on my serve, waited for my chances to break her,” said Kvitova, ranked 16 in the world.
“And my serve worked very well today, it’s what I’m very happy with … it was about (dominating) the serve and first one or two points of the rallies.
“I enjoyed the United Cup and playing with the guys … it was a different vibe and gave me great practice, great attitude as well so I came here playing very well.”
The left-hander will play the winner of Shelby Rogers and Zheng Qinwen in the second round.
Last year’s Australian Open finalist Danielle Collins was in fine touch too, racing to a 5-0 lead over former world No.1 Karolina Pliskova before prevailing 6-2 6-4.
Collins’ next assignment is Swiss qualifier Jil Teichmann, also fresh off United Cup duties, who beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-5 6-4.
World No.13 and 2020 Olympic gold medalist Belinda Bencic was impressive in dispatching two-time grand slam winner Garbine Muguruza 6-3 6-4. She’ll next meet Jelena Ostapenko or qualifier Anna Kalinskaya.
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