A fatigued Alex De Minaur cited mental burnout from a long and arduous tennis season as a possible factor in giving up a two-sets to love lead to crash out of Roland-Garros.
The Australian ninth seed went down 2-6, 2-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 in the second round to Alexander Bublik, leaving his place in the ATP top 10 at risk.
It was de Minaur’s worst result at a grand slam since Wimbledon 2023 after reaching further than the fourth round in his past six grand slams.
De Minaur looked like he was going to have an early day at the office, showing plenty of energy in the opening two sets, with the Kazakh world No.62 sliding from end to end, unable to come up with answers to the Aussie’s groundstrokes.
But everything changed at the end of the third set, when he fought his way back from 3-0 down to level scores at 4-4. It appeared the momentum had swung back to de Minaur, yet Bublik pulled out some brilliant shots, most notably a superb forehand winner that secured the third set.
From there, Bublik grew in confidence and de Minaur’s composure seemed shot as the Kazakh player’s shot-making aroused the crowd, leading him to pull out some masterful strokes to win the fourth, including a tweener followed by a huge backhand down the line.
Speaking to Stan Sport after the match, de Minaur pointed to the amount of tennis he has played in the past few years, saying he’s “mentally running on fumes”.
“Just not a good day at the office, one of those days that doesn’t happen very often, which is in a way a good thing for me in my career, but of course it’s just an abnormal day at the office. So we got to sit down with the team and kind of analyse why this happened,” he said.
“If anything, I feel like I’m mentally running on fumes a little bit and that’s probably one of the reasons that maybe I was not able to get my focus and get the job done today, so yeah, let’s just go with that.
“Just a lot of tennis, a lot of weeks, a lot of matches, a lot of training days in and out and it’s obviously taking a toll on me, because it’s not just, you know, this year, it’s been three or four years going where I’ve made a really big effort to kind of push all the way.
“It seems to have caught up with me a little bit, so I’m gonna have to reassess with the team and see what the best way moving forward is, and let today be a one time thing.”
Over the pas 12 months, de Minaur has played 71 matches since he made the final eight at Roland-Garros in 2024.
His season began with the United Cup mixed team tournament in December, 33 days after the Davis Cup Finals ended in Spain.
“No one’s got a solution,” De Minaur added in his post-match press conference. “But the solution is simple: You shorten the schedule, right?
“What’s not normal is that for the last three, four years I’ve had two days off after the Davis Cup and I’ve gone straight into pre-season, straight into the new season again.
“Once you start, you don’t finish until November 24. So it’s never ending. The way it’s structured … I had to deal with that. I’m still dealing with that right now.
“The solution is you shorten [the tour], because what’s going to happen is players’ careers are going to get shorter and shorter because they’re just going to burn out mentally. There’s just too much tennis.”
De Minaur’s echoed the sentiments of fellow Aussie Jordan Thompson, who lamented the extension of all but two Masters tournaments in his cutting critique of the relentless schedules.
Two-time finalist at Roland-Garros, Casper Ruud, said he ATP’s ranking system was like a “rat race” after losing his match on Wednesday, declaring that players were pushing themselves to play through injury and mental fatigue.
”Well, it’s like a rat race when it comes to the rankings,” Ruud said. “You feel you’re obligated to play with certain rules that the ATP have set up with the mandatory events. You feel like you lose a lot if you don’t show up and play. … The punishments are quite hard, in terms of everyone else will play, gain points, and you won’t.
“You’re forcing players to show up injured or sick or whatever, when that’s not what I think is very fair.”
Elsewhere, Alexei Popyrin is the only Australian man left in the draw and will play Portugal’s Nuno Borges in the second match on Court 14 on Friday for a spot in the last 16.
~Adam Walton~ fell to Andrey Rublev 7-6 (1), 6-1, 7-6 (5).