Alex De Minaur in the fourth round of the 2024 Australian Open

Alex de Minaur of Sydney is the last Australian left in the men’s draw or women’s draw in the 2024 Australian Open. On Friday, de Minaur defeated Flavio Cobolli of Italy, 6-3, 6-3, 6-1 in the third round in men’s singles, in a match that lasted only two hours and seven minutes.

De Minaur did very well seeing Cobolli’s serve. He broke the Italian six times in 20 opportunities. De Minaur was also extremely effective at the net, as he won 26 of 32 points when coming in close. In all, de Minaur won 106 points compared to only 78 for Cobolli.

Next up for de Minaur, the 10th seed, is the fifth seed, Andrey Rublev of Russia. Head-to-head, de Minaur has won three of five matches. Their first meeting came in the semifinals of Washington in 2018, which was won by de Minaur, 5-7, 7-6, 6-4. Their next battle came in 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals, which de Minaur won 4-1, 3-4, 4-1, 4-2. Rublev then won 2-6, 6-1, 6-4 in the second round of the Monte Carlo Masters in 2022, De Minaur beat Rublev 6-4, 6-4 in the first round of Rotterdam in 2023, and then Rublev beat de Minaur 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 in the quarterfinals of the 2023 Paris Masters.

De Minaur has now reached the fourth round at three consecutive Australian Open events. In 2022, he lost 7-6, 6-3, 6-4 to Jannik Sinner of Italy. Then in 2023, de Minaur was steamrolled in straight sets by eventual champion Novak Djokovic of Serbia, 6-2, 6-1, 6-2. De Minaur’s best result at a grand slam event was a quarterfinal berth at the 2020 United States Open. Speaking of quarterfinals, Rublev has been to nine quarterfinals throughout his career at a grand slam event, and lost them all.

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