Alex de Minaur has pledged to step away from tennis temporarily after his latest Wimbledon disappointment left him sensing his ambitions are slipping further from reach. However, the Australian isn't contemplating retirement just yet and believes he has little option but to dust himself off and continue after some time away following a result that "hurts like hell."
Defeat to Cobolli Ends Wimbledon Run
De Minaur faced Flavio Cobolli on Court 1 with his fiancée Katie Boulter looking on in an England football shirt following the Three Lions' World Cup victory over Mexico hours beforehand. He dropped a closely contested opening set to the Italian and was unable to serve out the second before eventually going down 5-7, 6-7, 3-6.
It leaves the Australian amongst the sport's nearly men when it comes to Grand Slams. He has secured 11 career ATP Tour titles but has never progressed past the quarter-finals of a Slam.
Plans for a Break
He is set to defend his Washington Open crown at the end of July but his fixture list for the forthcoming months appears uncertain if his remarks in SW19 are any indication. "I won't play a tournament for a while," De Minaur said. "But again, they just accumulate, right? The goals, the beliefs, the dreams that you have, they kind of start fading away or they feel a little bit further away than when they once were."
He continued: "I'm finding it harder. That's the reality of it. At the end of the day, I've got no other option, right? I'm not going to say 'I've had enough, I'm hanging up the racquets.' It's fresh now. It hurts like hell now. But I'll get back up. I'm a competitor, through and through. So I'll get back up, and I'll give myself another chance. I just want it to kind of happen to keep giving me that hope. If not, this is a tough, tough sport to play with no hope."
Focus on Personal Life
Boulter and De Minaur are set to tie the knot later this summer, and the 27-year-old is keen to shift his attention to his personal life rather than brooding over his latest defeat on court. "I've got some pretty big things happening soon, so some stuff that I'm very excited for," he added. "I think my best way forward is to channel my focus into that, into something positive."
Grand Slam Near-Misses
The Sydney-born star's finest Wimbledon campaign came in 2024, when he made it to the quarter-finals before being forced to withdraw from his clash against Novak Djokovic due to a hip injury. He has also reached the last eight of the Australian Open in each of the last two years, the French Open in 2024 and the US Open on three separate occasions, yet has never progressed beyond that stage.
On this occasion, he had little answer to a red-hot Cobolli. "From my side, I think I played one of the best match ever, especially on this surface that is always tough to play," the Italian said. "But today I found a way to have a high level for, I don't know how much I played, but for all the match. It was really impressive also for me, for my team."
