Aussie Roland Garros singles campaign shut for another year. What's Next?

(Franco Arland/Getty Images)

Alex de Minaur, by his own admission, is usually that tenacious dog-with-a-bone guy. Instead, he leaves Roland Garros as that dejected no-answers-right-now guy, headed for the grass court swing unsure of what to do next.

Having delivered another raw and wretched post-mortem following his crushing defeat against the powerful young Czech Jakob Mensik to headline the disappointment of a second straight French Open without an Australian singles presence in the fourth round, de Minaur, too, is at a loss.

As to why this is happening, even on his least favourite surface, with 39 unforced errors in the last three sets after taking the first 6-0 in the 19 minutes it took Mensik to get himself going after the full body cramping and wheelchair transport from his previous match.

As to how to fix it, and to regain the “fire and hunger” that have propelled him into the world’s top 10 for most of the past two years despite lacking some of his rivals’ weaponry. On Friday, that included last year’s Miami Masters champion Mensik, still just 20.

De Minaur is 27. A seven-time grand slam quarter-finalist. Few were talking up the eighth seed as a likely French Open champion, the absence of Carlos Alcaraz and the exits of Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic notwithstanding, yet the fact remains that this is the first time in the Open era that there is no men’s major winner in the last 16.

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Thus It was both a “once in a blue moon opportunity” and a wasted one, he lamented, although with Andrey Rublev and Djokovic-slayer Joao Fonseca both potentially blocking his path to a debut major semi against, possibly, Alexander Zverev, it was still an extremely challenging one.

So what now? 

“I'm in a weird stage at the moment where I have put in a lot, and yeah, recently I haven't felt like I’ve gotten a lot back,’’ says the furiously hard worker, unsure whether the head-down, back-into-it mentality he has always had is more draining than helpful right now.

“I really don't know what the solution is, whether it's to go out and try to play matches and get confidence back and get wins under the belt and just go that way, or the opposite, just say, ‘hey, let's forget about tennis for a little while, let's make sure I come back missing it and get back on the horse.’’

At least that will be on the type of grass track that will better suit most of the Australians, as Daria Kasatkina’s 6-0, 7-5 elimination on Saturday by world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka drew the curtain on a modest return from the 13-strong cohort.

Two exceptional results from Adam Walton (against sixth seed Daniil Medvedev from a break down in the fifth), and Kim Birrell (over world No.5 Jessica Pegula for the third top-10 win of her career and first at Roland Garros) were high points, but short-lived.

There were seven first round losers, including an emotional Alexei Popyrin, and just two reached the third, as Thanasi Kokkinakis’ heroic five-set opener against Terence Atmane dissolved into the heartbreak or a recurrence of the pectoral injury he has endured for five torturous years.

Kokkinakis was forced to retire one game after splitting sets with Pablo Carreno Busta, fearful that “if I kept playing, something bad was really going to happen’’. Scan results are yet to be revealed.

Then there was the heat, which felt even more debilitating than the low-to-mid 30s temperatures - still a May record in Paris for the tournament’s first week - would indicate, but the issue has been the lack of respite.

Paul McNamee, posting on X after Jannik Sinner’s disintegration against Juan Manuel Cerundolo, said that in his half-century as a player, coach and international tournament director at Roland Garros “there has never been a sequence of heat wave conditions like this year’’.

Which, it must be said, generally suits the Aussies, although, playing at a similar time to Sinner on Thursday, Walton said the American summer is hotter. “There was actually even a cool breeze. So it was actually quite nice conditions to play in.’’ 

Nice? Might be a minority view, with Kasatkina describing players feeling “boiled and fried” given the conditions day after day.

James Duckworth, who was the beneficiary of a first-round retirement before being eliminated by emerging Spanish superstar Rafael Jodar, said his adopted home of Brisbane, left Paris in, well, the shade. If only there was more of it at Roland Garros, but back to that later. 

For Duckworth, showing his best clay court form in five years to rise to Aussie No.2 was a positive, just as Birrell was trying to hang on to a few of her own after following her Pegula victory with a three-set loss to Oleksandra Oliynkova.

