AUSTRALIAN OPEN

February 9, 2021

Alex De Minaur

Press Conference

A. DE MINAUR/T. Sandgren

7-5, 6-1, 6-1

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Alex, can you talk about that win today and getting off to a good start here?

ALEX DE MINAUR: Well, obviously very happy. It's never easy first round at a slam, and especially this slam in particular. I had a bit of nerves coming in. It had been a while since I was playing at the Aussie Open, so it was great to be able to come out with a win today.

Q. Did you sense that he might not have been as fit as he otherwise might have been? He spoke just a second ago about his preparation wasn't great. Did you really try to round home that advantage?

ALEX DE MINAUR: Look, he got unfortunate with the flight he was on coming into Australia. He had to do the hard quarantine. But look, I had a match to play. Happy I did everything on my end as well as I could, and that was the main thing.

I mean, I've got to stay focused and try to do everything I can on my side of the court.

Q. (Question regarding focus.)

ALEX DE MINAUR: I think the way I stayed positive and held my focus. That's the thing that I've been working on very hard, and during ATP Cup I had a couple matches where I was playing some great tennis and at moments I dropped, and I don't think I did that today, so very happy with that.

Q. How do you rate that performance compared to your ATP Cup performances where you were up against players that are high ranked in tennis?

ALEX DE MINAUR: Look, it's different types of matches, different types of pressures. At the end of the day this is a slam. There's four tournaments like this, only one on home turf, and it's definitely a very special tournament for me. I want to come out here, and I want to play my best tennis in front of these amazing fans. So it's different.

I would say maybe pressure-wise I've got a little bit more here just for myself because I want to perform and go deep, but that's a separate issue.

Q. Can I just ask you about Nick, as well. He sort of really looked like he played his best tennis of the summer last night. He seems a bit more mellow around us, as well. Have you noticed any difference in him -- you saw him the first time in a while a couple weeks ago. Have you noticed any difference to what he was 12 months ago?

ALEX DE MINAUR: Well, I think the first thing that we all have to realize is that he hasn't played in a year. Now, it's not easy to just turn it on. So I think he played some matches in the first week and was able to kind of dust off the cobwebs. Look, it's going to get better. I think everyone is expecting him to just flick the switch and just play like he did last year. I'm sure he's doing everything in his power to play like that, but you can already see yesterday he played some great tennis. He's coming back, and it's going to come. It's just a matter of time.

Q. Are you looking forward to your next match? What are your thoughts?

ALEX DE MINAUR: Well, I'm playing Pablo Cuevas. He's a very tough opponent, very solid. He's going to make me play a lot of balls. It's another tough match, similar in ways. I'm going to have to try and focus on my side of the court and do what I have planned and try to execute.

At the end of the day that's what we've been working on to try to control the controllables and stay positive.

Q. This time last year you were pretty devastated to not be able to play, or last January. Can you recall -- you went back to Spain, what you were doing to try to not be watching the tennis? How did you cope with that?

ALEX DE MINAUR: Look, I had to switch off, off social media. It was devastating. I mean, it was a tough time. All my mates, all my teammates out here in the summer doing what they do best, and I really didn't want to -- a part of it. Honestly, I think I might have turned it on to watch maybe Nick play Khachanov and Johnny, but I probably watched about five, ten minutes, just because it was good to watch but I didn't really want to have that in my head. I was around family and friends, and I just tried to switch off.

Q. Making the second round, does that success motivate you?

ALEX DE MINAUR: I think it definitely does. I mean, look, tennis is an individual sport, but I truly believe what we're doing in Australia, especially in tennis, all the players we've got, we've got so many knocking on the door and so many in the top hundred, so I think we're in a great spot, and it definitely does motivate me because I know that we've got all these teammates pushing top players. It's amazing to see. We've got Chris O'Connell beating his first top 40 or 50 opponent in Jan-Lennard Struff, he played an unbelievable ATP Cup. We've got Popyrin, who just beat Goffin. I mean, I think it's truly exciting. It's exciting times, and it's amazing. Us Aussies, we always seem to play really well here in Australia. Now it's time to kind of hopefully take this momentum with us and go conquer the world.