"I don’t need extra motivation": Pumped-up Alex de Minaur eyes success on clay-court

Australia’s Alex de Minaur has stated that playing well on the clay-court is an ‘important part’ of his season. The 26-year-old is taking part in the Monte-Carlo Masters in the singles and doubles categories.

In the singles category, his opponent is yet to be decided but in the doubles category, he and his partner Jan-Lennard Struff has already made a winning start as they defeated the pair of Yuki Bhambri and Alexei Popyrin with a score of 5-7, 7-5, 10-5 to book their place in the next round.

De Minaur has recently been quoted in a report by Yahoo Sports, where he stated that his objective is to perform well on the clay-court this season. “It’s definitely a very physical part of the year,” said De Minaur. “Obviously, with consistency, developing the points, creativity a little bit as well, right? You’ve got to think of a lot of different ways to try and win the point as rallies extend and it becomes more gruelling and more physical. It is an important part of the season for me. It’s my very big push mentally to kind of get through this clay-court season and play the best I can, because I know the grass is on the other side, and I don’t need extra motivation for that part of the year.”

De Minaur had an impressive start to his time in the 2025 season where in the first Grand Slam of the year, he came second-best against the world number one Italy’s Jannik Sinner. The Sydney-born star talked about it and stated that it took him a while to come out of that result, especially after losing in front of the home crowd.

“I wouldn’t say it took too much [time],” he said. “I just came to terms with it. It was just him being too good. I wasn’t the only one he beat that week, right? And it did feel better to see him take out the whole tournament after beating me. As a tennis player, one of the hardest things to deal with is if the person you lose to loses in the next round, and you’re like, geez, you know, maybe it was just that one day he had a good day, but him obviously winning made it a lot easier to come to terms with.”