Paris, France, 2 November 2023 | Leigh Rogers

Paris, France

For only the second time in his career, Alex de Minaur has advanced to the singles quarterfinals at an ATP Masters 1000 tournament.

After recording two hard-fought wins in his opening matches, the 24-year-old Australian was handed a walkover from world No.4 Jannik Sinner in the third round.

Sinner had finished his second-round match at 2.37am this morning and was controversially scheduled to play his next match during the following day session.

The 22-year-old Italian instead withdrew from the tournament, citing fatigue as the reason.

“I heard he ended up going to sleep around 6am,” De Minaur said. “Obviously that’s not nearly enough time to recover to get ready for a match. It is sad, because ultimately, not only us as players miss out, so does the crowd.”

De Minaur becomes only the second Australian to progress to a Paris Masters singles quarterfinal in the past 15 years, matching James Duckworth’s effort in 2021.

This keeps De Minaur in contention to earn a coveted position at the ATP Finals. He moves to 12th in the Race to Turin and can still potentially climb into the top eight with a title-winning run in Paris this week.

The last Australian to qualify for the prestigious season-ending event in singles was Lleyton Hewitt in 2004.

To keep his ATP Finals dream alive, De Minaur will need to beat world No.5 Andrey Rublev in the quarterfinals.

The world No.13 has a good record against the 26-year-old Russian, winning three of their four previous meetings.

“We all know what Andrey is capable of and we’ve had some great matches in the past,” De Minaur said.

“We’re both going to be ready to have a battle and it’s probably going to go down to who executes better.”

Aussies in action – Paris Masters

RESULTS
Men’s singles, third round
[13] Alex de Minaur (AUS) d [4] Jannik Sinner (ITA) walkover

COMING UP
Men’s singles, quarterfinals
[13] Alex de Minaur (AUS) v [5] Andrey Rublev

Men’s doubles, quarterfinals
[3] Matt Ebden (AUS)/Rohan Bopanna (IND) v [5] Marcel Granollers (ESP)/Horacio Zeballos (ARG)

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