Andy Murray will finally have a chance to try and get a win over Alex de Minaur after losing all four of their previous matches. The Brit has been thinking about a new strategy against the world No 12 since losing their first-round tie at Queen’s this summer. With the pair drawn to face each other in the first round of the China Open, it could be the moment Murray’s been waiting for to exact his revenge.
Murray has already suffered two crushing defeats to De Minaur this year alone – both coming in the opening rounds of tournaments. The Australian beat the 36-year-old 6-3 6-1 at Queen’s to end any chance Murray had of being seeded at Wimbledon. A few months earlier, he won their Monte Carlo Masters match 6-1 6-3.
Their first two meetings – at Zhuhai in 2019 and the Laver Cup in 2022 – had been a lot more closely contested, both going down to a final set. And the three-time Major champion was well aware that things had become more comfortable for De Minaur in their more recent contests, something he wanted to try and reverse.
“The first two times we played, I played him I think it was the second or third tournament back after I’d had the hip surgery in singles, and I remember it being a very close match,” the world No 41 said after his loss to the Australian at Queen’s earlier this year.
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“I don’t know exactly what the score was. It was like maybe 7-5 in the third or something like that. And the Laver Cup as well was very, very tight. Yeah, the last couple of matches, yeah, have been very comfortable from his side.”
Analysing the 24-year-old’s game, he continued: “You know, he moves well. He doesn’t have too many sort of holes in his game. You know, he’s all around pretty solid. But, yeah, moves very well. Returns good. Obviously hits a pretty flat ball, as well. So it’s not always that easy to take big cuts at the ball yourself and push him around when the ball is staying so low.”
And even after his disheartening defeat at the Queen’s Club, Murray had started preparing for the possibility of facing De Minaur in the near future. “But yeah, last couple of matches with him have obviously, yeah, been pretty one-sided. If I do come up against him in a couple of weeks, I will obviously need to look at that and see what I can do differently,” he added.
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Murray will finally have the chance to get some redemption for his four losses to De Minaur when they face off in the first round of this week’s ATP 500 event in Beijing. It remains to be seen what exactly it is that the Brit does differently against the world No 12 but he will be full of motivation knowing that there’s something to prove.
It won’t get any easier if the 36-year-old does advance to the second round, however, as the draw in Beijing has proven to be brutal. At No 40 in the world, Murray is actually the lowest-ranked player in the main draw who doesn’t have a wildcard, a special exemption or a protected ranking.
Waiting in the next round will be either second seed Daniil Medvedev or world No 13 Tommy Paul. Stefanos Tsitsipas, Andrey Rublev and Alexander Zverev also lie in Murray’s half of the draw.
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