“Tennis is quite a roller-coaster sometimes and you can have one of the best days of your life followed by one of the tougher days and kinda that’s the situation here… I’ve got to keep my head up and keep moving forward and remember all the good parts of this week,’’ Birrell said.

“I want to go into grass feeling fresh and excited, and a surface that I love to play on and a surface that I think I can do really well.’’

As well as being the last woman standing, the colourful Kasatkina deserves an elephant stamp for media entertainment value alone. The theme of needing to “swim in the shit” to turn around a form slump that recently left her at her lowest ranking in 11 years, ran from pre-tournament right through, only for Sabalenka to end her own campaign - and, thus, Australia’s - in the third round.

Russian-born Kastakina, who switched allegiances to Australia last year and finished her season early to take a mental and emotional break, said she saw only upside in her clay court season.

“I think I saved myself in these couple of weeks,'' said Kasatkina, the 2023 semi-finalist who rallied valiantly after a first set bagel against last year’s runner-up. 

Asked on a scale of one to 10 compare the before and the after of her recent struggles, Katakana laughed: “I was before two, where one is I want to kill myself… I'm not talking about game-wise... (it's) more about how I feel about myself being on court, I would say it's between six and seven. Depends on the day,  but it's more stable, way more stable now.’’

Walton, a late bloomer via the US college system who modestly declares himself to not be the most talented guy out there, admits his upset of Medvedev counts as a massive confidence boost, a round two loss to Zach Svajda notwithstanding.

Indeed, Mark Woodforde - Olympic gold medallist, former doubles great. now ITF board member and a true believer in the need to grind away on clay for extended periods in a player’s formative years - believes Walton can be an example to other Australians lacking the necessary education.

“You’ve got to be committed to playing on clay, and what a great result by Adam Walton. It was a surprise win, but it goes to show that it can be done.’’

Popyrin didn’t manage to, and cut a dejected figure after what he described as “pretty brutal” conditions against Svajda. Too soon, he said, to decide what he would do next.

*****

So. Grass. 

Only Walton - who has reduced his campaign on his least favourite surface and is back in the US for a hardcourt event and then a week on the golf course before attempting to qualify at Queen’s - is taking a detour. 

The US hardcourt swing is his focus, and his ambitions through to the end of the year no loftier than to “ideally stay in two digits” to continue to make main draw cuts at the majors.

Talia Gibson and Emerson Jones added important learning experiences to skinny clay court resumes, and Maya Joint’s run of outs continues, but perhaps Ajla Tomljanovic summed it up best when asked by The First Serve after falling to Caty Macnally from a set and 3-0 up how much she was looking forward to getting on the grass.

“Get me there tonight!’’ she quipped, before heading to Birmingham. “I’m just looking forward to put this horrific six weeks behind me.’’

De Minaur would surely concur, having felt his mojo returning when he ended a run of three straight Masters 1000 losses with a semi-final in Hamburg last week; his struggles well-documented since reaching the Australian Open quarters and winning Rotterdam.

So now for greener pastures, he hopes, in every sense.

——

And a final couple of reflections:

The French Federation may be constrained by its relatively compact site, by grand slam standards, but this reporter’s return to Paris after a decade felt almost like a throwback to when a tennis slam was pretty much all about, well, the tennis.

Yet it was also a reminder of how well the Australian Open organisers do so many things for both the media and the fans. Yes, it was an outrageously hot first week, but the lack of shade away from the three main courts reserved viewing for the hardiest souls.

Meantime, behind the scenes, there is a continuing push from the current male cohort for ex-players to be more involved in high performance, as evidenced by the letter signed by 11 Aussie men advocating for a key role for Sam Groth.

A former world No.53 and ex-Victorian MP, Groth was courtside with his family for several days last week, while Duckworth, who joined what was an unusual show of athlete unity despite several notable absentees, was asked by The First Serve to elaborate on the players’ position.

“I’ve known Grothy for a long time and I think he would be great in a role for Tennis Australia,'' Duckworth said. "I think there are a number of past players who I think would be good in some sort of role for Tennis Australia. Not sure how that looks right now.

“I think we could probably do a little bit better job of utilising guys, especially who have finished in recent times. I think there’s a number of guys, and women, who could add a lot of value.’’

From Wimbledon on that front, too, more to come.

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