Alex de Minaur overcomes injury to end 2024 as world No.9

Alex de Minaur is proud of his 2024 season, with the Australian tennis No.1 saying that his injury struggles have given him confidence moving into next year.

The 25-year-old cracked the world’s top 10 for the first time this season and went on to end the year No.9, qualifying for the ATP Finals in Turin, despite suffering a significant hip injury at Wimbledon.

“I’m extremely proud of my efforts,” he said in a recent interview.

“There’s probably two ways, or even three ways, I could look at my season.

“One, I could feel a little sorry for myself because of getting injured, essentially in the peak of my career, at No.6, missing out on quarter-finals of Wimbledon.

“At the same time the year could have been a lot worse, because after that injury, I could have just not found a way to get back competing.

“So, the way I’m seeing is that I’m incredibly proud of my efforts to come back, still compete, still salvage a great year, reach goals that were there at the start of the season, and even though I did it with a fair bit of pain.

“I was able to compete at basically the highest level.”

De Minaur ends 2024 with a 47-21 record, having claimed two titles and made the quarter-finals of the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.

The only Grand Slam where de Minaur did not make the final eight was the Australian Open.

Tennis bookmakers, have him at long odds to win the title in 2025, with Bet365 paying $51 for the Aussie to prevail in January.

However, de Minaur is confident that he will be back to full health in Melbourne, and has what it takes to go all the way.

“I’m very close to it (pain free),” he said.

“I’ll say this, I’m sure in Australia, I’ll be pain free and I’ll be able to move at 150 percent.

“This year, I learned that exactly that I can beat a lot of players not being at the absolute peak of my abilities and mentally, that that gives me a bit of an edge.

“Hopefully I can exploit this coming into next year, and with all this to be completely fit and be able to kind of, in a way, finish the unfinished business of this year.”

Sports news