Home hero Alex de Minaur reaches maiden Australian Open Quarter-Final as Jannik Sinner awaits

Alex de Minaur has broken new ground at his home Grand Slam and has added to previous runs at all other major tournaments by reaching the latter stages of the Australian Open where a certain Jannik Sinner now awaits.

Easy at times, difficult at others, he saw off Alex Michelsen on Monday 6-0, 7-6(5), 6-3 in an up and down three setter. He is the 35th Australian man to reach the last eight in Melbourne, but he is just the third since 2005 when Lleyton Hewitt and Nick Kyrgios have gone before him.

Winning the first eight games of the match, it took until nearly an hour into the match for the American to get on the scoreboard after losing the opening set and a half. In front of a vociferous crowd on Rod Laver Arena, he was on the verge of a two set lead at 5-3. But Michelsen upped the anti and landed a few hammer blows to force a tie-break.

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With the set hanging in favour of Michelsen, De MInaur rallied from 4-5 down in the tie-break. He clinched the set from there with big serving and winners galore before capitalising on an error from Michelsen to take full control at two sets up.,

This semi broke the spirit of Michelsen and also revved up De MInaur even more as he pulled away in the third set. He committed just seven unforced errors and saved one break point when serving for the match at 5-3, he claimed it to move through.

Albeit while he is through to a maiden Australian Open Quarter-Final, he is facing an uphill battle. Sinner has a 9-0 Head to Head against him and very much favours taking on the Australian and apart from a shaky middle part of his match with Rune both literally and figuratively, he will still be a very big favourite.

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