ATP Tour

'Seeing red', De Minaur fumes at 'wasted opportunity' in US Open defeat

Alex de Minaur played in his sixth major quarter-final on Wednesday at the US Open against Felix Auger-Aliassime and for the sixth time, he fell short. The hard-working Aussie’s disappointment was clear.

“Right now I'm looking at this like a wasted opportunity. It's tough,” De Minaur said. “There's no other way I'm probably going to deal with this, but just seeing it straight, and that's what today was. Today was an opportunity to break new ground.

“I was nowhere near the level I needed to be at. That's frustrating, because you don't get these chances often.”

De Minaur had plenty of chances to extend the match to a fifth set against the Canadian. He entered the match as the No. 8 player in the PIF ATP Rankings compared to No. 27 for Auger-Aliassime.

The 26-year-old struggled with his serve, making just 42 per cent of his first serves. Because of that, De Minaur was fighting an uphill battle from early on.

“I think the biggest thing for me is just my serve. My serve's been letting me down in big matches,” said De Minaur, who double-faulted twice in the fourth-set tie-break. “I put myself in and gave myself every chance to extend this match again and be in the fifth set like I did against Novak at Wimbledon. But I mean, it's pretty tough to win a high-quality match serving the way I did today.

“It’s something that needs to improve, because if not, I'm going to put myself into a lot of trouble frequently against the top players in the later stages of these tournaments.”

De Minaur is undoubtedly one of the grittiest competitors on the ATP Tour and that showed when he pushed the four-set match to four hours and 10 minutes. The eighth seed had lost just one set en route to the quarter-finals.

“If I'm looking back at this whole US Open campaign, I've got to be honest with myself. I haven't felt at my best in terms of how I have been playing on the court,” De Minaur said. “I feel like I have done exactly what I needed to do to get the job done, but I haven't really felt comfortable on the court. Today was another match of exactly that.”

De Minaur admitted he was “seeing red” following the defeat. He has continued to position himself for success, only to not take the next step.

“It is very tough when you have worked so hard for something and you constantly are putting yourself in positions to, in a way, prove people wrong, right?” De Minaur asked. “But yet again, you kind of fall, and especially this time, it's a tough one to take. There is no beating around the bush. It's one of those matches that I would love to play again.

“There are other times that the opponent has a lot to say, and have played quarter-finals where I played Jannik, and he was just too good and there's not really much I could have done. But I feel like this one was on my racquet, and it is a shame.”

De Minaur owns a 41-16 record this season according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index and is seventh in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin. He will now turn his attention to qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals for the second consecutive year.