De Minaur shakes off Medvedev, returns to Monte-Carlo QFs

Alex de Minaur secured the biggest win of his season by PIF ATP Rankings in style on Thursday at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters.

The World No. 10 dismantled No. 11 Daniil Medvedev 6-2, 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals for the second consecutive year at the clay-court ATP Masters 1000. The 26-year-old’s powerful and precise groundstrokes proved too much even for the retrieval skills of Medvedev, who dropped serve in seven of his eight service games.

“We’ve played each other many times and played each other on basically every surface,” said De Minaur after improving to 4-7 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Medvedev. “I tried to draw a lot on our last match at Roland Garros [in 2024] and see what worked for me. I thought I executed really well… I thought I was smart and tactically played the right way today.”

Demon rising through the gears 🆙@alexdeminaur | @ROLEXMCMASTERS | #RolexMonteCarloMasters pic.twitter.com/8M3XyHu4O9

— ATP Tour (@atptour) April 10, 2025

De Minaur has done plenty of winning in 2025 — he has now notched a Tour-leading 19 victories this year, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index — but this was his first triumph against a Top 20 opponent in 10 attempts dating back to last October. Yet there was no lack of confidence in the way the Australian powered past Medvedev in 72 minutes.

“More than anything, I’m just finding my feet on clay,” said De Minaur. “It’s taken me a while in my career, but I finally understand what I need to do to be effective on this surface. I can be dangerous on this surface, so I’m very happy to play here and start off the clay swing with some good matches. All my energy and all my effort now goes to tomorrow.”

De Minaur will play 15th seed Grigor Dimitrov in the last eight on Friday after the Bulgarian defeated Novak Djokovic conqueror Alejandro Tabilo 6-3, 3-6, 6-2. De Minaur is just the third Australian to reach multiple Monte-Carlo quarter-finals in the Open Era, after Dick Crealy and John Alexander.

Despite his third-round defeat, Medvedev could still return to the Top 10 in the PIF ATP Rankings after Monte-Carlo. He is currently up two spots to No. 9 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings, but four players still alive in the draw could yet overtake him this week.