Alex de Minaur Withdraws
Alex de Minaur, world number 21 and one of Australia’s top prospects has withdrawn from the 2020 Australian Open with an abdominal tear.
The young Aussie injured himself playing for his country at the ATP Cup last week, where he spent eleven and a half hours on the singles court, having epic battles against Rafael Nadal, Dan Evans, Alexander Zverev and Denis Shapovalov. He also competed in the doubles, teaming up with countryman Nick Kyrgios.
De Minaur’s Comments
“It’s not great, I’m not going to lie!”
“It’s not great, I’m not going to lie! It’s a week of the calendar that I look forward to and put in all the hard work for, so it’s pretty devastating to miss out on my home Slam,” De Minaur said. “I wanted to go out there and play, even though I’ve got a four-centimeter Grade 2 tear.
So it’s not a joke – it’s something severe. Getting out of bed hurts, everyday activity it hurts. So I was optimistic, but obviously, it wasn’t the case to recover in time. Everyone was telling me not to play; it is the smartest decision at the moment.
“Getting out of bed hurts, everyday activity it hurts”
I certainly prepared for the amount of tennis played. Going in, you always knew it was going to be tough, especially looking at my schedule. I was playing Zverev in my first match of the year, Shapovalov as well, had some grueling encounters.
Still, I didn’t expect to injure myself, that’s for sure. I gradually felt my first bit of pain during my Shapovalov match. After that took four days off, then played Evans in a very long clash. Played the doubles, then a day off, then I played Rafa.
During that one, I could feel something, although I didn’t think it was that bad. Then flew to Adelaide, got a scan, and the scan revealed that I had the tear, which is a quite significant one compared to other ones I’ve had in the past.
“the scan revealed that I had the tear”
Now, it’s all about recovering. It’s a new tear in the same area as old problems, only a little bit bigger. The risks of me potentially playing, was that it could get worse, get to sort of a Grade 3 tear, which involves stitches, and that means probably a problem for the rest of your career.
It’s something to do with the workload, mainly because it only happens at the start of the year. And especially in the first weeks. After that, I’m able to play throughout the whole year perfectly. So, it’s something me and my team have got to look at.
As tough as it is right now, I’ve got to learn from what’s happened and decide on different alternatives for next time. It’s going to be pretty tough to hear about tennis but even though it killed me, this is the right decision. Now I’ve just got to look at what’s ahead.”
Alex is hoping to return to the tour at the end of February at the ATP 500 event in Acapulco in Mexico.
