Alex de Minaur makes ‘burnt out’ admission after shocking French Open exit
Alex de Minaur has admitted to feeling ‘burnt out’ after his French Open loss to Alexander Bublik, calling for a shorter tennis season.
The ninth seed looked in command during his second-round match at the Parisian Grand Slam, but ultimately fell to the unpredictable Kazakh 2-6, 2-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2.
De Minaur’s loss will be particularly painful, given that the Australian has had a successful clay-court season – reaching a first Masters 1000 semi-final on the surface in Monte Carlo.
“There’s no excuse for today, myself, I need to look at myself in the mirror and find out the reasoning,” said De Minaur, during his post-match press conference.
“One of those matches that just slip away, without a whole lot of meaning.
“I’m just tired, tired mentally, I’m a little bit burned out if anything, a lot of tennis being played.
“In a way, the good thing is that what happened today is something like a miracle, in the sense that I’m not known for these types of performances, for losing a match like this from two sets to love up.
“I’m probably known for the opposite, which is being consistent and not losing matches that I shouldn’t be losing.”
Indeed, the encounter was just the third time that the Australian had lost from a two set advantage – and his first in three years.
After looking unusually tired towards the end of the match, de Minaur placed much of the blame on the length of the ATP Tour’s season.
“No one’s got a solution,” the former world No 6 said.
“But the solution is simple: You shorten the schedule, right? What’s not normal is that for the last three, four years I’ve had two days off after the Davis Cup and I’ve gone straight into preseason, straight into the new season again.
“Yeah, sure, I could’ve taken a week or a week and a half [off], but then that means my pre-season is two weeks long, and I’m already starting in Australia, which is my home ground where I want to do well.
“Once you start, you don’t finish until Nov. 24. So it’s never ending. The way it’s structured … I had to deal with that. I’m still dealing with that right now.
“As Casper [Ruud] put it out there. I had to deal with that, I‘m still dealing with that right now. My ranking consists of two zeros because I was injured and I couldn’t play Cincinnati, Montreal, and Shanghai, [in 2024], which is ridiculous if you ask me, but that’s just the rules of the tour and where we are right now.
“The solution is you shorten [the tour], because what’s going to happen is players’ careers are going to get shorter and shorter because they’re just going to burn out mentally. There’s just too much tennis.”
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The comments come just a day after Casper Ruud, who lost 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-0 to Nuno Borges in his second-round French Open match, also blamed the calendar for exacerbating a knee injury which he has been suffering from for months.
“It’s kind of like a rat race when it comes to the rankings,” he stated.
“You feel you’re obligated to play with certain rules that the ATP have set up with the mandatory events. You feel like you lose a lot if you don’t show up and play, both economically, point-wise, ranking-wise and opportunity-wise.
“For me I know these weeks and months are really important for the remainder of the year and for my career. Of course, if my leg is broken, I won’t play.
“But it’s tough anyways, especially when there’s a time with mandatory events to skip them because the punishments are quite hard, in terms of everyone else will play, gain points… and you won’t. Also there’s a certain bonus system set up that is reduced if you don’t show up to the mandatory events.”
