US OPEN

September 1, 2025

Alex De Minaur

Press Conference

A. de MINAUR/L. Riedl

6-3, 6-2, 6-1

THE MODERATOR: Alex, congratulations. Convincing win. Your thoughts.

ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, happy with the performance. Could have been a dangerous matchup the way he's been playing with a lot of confidence. I knew that going in. I'm very happy with the way I kind of went about my business.

I stayed focused. I knew I had a job to get done, and I'm happy that I was able to get through in straight sets.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. You are well known for the level you can hit on hard soil in Australia but here you've made three quarterfinals. I wonder, is it a matter of playing really well on hard courts everywhere? Where do you think you actually do play your best tennis?

ALEX de MINAUR: Well, I think if we look at results, I think this is by far my best slam. It's often a question I ask myself of why exactly is it here in New York, and I think I probably put it down to maybe the courts being a little bit quicker here and the conditions and the ball flying through the air a little bit quicker.

But all the way back to juniors, I had an incredible run from qualifiers all the way to the semifinals. I got my first top-10 win here against Nishikori. First quarterfinals at a slam was here. I've now made three quarters here.

I get good results here in New York, so New York treats me very well.

Q. A bit of an off-topic question. I'm working on a piece about players when signing autographs or throwing things into the crowd. I don't know if you saw there was an incident where a guy yanked a player's cap out of a little boy's hand. Is that something that's happened to you, you throw something into a crowd and there's almost like a fight over it?

ALEX de MINAUR: Look, it's always difficult as a player, because I think if it was for the player, we would normally stay there for however long it took to sign every autograph there is, but a lot of the time the fans don't realize or don't know that there's another match coming on after. Normally we're the one getting rushed to either do the on-court interview or to the next couple of things.

I always do my best to try and accommodate everyone that I can. A lot of the times, really, when I'm giving away, whether it's shoes, racquets, towels, whatever, I kind of always try to lock in and give it to the kids, right, because those are the real fans. They get super excited when you're able to give them something like that.

Q. Some people do the kind of over the shoulder blind throw.

ALEX de MINAUR: It depends on what you want to do. I think you get the couple of tennis balls that you get to sign at the end of the match, and that's your chance to go out into the very last row for those people that aren't able to come down, but then if you want to give something more personal or whatever, I lock in with a kid or whoever it might be. It might be a special fan that I've engaged throughout the whole tournament or the whole match. Kind of like I did with Paul at Roland Garros, right? You kind of lock in with a certain person.

Q. A coaching-related question. An increasing number of players travel around with two or even three coaches. Do you think with your current schedule that is really packed it is possible to be able to travel around with only one coach throughout the whole year?

ALEX de MINAUR: I don't think it's possible, and my reasoning towards that is that if the coach has a family, then he's not going to be able to see his family. I mean, the schedule that we have as players is never ending, and more often than not that's the whole reasoning for having two coaches. To split the weeks so they can, of course, spend time with their family.

Because the player themselves -- I know what I signed up for, right? I'm used to that, and it's one of the not ideal scenarios of our sport that I don't get to spend time at home with family and close friends. But, again, I don't want my team to ever feel that way, right?

My coach, he's got a young family. Over the years, I've been with him almost 17 years, and it gets to a point where, of course I'm never going to tell him that he's not allowed to go and spend time with his family. He's already spent so much time with me.

So I do think with the current schedule that it is completely normal to have coaches split weeks, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Q. Also when he's not able to make it to a tournament.

ALEX de MINAUR: The thing is -- so I've got Adolfo and I've got Matt Reid, and they're in constant communication throughout the whole year, right, and that's the most important thing.

No matter who is my coach at the tournament, they're both in constant communication, and they're both going back and forth with feedback. Yeah, that's the key purpose of any healthy relationship, working relationship, is communication.

Q. Could we look ahead? It looks like Felix is in the driver's seat as the next opponent. I think the first time I ever saw you play live was Junior Wimbledon against Felix on the court that doesn't exist anymore at Wimbledon, and that was an incredible clash. You maybe would have thought you might have met more times. Met three. Got him last time. Can you just paint a picture of the Felix that you see and what looms ahead.

ALEX de MINAUR: I think Felix is that type of player that everyone knows that his top level is incredibly high, and when he's playing with confidence, he's very tough to beat. This week he's obviously playing some incredible tennis, and he's got a lot of weapons.

He's got a great serve. He's got a great forehand. He looks to dictate whenever he can. In that matchup for me it's all about trying to disrupt his rhythm, not give him the chance to bully me on the court.

