High fives: de Minaur, Pospisil to collide after marathon US Open wins

At the start of the this year’s US Open, just three men in the draw knew what it took to win seven matches and attain Grand Slam glory: Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Marin Cilic.

With fellow former champions Rafael Nadal and Stan Wawrinka opting not to make the trip to New York, and Roger Federer out for the rest of the year due to right knee surgery, players landing in the bottom half of the draw—away from a 2020-unbeaten Djokovic—knew a grand opportunity to make a deep run was in their hands no matter how much they tried to downplay it.

On Saturday, the bottom quarter began to take shape when Alex de Minaur and Vasek Pospisil won a pair of five-setters within a half hour to set up a round-of-16 meeting. The collision is a tale of two different trajectories: De Minaur, still just 21, reached this stage of the US Open for the second year running, equaling his best major showing to date. Pospisil, now 30, finds himself in the second week of a singles Slam for the first time since his 2015 Wimbledon quarterfinal run.

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The impending encounter isn’t what the draw projected on paper, but it’s hardly a surprise. De Minaur picked up three ATP titles on outdoor hard courts in 2019, and he’s made positive progress at the Open in every appearance. After being overwhelmed by No. 8 Dominic Thiem in his 2017 debut, the Australian pushed No. 7 Cilic to 7-5 decider in a memorable late-night finish a year later, and followed that heartbreaking loss up by getting the better of another No. 7, Kei Nishikori, to reverse his third-round fortune.

At one stretch on Saturday against 16th-ranked Karen Khachanov, De Minaur conceded eight games in a row and later lost control with a rare racquet smash. After going down two sets to one, De Minaur returned to what he does best: digging in, and throwing the kitchen sink to unsettle his opponent. In the final two sets, de Minaur went for the kill at the right time, winning 14 of 16 points at the net, and made just one unforced error to break a worn down Khachanov three times in the fifth. The final score: 6-4, 0-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.

"Probably the biggest thing that I did differently was kind of just shut up and play. That was kind of my mentality," De Minaur said afterwards. "I was able to just be constant pressure throughout the whole match. I felt like I didn't give him too many mistakes, and I just made sure that he had to work in every one of his service games."

For Pospisil, Flushing Meadows has evolved into a venue deeply connected with his pro tennis DNA. It was the sight of his first Grand Slam main-draw match win in 2011, it was the place where he fell in agonizing five-set openers from 2013-2015, and it's the first visible mile marker to his rise back up to where he is today. Ranked No. 216 after missing six months to repair a herniated disk, Pospisil posted his own five-set victory over then-No. 9 Khachanov in the first round last year. A strong effort in Shanghai, a pair of two Challenger titles in the U.S. and three wins in the Davis Cup Finals set everything in motion for bigger and better things in 2020. In February, he finished runner-up to Gael Monfils in Montpellier, and three days later, ousted world No. 5 Daniil Medvedev in Rotterdam to get back inside the Top 100.

"I think I'm more mature, using my energy more wisely," said Pospisil. "I think as you get older, you figure those things out a little bit better."

One prime illustration of this area of growth is Pospisil using a five-plus month shutdown induced by the COVID-19 pandemic to redirect his motivation. He co-hosted the weekly show, Tennis United, with Bethanie Mattek-Sands and co-founded Hekate, a company whose mission is to “revolutionize physical and mental performance with functional mushrooms.” Pospisil turned to the fungi during his injury recovery, where he learned to adopt a “mind over matter” philosophy—one that appears to be strongly implanted in New York.

Balancing the political landscape of his leadership role off the court in the creation of the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA), announced just before the start of the tournament, Pospisil has now risen to the occasion on the court. He outclassed “Cincinnati in New York” finalist Milos Raonic in the second round, and on Saturday, pulled he away from world No. 11 Roberto Bautista Agut, 7-5, 2-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, combining for 31 winners to 18 unforced errors in the 4th and 5th sets to confirm his showdown with the tenacious Aussie.

"He's extremely physical, one of the fittest guys on the tour. It can just seem like he can run all day. You wake him up at 8 a.m. in the morning, and he'll probably run until 8 at night without getting tired," Pospisil said of De Minaur. "That's a huge weapon of his, so I'll just have to use my weapons—keeping the points short, being aggressive, coming to the net, serve well, hopefully and take it to him. There are a lot of things I can do on the court."

De Minaur will carry a 2-0 record into their matchup, having defeated Pospisil twice on outdoor hard courts in 2018. The Canadian admitted that he is monitoring a pair of strains, an ab and quad, and though manageable, is taking each niggle day by day. But given the weight of this opportunity, their professional and personal development the past two years and the paths that have led each to this moment, it’s fair to say the Next Gen ATP standout won’t be putting much stock into the past, or Pospisil's injury concerns.

"Even though Vasek isn't a seed, he's definitely playing like a top seed," said De Minaur. "He's taken out both Milos and Bautista. He definitely deserves to be there. He's a very, very dangerous player."

If the complimentary words bestowed by De Minaur and Pospisil are anything to go by, each will take the court Monday with respect—and simply shut up and play.