THE CHAMPIONSHIPS

July 3, 2025

Alex De Minaur

Press Conference

A. de MINAUR/A. Cazaux

4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 6-0

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Alex, started slow, but by the end it looked as though you really kicked into gear. How pleased are you with the way it went?

ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, it was definitely a slow start. Not the kind of start I was hoping for, but sometimes that's what happens, and you've got to react to what is happening on the given day.

It wasn't the way I wanted to play that first set, so I had to reset mentally for that second set. I'm very glad I did because then I managed to find my game and, as you said, it became better and better as the match went on.

Q. What did you think just in settling in trying to sort of figure him out?

ALEX de MINAUR: It was a couple of things. I've never played him. I've never hit with him, so there's that aspect of it of trying to figure him out a little bit. I think I came out a little nervous, overplaying a little bit, making a lot of mistakes.

I kind of just told myself to rein it in a little bit and get myself into rallies, get more confident as the match went on. As those rallies got longer and longer, I started to feel my shots a lot more.

The other big change was my serve. My serve wasn't great in the first set, and I just reined it in and decided to take away a little bit of pace and started making first serves.

A combination of those things ended up being very beneficial to me today.

Q. A lot of your compatriots have spoken about you being the standard-bearer through the years, but do you feed off somebody like Jordan in the last couple days? Do you get that feedback and the sort of energy and inspiration from sort of those sort of performances?

ALEX de MINAUR: It always amazes me, Tommo and his efforts on the court. It's pretty surreal, to be honest.

I don't know exactly how many five-set wins or comebacks from two sets to love down he's had, but it feels like six or seven already. It's amazing to see. I mean, he's the ultimate competitor. He might not play his best, he might not feel amazing, but something you can count on is him competing from the very first point to the last. That's why he's had some really good results in Grand Slams.

Ultimately, showing what that Australian culture is, is that never say die attitude, never giving up, competing from the first point to the last. That's what we, as Australians, want the standard to be and to show and to let the opponents from the rest of the world know that, Hey, if you are playing an Aussie, be ready for a battle.

Q. How significant do you think those final three sets could be to your sort of campaign this year, given everything that's happened over the last five, six weeks, talking about the mental fatigue and trying to get your form back? On a day when things weren't going right at the start, to turn it around so significantly, what could that mean for you?

ALEX de MINAUR: You know, over the last couple of days, couple of weeks, my mentality is about taking small wins. Not worrying about kind of the result as a whole, but trying to focus a little bit more on small wins. I look at this match, and probably the old me would be, like, I'm definitely not happy with the way I started this match. It's not good enough. If I want to achieve certain results here, I need to lift my game, but the way I'm looking at it is that I'm happy. I reset. I found my game. I battled through. There were some tough moments there which I pushed through. Ultimately, I'm here talking to you guys ready for another match and giving myself another opportunity to come out and play some good tennis again.

It could be quite important.

Q. You mentioned that Aussie fighting spirit and part of the culture. Is that something that you just grow up with? Is it learned behavior? At what point did that sort of get pounded into you? I guess the last part of that question is, are there matches that stick out in your mind from the last couple of years where you think that's what got you through rather than your tennis that day?

ALEX de MINAUR: I think as an Aussie growing up, you just look up to your idols, right? You look up to the players before you.

Australia has such a rich history and culture in tennis and of competitors, athletes. You go from, yeah, generations upon generations. You go to the Roche's, the Newcombe's, Laver. Fast forward, Rafter, Cashie, Lleyton. There's just an abundance of people to look up to, right? That's what makes it easier.

Growing up, that's what I saw. That's what I wanted to replicate. That was the norm. That's why for me, right now, I take a lot of pride in setting that standard for the next generation, because I want to be a positive impact on the kids growing up and have, you know, the same type of role models that I did growing up.

Q. Looking at the stats, in the final two sets the stats were showing a number of unforced errors by your opponent getting higher and higher. If you just look at numbers, that suggests that he wasn't playing very well, but we know that happens because you put him under pressure. Do you think that unforced errors is an unfair reflection on a player?

ALEX de MINAUR: I think unforced errors as a stat is very hard to judge, because it all comes down to the person deciding whether it's an unforced error or not, right, and there's a lot of different factors that can play into any given shot.

It might look like an easy forehand, but there could be a little bit of wind in the last second, a bad bounce, et cetera that can affect those types of stats that then go down as unforced errors. Obviously, those numbers are quite high.

Now, talking about my match, the game plan ended up being that, playing a little bit of a lockdown and making him have to try and go for a lot more than he's comfortable to do, right? In the first set, I feel like I kind of gave him the set by unforced errors on my side by trying to press too much, and then I realized that I could be in comfortable rallies moving him around without having to force the issue too much.

And, in fact, felt like all the pressure went towards him where he started to feel like he had to go for more and more and more. That's why I think the third and fourth sets showed a lot of errors on his side.

Q. I was just wondering how difficult it is at a time when your partner has gone out of the tournament. As well as concentrating on your own match, you also have to comfort her, as well. How do you do that? How do you cope with that?

ALEX de MINAUR: There's no real rule book that you can go on, but it's not ideal. It's not nice. I felt for Katie yesterday, and I've been in those positions myself. It's not easy by any means to, yeah, forget about it. It's something that kind of stays with you.

On my side, you know, there's obviously the part of doing my best to comfort her and try to be there for her the same way she is there for me through the good stuff and the bad stuff.

It definitely does have a little bit of impact on yourself, and you've got to do your best to try and have a mental reset and kind of shift your focus towards yourself and realizing that you do have a match the following day that you've got to prepare for, it's not going to be an easy one, it's going to be a battle.

So yeah, it's a lot of different aspects to deal with, which aren't easy, I think I can get better at, but that's experience.

Q. How important is having the support of the British public? You were speaking on court afterwards. You've got the wedding coming up and having Katie here despite what happened with her campaign. Do you think you've won the hearts of the British public?

ALEX de MINAUR: I've felt an amazing shift of support the last three or four years, and spending a lot more time here in the U.K., it's been quite special. It feels like I'm growing roots here.

As I said before, I've been fortunate enough to be around the grounds in Wimbledon when the tournament is not on. I've been able to train here. I've been able to be here with Katie. So I've kind of been able to see shift between it being a club into a Grand Slam.

All those aspects all the way from spending some time together, being at home, knowing the location a lot better, it definitely gives you an overall better feeling as you go into this tournament.

Q. A few players have spoken in recent days about the courts being slow. Someone described it as being like playing on clay. What are your experiences, whether it's been slow or difficult to adapt to or the same old?

ALEX de MINAUR: I think it's the same as previous years. I don't know. Three, four, five years it's kind of always been the same sort of speed. It is on the slower side, but that's something that we all kind of know and are kind of used to.

Yeah, if I had to compare it to Queen's, Queen's is always a lot quicker than here at Wimbledon. You've got plenty of time to get used to it. Yeah, it's about finding ways to use it to your advantage.

Q. They're making excuses after they lose then, I guess.

ALEX de MINAUR: No, look, everyone has different feelings, what they prefer, where they feel comfortable, where they don't.

I personally feel over the last three, four years, this surface or the length of the grass hasn't really changed, and it's been very similar. That compared with the balls, it overall plays on the slower side. In the past, the grass was always rapid. It was always quick. You see the balls shooting through. That hasn't really happened here in Wimbledon for a while, right?

I think that's why you get a lot better rallies, a lot longer rallies. You see people starting to slide around the court. It creates kind of, yeah, longer, lengthier rallies, which I'm sure the public are enjoying a lot more.