I do my best to counter and dictate whenever I can, and ultimately, I know what I'm getting myself into. He's got moments on the court where he's unbeatable, and then there's moments that he'll give you a couple of errors, right? For me it's about weathering the storm.

I'm giving myself a chance at playing for a quarterfinal, right? These are the matches I want to be playing in. For me it's about going for it, going for the opportunity, and I'm very excited for it.

Q. A while ago you were saying this tournament has been your most successful major. Which title would you want more than any other and why?

ALEX de MINAUR: Which title? As a slam?

Q. Any title.

ALEX de MINAUR: I dream of winning Australia. For me, I don't think there would be a better feeling than winning your home slam.

Yeah, at this stage any Grand Slam, right? That's the ultimate goal. I'm not going to get exactly picky if I can only get one, right? I'll be very happy with whichever falls on my lap.

But, of course, I think, yeah, growing up thinking about what it would feel like being an Australian winning in Australia, that would be pretty special.

Q. Just in case Rublev comes back, I want to make sure we cover that. What would be your thoughts about facing him?

ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, Andrey, he's a very experienced player. On tour he's made deep end of these types of tournaments very frequently. He is a player that, again, is very much a confidence player.

He has arguably the best forehand on tour. Feels like he can hit a winner off anything on that side, and he's a very aggressive player that tries to dictate and doesn't, I would say, enjoy when someone else is dictating.

The whole game plan, again, would be to do my best to kind of get on the front foot whenever I can and try to get him moving.

Q. Just one follow-up. You mentioned about the stage of the tournament, the quarterfinals. What is the physical side, and what is the mental side for you in terms of getting past that obstacle?

ALEX de MINAUR: I've always thought that the first job is to get there, right, and give myself the opportunity. If I bum out early, I'm never going to get the chance, so at least I've got the chance in front of me.

It's about embracing it, right? As I said, now this is my sixth quarterfinals, so I've got some experience. I know what to expect, and the mindset going forward is going to be going for it. There's no holding back.

Q. You were just talking about Australia. One of the great things about our sport is that it's so wonderfully international. You come from a great country and we're pretty dynamic here. Kind of a tough question, but if you would, what do you think we can learn the most from Australia and its experience and what can Australia learn from the United States?

ALEX de MINAUR: In terms of the tournament?

Q. In terms of culture, our style.

ALEX de MINAUR: I mean, I'm not too sure I'm the person to give lessons out here. But what I will say is both countries have incredible history and heritage in this sport from the very, very early stages. It felt like it was always the Aussies against the U.S., right? I think both nations have done an incredible job at showing how important it is.

I mean, the U.S. have a pretty strong team at the moment. Even in Davis Cup, right? So I think they've found a very good crop of guys that are going to be dangerous for a very, very long time.

I think Australians, what we pride ourselves more than anything is playing for our flag, and that's something that's always been very important for us. As a young kid, I learned the importance of exactly that, of being able to represent your country, doing that in the best way possible, being able to play Davis Cup, the Olympics.

Any chance you step on the court, you're representing not only yourself, but your country. That's something I take a lot of pride in.

Q. I know I asked you a couple of times about your injury last year. I don't think I ever got the actual diagnosis. From what I read, was it a proximal adductor avulsion? Did you get a diagnosis?

ALEX de MINAUR: We're still at this stage where I've heard so many different things, right? So many different people call it different things.

As I would describe it or to my understanding, it was a tear in the fiber cartilage basically connecting from my adductor into, like, the pubic bone basically.

Q. Players end up discovering something about themselves after an injury. Was there a discovery or something that you even learned about yourself even after all the years you've been playing that you might not have known after you've gone through this and then now again in the quarterfinal?

ALEX de MINAUR: Well, more than anything was that the results I could have with not having my movement, right, which I've always thought, I've always been told, that the reason why I am where I am is because of my movement and my speed. That's one of my biggest attributes, no doubt.

When that was taken away from me, there was a lot of serious doubt of how am I going to win tennis matches, right? It's not like I'm getting amazing free points on serve, I'm hitting cold winners out of any spot on the court.

Just the sheer fact that I was able to realize that my whole career I was the small guy. I was the guy that wasn't strong, that had to find lots of different ways to win tennis matches and really had to kind of get the most out of myself tactically. So when I walked out on court and I played these matches as a junior, I was looking at different ways to beat these bigger, taller, stronger guys.

I kind of went back into my childhood in that stage where I was thinking of matches tactically and where did I need to hit the ball so my opponent couldn't expose my movement? That's kind of what I was playing on.

All of a sudden I'm out here, I'm having incredible results. I'm still able to be competitive against the best players in the world. I'm like, yeah, it gave me a lot of confidence in that regard.