The 21 & Under Club: Alex de Minaur

How do you follow the Greatest Generation? It’s a question tennis has tried to answer for at least a decade. Serena, Roger, Novak, Rafa: all of them are over 30, and they’ve combined to win 75 Grand Slam singles titles—but none of them are going away quietly. When they do, who will fill their very large shoes?

As you’ll see in The 21 & Under Club, the future of tennis is still coming, and coming soon. While it may not produce a 20-Slam winner, it’s clear that the game will be in good hands. Interesting hands, too: one thing we know for sure is that this new generation of players will infuse the tours with a wide and refreshing range of styles, personalities and backgrounds. When the Greatest Generation says goodbye, we can feel good about welcoming this cast of players to the courts.

“There’s a lot of stuff that happens off court,” says Alex de Minaur, “but I think at the end of the day, what I really want is to be that boring guy that lets his tennis do the talking, you know?”

With caustic Nick Kyrgios and headline-generating Bernard Tomic as compatriots, it doesn’t take much for de Minaur to be considered “boring” in Australian tennis circles. But as the 20-year-old says, the label suits him just fine—and it’s working. The “boring” guy from Down Under happens to be one of his country’s best. As of mid-April, de Minaur found himself on the verge of cracking the Top 20, and leading the pack as his nation’s No. 1

“It’s really just about putting in the hard yards and training hard,” de Minaur, all of 152 pounds, recently told Tennis Channel. “I just want to constantly keep getting better. As long as I can keep improving each day, I’m a strong believer that the results will show.”

Ranked outside the Top 200 at the start of 2018, de Minaur has quickly established himself as one of the tour’s top young stars, with a foundation based on a stellar work ethic, lightning-fast footspeed and sky-high intensity. His toolkit recalls that of another undersized Australian, Lleyton Hewitt, who just so happens to mentor the Sydney native.

Hewitt, a former world No. 1 who is still competing in ATP doubles tournaments at 38, has not only helped de Minaur develop a similar baseline game; he’s furthered the Aussie’s inherent sense of national pride. Hewitt first took notice of de Minaur during the teen’s run to the 2016 junior Wimbledon final, and their professional relationship has grown ever since.

“I think the biggest thing that impressed me with Alex was how professional he was,” Lleyton Hewitt told Tennis Channel. “How he was willing to always give 100 percent every time he stepped on to the practice court which he then would emulate going onto the match court.”

Last February, Hewitt selected the 139th-ranked 18-year-old for a spot on the Australian Davis Cup team, making de Minaur the 109th player to earn the distinction. To commemorate joining legends like Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall in Australian athletic lore, de Minaur got the number “109” tattooed on his chest.

“Guys like Hewitt are doing a great job with Davis Cup and the young players,” 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash says. “He’s getting the best out of them.” De Minaur won his first ATP Challenger title last June; a month later, he reached his second ATP final of the season, in Washington. This January, he won his first tour title, in Sydney, thrilling the home crowd by winning all 10 sets he played.

“It’s surreal,” de Minaur said in Sydney. “I couldn’t think of a better place to get my first win.

“To finally be able to take that step further and get my first tournament win, it’s something that’s really special in front of friends andfamily and in the courts I grew up on. [These are] definitely memories that are going to last forever.”

Not too bad for “that boring guy,” who has a nickname that’s quickly becoming familiar: “Demon.”

“The kid I’m excited about is de Minaur,” says Australia’s Mark Philippoussis. “He’s so fast. He’s just got a good mind for the game. With his mind and his heart, he’s going to squeeze every last drop out of his game. He’s going to get stronger physically, which will only help him.”

While de Minaur exudes Aussie green and gold, there’s Spanish blood running through his veins. His father, Anibal, is Uruguayan, and his mother, Esther, is from Spain. He resides in Alicante, where he moved to when he was five, and splits his time between Spain and Australia. And while Hewitt is a frequent mentor, de Minaur is coached by Spaniard Adolfo Gutierrez.

When de Minaur earned a seal of approval from Spain’s best player, Rafael Nadal, after their third-rounder at this year’s Australian Open, it bec-ame clear that de Minaur is someone we should all be paying attention to.

“Today [he] is one of the best players of the world,” said Nadal. “That’s the real thing.”

While there likely won’t be any TMZ headlines dragging de Minaur’s name around, there will be plenty of his highlights to enjoy and deep tournament runs to watch. In a time when it’s cool to appear like you’re not even trying, de Minaur is dedicated to putting his entire heart and body into every point. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

“That’s something that I expect from myself every time I step out on court, to just leave it all out there, leave 150 percent,” de Minaur said. “That’s the bare minimum. You want the players in the locker room to know you as that kid that fights till the end, has that never-say-die attitude, will compete until the end.”

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