De Minaur, Ellis exit in quarterfinals
They may have fallen in the boys' doubles quarterfinals at Wimbledon on Friday, but Alex De Minaur and Blake Ellis have cemented themselves as one of the game's best teams.
London, UK, 9 July 2016 | Matt Trollope
On Friday at Wimbledon, the run of Australians Alex De Minaur and Blake Ellis came to an end in the boys’ doubles event.
A few hours after De Minaur progressed to the boys singles final, he returned to court to team up with Ellis before the pair fell 7-6(3) 6-3 to Serb Miomir Kecmanovic and Norway’s Casper Ruud.
The quarterfinal finish at the All England Club was the latest in an impressive results for the duo in 2016.
Prior to this week in London, they won the Australian Open title and progressed to the semifinals at Roland Garros, cementing themselves as one of the strongest teams on the junior circuit.
“Before the Aussie Open we hadn’t really played too much doubles together, so to pair up at Aussie Open and get the win, it’s a pretty good achievement I think,” Ellis said.
“French as well, we went down in a super-tiebreak in the semis, so both times we’ve lost they’ve been tight matches.”
Today, the Australian duo were pipped in the opening set tiebreak after going down an early mini-break and recovered from 0-3 to 3-3 in the second set before eventually going down.
“It was a tight match. First set we both served really well … the tiebreak is really a matter of a couple of points,” De Minaur said.
“It really could have gone either way – they played a really good match.”
Rather than lament the heavy schedule of singles and doubles each day during his breakout week at Wimbledon, De Minaur insisted that the extra play in doubles was beneficial to his singles.
“I look forward to doubles each day,” he said. “It was just a pity we didn’t get through.”