Alex de Minaur’s packs muscles, more risks on court to attempt taking down Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
De Minaur will start his season in Sydney at the United Cup, after taking a short break for the first time in seven years.
World No 7 Alex de Minaur has enlisted the help of a new fitness trainer in order to bulk up to counter the challenge of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
Bridging the gap to the duo, has been a major challenge for the Australian who has now made it to the quarterfinals of every major but has lost all eighteen attempts at beating the two players who no one on the men’s tour has an answer to.
“There’s no other way than just getting better, right? That’s what it is. You ultimately have to bridge that gap … I’ve played some very close matches over the years with both of them, and you feel like you’re getting closer and closer, and that’s what it is – you’ve got to work on your game, find new weapons,” De Minaur said to the Sydney Morning Herald.
De Minaur will start his season in Sydney at the United Cup, after taking a short break for the first time in seven years. But the Australian Open in Melbourne is where his first test lies. And while adding muscle has been a core goal, being inventive and mixing it up when facing the two is also something that the Australian is looking to work on.
For me, it’s finding different ways to hurt these players – trying to be ready to take more risks and be a little bit more of a disruptor,” he said. “So it’s kind of a couple more things here and there that we’ve tried to work towards in my team throughout this off-season to kind of try to take that next step because that’s obviously the next goal.Ultimately, trying to get bigger and stronger and just keep on improving,” he said.
De Minuar recently beat Taylor Fritz at the ATP World Tour finals but it was a loss to Lorenzo Musetti that prompted him to describe the match as one of the toughest days of his life.
“It was a way for me to just express my feelings, kind of get it out there, give myself a chance to regroup and, obviously, I was very pumped with the way I bounced back for my next match (against Fritz),” said De Minaur.
