Novak Djokovic has crashed Alex de Minaur’s party to send the last home hope packing from the Australian Open with a ruthless fourth-round display on Rod Laver Arena.
Showing no signs of the hamstring injury that had troubled him during the first three rounds, Djokovic delivered a centre-court masterclass to thoroughly outclass de Minaur 6-2 6-1 6-2 in two hours and six minutes on Monday night.
The emphatic defeat not only abruptly ended de Minaur’s pipe dream of breaking Australia’s 47-year men’s singles title drought in Melbourne but also served as another sobering grand slam reality check for the one-time US Open quarter-finalist.
Try as he might, the lightweight baseliner simply could not compete with Djokovic’s firepower as the former world No.1 clubbed 26 winners to nine and broke de Minaur six times to book a quarter-final date on Wednesday with fifth seed Andrey Rublev.
“I cannot say I’m sorry that you haven’t watched a longer match, to be honest. I really wanted to win in straight sets,” Djokovic said.
“You never know what is going to happen on the court. Once you’re on the court, you’ve got to deal with a lot of things that are on and off the court.
“First four or five games were quite close. One break of serve in the first set, I started feeling, I guess, more loose, more free to kind of go through the ball and be more aggressive.
“I felt maybe he was a bit more nervous towards the end of the first and beginning of the second. I felt like it’s my opportunity to try to capitalise on those chances.”
Moving more freely and growing in confidence, Djokovic will be a hot favourite against Russia’s Rublev as he continues his pursuit of a mind-boggling 10th Open title after heaping yet more pain on Australians at the majors.
The super Serb broke Nick Kyrgios’ heart in last year’s Wimbledon final and has now improved his win-loss record over Aussies at the slams – including Lleyton Hewitt, Bernard Tomic and John Millman – to 12-1.
His lone grand slam defeat to an Australian came against de Minaur’s mentor Hewitt more than 16 years ago in New York when Djokovic was still a teenager.
De Minaur started brightly enough, holding his opening service game to love and closing it out with a confident ace.
But it did not take long for Djokovic to assert his authority, breaking the 22nd seed twice to take the first set in quickfire fashion, before grabbing three more breaks in the second to blow the match open.
There was no let up in the third set as the fourth seed’s weight of shot left de Minaur’s error-rate soaring.
The 23-year-old eventually submitted in barely two hours, winning only five games in his heaviest loss yet from 22 grand slam appearances.
