Demon sets up Djoker showdown… but awkward final act sparks Wimbledon injury fears

Alex de Minaur has reached the quarterfinals of Wimbledon for the first time with a superb victory over emerging French talent Arthur Fils on Monday but has an injury cloud hanging over his title hopes.

The Australian raced through the first four games before being challenged in the latter stages but was able to exact revenge for a recent loss to the exciting Fils in Barcelona when progressing 6-2 6-4 4-6 6-3 in 2hr 54min.

Despite a ferocious flurry from the Frenchman in the third set aside which forced him onto the back foot for a period, de Minaur produced his best performance to date for the fortnight as he progressed to his second straight quarterfinal in a grand slam.

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But after producing an outstanding lunging volley to close the match, the Australian moved stiffly and celebrated in muted fashion, later saying he felt pain in the right hip in the final game.

De Minaur had slid wide for a forehand on the first of his two match points.

In the stands, Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt could be seen rubbing his hip region when as he and de Minaur made eye contact and on the court, when quizzed about a potential injury, the Australian said; “I’m alright. I will find a way through.”

The Australian came to press more than two hours after the match and downplayed any significant concerns when saying he was excited by his Wimbledon breakthrough.

“I’m feeling pretty decent. Again, my body went through a pretty physical match out there (and the) body feels a little bit ginger everywhere. I’m not going to lie. I’ve done my recovery. I’m sure I’ll be feeling great tomorrow,” he said.

“I just slid out to a forehand on my first match point. I felt like I jarred it a little bit. I kind of was a little bit ginger. Again, it’s probably a little bit of a scare more than anything. The situation was tight. In a way helped me relax and finish off the match.”

The 25-year-old, who awaits seven-time champion Novak Djokovic, will be seeking to break new ground again on Wednesday when he bids to make the semifinals of a major for the first time.

After reaching the last eight at Roland Garros last month and following that with a grass court title in the Netherlands, de Minaur has moved to a live ranking of six, which would be a career-high, though he can still be jumped by at one rival positioned below him.

In a sign of his growing maturity, the former Wimbledon boys’ singles finalist was able to banish the ghosts of a couple of years ago when beaten by Cristian Garin in the same round in a match where he clinched the first two sets and held match points.

“It’s all about the little wins. My whole career has been about that, getting better every day, learning from tough experiences. I think that’s the key to becoming a better tennis player,” he said.

“I’ve taken a lot of the tough moments that I’ve gone through in my career, there’s only one way to look at it, and that’s learn from it. Us humans, we tend to be the only living thing that makes the same mistake twice. I’m glad I didn’t make that same mistake today.”

de Minaur is the second active Australian male to reach the quarterfinals of grand slams on three occasions, joining Nick Kyrgios, and the 20th Australian man in the Open era to reach the last eight at The AELTC.

In progressing to the last eight, he becomes the first Australian since Hewitt to reach the quarterfinals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same year. But it was not the easiest of progressions, with de Minaur struggling to hold his serve in the latter stages.

Asked what he was most pleased about, de Minaur said; “Getting over the finish line.”

“I definitely made it a lot harder than I probably should if. It was a great job mentally to stay with it, even though at the end I could not hold my serve, but I just backed my returns,” he said.

“I would love to just finish him (off). (But) whether I’m frustrated or not, the way I see it is I’m winning tennis matches. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter if it’s perfect, if it’s pretty, if it’s ugly or what it is.

“At the end of the day if I win the last point and I’m shaking my opponent’s hand and I have a big grin on my face, then it means I got the job done. As you go deeper in a tournament, you want to be playing better, you want to be executing a little bit better. That’s one of the areas that I can definitely improve on.”

The crowd groaned when they learned de Minaur would face either Djokovic or Rune next, prompting the Australian to quip; “That does not sound good.”

But he has wins over both men – he defeated Djokovic in the United Cup before falling in a tight match in Monte Carlo – and has vowed he will give it his best shot, despite the late injury concern.

“I am just excited to be in the quarterfinals. I am excited to have another battle. One thing you can definitely count on is me going out there, trying my hardest and playing my heart out,” he said.

De Minaur was near flawless in the infancy of the match, with the depth and precision of his groundstrokes and the quality of his movement placing his younger rival under immense pressure.

Prior to the match, the world No.9 had said that with the large cuts Fils takes when ripping the ball – his forehand technique in particular has a significant arc which generates enormous spin and power – he thought the Frenchman would be better suited to succeeding on clay.

So it proved. The 20-year-old, who will enter the top 30 next week, will be a formidable foe on any surface in years to come and has three top 10 wins from nine outings already. Playing in just his sixth grand slam, he performed extremely well at different stages on Monday.

But with the de Minaur forehand zipping and his backhand slice skidding through the court, Fils found it hard to handle the lower-bouncing ball on his own forehand wing, even though the quality of his own shot making was extraordinary at times.

That said, there was a significant amount of goodwill for the Frenchman on Court 1 when he finally broke through for a game at 0-4, and the crowd urged him on when he started the second well and fought hard to retrieve a service break in the deciding set.

Having found his rhythm late in the first set, Fils started the second set far speedier and was able to snare his first break for the match for a 2-0 lead with a quality game on the de Minaur serve, punctuated by a blistering backhand return that drew an error from the Aussie.

But as de Minaur retrieved the service break to work back into the set, his regular sparring partner over the past week Cruz Hewitt, the son of Hewitt, jumped from his set and pumped his fist in the delight.

The challenge of keeping pace with the Australian No.1 must have taken its toll on the 15-year-old, who received a back and shoulder massage midway through the set from his mum Bec in the row behind.

His defensive nous came to the fore at the start of the third as he continued to frustrate his rival, who had noted prior to the match that hitting through de Minaur was extremely hard, as he snared another break of serve to move to a 3-1 advantage.

But Fils, who had defeated 2021 Wimbledon semi-finalist Hubert Hurkacz and then required five sets to defeat Roman Safiullin on Saturday, refused to concede without a fight and produced a thunderous forehand to retrieve the break to level at 4-all.

He continued to throw all he had at de Minaur in a bid to extend the match, with some of the Frenchman’s ferocious forehands drawing audible gasps from the crowd, before drawing a rousing ovation after breaking the No.9 seed again to force a fourth set.

After a toilet break, de Minaur was able to defuse the firepower of Fils when breaking him to love to start the fourth set and was able to save two break points himself in the following game. Living dangerously, the “Demon” was forced to save three break two games later.

But he wrested complete control once again when breaking Fils for a second time and thumped his fist in delight after punching away a forehand volley to move to a 4-1 lead.

The challenges kept coming, with de Minaur dropping serve twice more as both players struggled on their own delivery, but he closed out a fine win with a magnificent angled forehand volley drop shot before stiffly walking to the net to shake hands.