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After three near-misses, Alex de Minaur has become the sixth Australian man to make the quarter-finals of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park.
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The world No.8 moved his record to 17-0 against players ranked lower than him at his home slam, surging then surviving against 20-year-old American Alex Michelsen, 6-0 7-6(5) 6-3.
De Minaur joins Pat Cash (1988), Mark Woodforde (1996), Pat Rafter (2001), Lleyton Hewitt (2005) and Nick Kyrgios (2015) as local men to make the last eight since the tournament’s move to hard courts in the late 80s.
He will face defending champion and world No.1 Jannik Sinner on Wednesday night for a spot in the semi-finals.
The Sydneysider’s long-time mentor Hewitt was the last Aussie man to go that deep in the tournament, when he made a run to the final in 2005.
“There is nothing I want to do more than play well here in Australia in front of you guys,” de Minaur said post-match.
“So I am glad I finally made it to a quarter-finals here. Let’s go for bigger and better things. Come on.”
De Minaur has never beaten Sinner, losing all nine meetings, including in straight sets in the fourth round of the 2022 Australian Open.
“It’s going to be an incredibly tough match and I’m going to have to do something I haven’t done before. But why not start here?” he asked.
In a dream start, the Aussie cruised through a 6-0 opening set in just 27 minutes. It was his 9th bagel in the last 12 months, the most of any men’s player, as Michelsen made error after error.
“He’s looking confused. His mind is scrambled,” Jim Courier said on Nine.
De Minaur was up 6-0 2-0 with a break, and it got to the point where the Rod Laver Arena crowd actually cheered for the American as he finally held for the first time in his fifth service game.
They weren’t backing him for long. By the time Michelsen earned his first break point at 2-3 in the second set, he had clearly played himself into some form, but de Minaur held off that attack.
The American’s assault continued as he saved the set by breaking at 4-5, then leading for the first time all match at 6-5.
The tiebreak was nervy, with Michelsen breaking first before a costly error, de Minaur then clutching up from 4-5 with a staggering winner, an ace and then one more Michelsen mistake handing the Aussie the set at 7-6(5).
Much like in the tiebreak, the third set break came quickly through three big points – a Michelsen volley mistake, a forced error and then a de Minaur winner – putting the Aussie up 4-2.
He had to save a break point serving for the quarter-finals at 5-3.
The winner of the de Minaur-Sinner quarter-final will be favoured against whoever they draw in the semi-finals – either big-serving American No.21 seed Ben Shelton, or unseeded Italian Lorenzo Sonego.
While in normal circumstances Sinner would be heavily favoured against de Minaur, the reigning champion is not at his best right now, battling illness in his four-set win over Holger Rune.
That means there is a clear path for de Minaur to make the Australian Open final if he plays at his absolute best – and if Sinner remains below his.
De Minaur and Michelsen followed the least likely fourth-round match of the tournament, pitting lucky loser Eva Lys against No.2 seed Iga Swiatek.
Swiatek continued her brilliant tournament, dominating the German 6-0 6-1 – with huge cheers when Lys held serve midway through the second set.
The first set, Swiatek’s 15th bagel of the last 12 months, lasted just 24 minutes.
Lys lost in the final round of qualifying and was called up as a replacement just 10 minutes before her first round match against Aussie women’s No.1 Kim Birrell; the German then won three straight matches in a career-best performance.
Swiatek will try and make just her second semi-final appearance at Melbourne Park on Wednesday when she faces Emma Navarro, who survived Daria Kasatkina’s challenge in three sets.
In the juniors, Cruz Hewitt was knocked out in the second round by No.1 seed Jan Kumstat, 6-3 7-6(7).
It’s a solid effort for the 16-year-old son of Lleyton, given the gap between the two players even at their young ages. Kumstat was the runner-up in the boys’ singles at Melbourne Park in 2024.
AUSTRALIAN OPEN NIGHT 9 ORDER OF PLAY (All times AEDT)
Men’s and Women’s Singles Fourth Round
Rod Laver Arena
Night session from 7pm
[LL] Eva Lys (GER) vs No.2 Iga Swiatek (POL)
Alex Michelsen (USA) vs No.8 Alex de Minaur (AUS)
John Cain Arena
No.8 Emma Navarro (USA) vs No.9 Daria Kasatkina (RUS)
