Australian tennis ace Alex de Minaur is into the quarter finals for the first time at Wimbledon after beating Arthur Fils 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.
But the match ended in a scary way for the the 25-year-old Aussie and his team, after he appeared to injure himself on the final point.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Strange scenes at the end of de Minaur’s match.
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With his girlfriend Katie Boulter watching on, de Minaur approached the net, and lunged to his side to hit the winner.
Boulter was up on her feet, but de Minaur immediately started limping.
Rather than celebrating, he hobbled to the net, shook Fils’ hand, and then limped to his chair.
He then stared, concerned, at his team box and Boulter.
“Strange scenes on No.1. Alex de Minaur just played a fantastic match to reach his first Wimbledon QF, ousted Arthur Fils 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, played a brilliant match point – and doesn’t celebrate at all. Hobbles to his chair, sits down, looks up at his box and shakes his head,” the Tennis Podcast social media account said.
And tennis journalist Gill Gross said it looked alarming.
“Concerning reaction from de Minaur after this match point. It looks like he saw a ghost. I think he hurt himself.”
It is the first time the Aussie has made the final eight at Wimbledon.
After the match, he admitted the memory of his 2022 Wimbledon nightmare returned to haunt him when he dropped the third set to Fils.
Two years ago the Australian No.1 choked when two sets to love up against unseeded Cristian Garin at the same fourth round stage. He subsequently failed to close out two match points before losing a fifth-set tie-break.
Obviously a couple years back I was in a similar position, being two sets to love up,” he said.
“There was a lot going through my mind. Happy I was able to finish it off in the end. It definitely wasn’t easy. It definitely wasn’t straightforward.
“But hey, I’m sitting here in the quarter-finals. So happy days.”
It did not help that the crowd, normally supportive of the Sydneysider, wanted to get their money’s worth so were backing his opponent.
“At the end of the day the crowd wants a spectacle, right?” he reasoned.
“They want the match to go for as long as possible. You understand them getting involved, wanting Arthur to kind of have the comeback.”
But de Minaur shut out the noise, inside his head and in his ears, and drew on his experience to secure a last-eight spot.
“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.
“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.”
In the short-term the improvement he wants — and needs — to see is in his serve, having been broken by Fils in four of his final six service games.
“I didn’t help myself. I didn’t serve well in the moments that I needed to. I wasn’t landing my first serve. That’s what got me into trouble more often than not.
“The way I see it is I’m winning tennis matches, right? 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, right? 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.
“Of course, 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.”
– With AAP
