‘Put on a brave face’: Alex de Minaur opens up on emotional loss earlier this year as he plans to ‘disrupt’ the duo dominating men’s tennis

Offices around the country have encouraged employees with buzzwords that don’t carry much weight, but Alex de Minaur is ready to embrace being a “disrupter” as he looks to end the stranglehold that Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have on men’s tennis. The Australian world No. 7 is 0-13 against Sinner and has lost all five of his matches against Alcaraz, but he acknowledges that he must make changes if he’s to dethrone the two best male players on the planet. De Minaur went down to Sinner in straight sets in the semi-final at the ATP Finals back in November but will try to end the Italian’s recent dominance in Melbourne where he’s won the past two Australian Open titles. “I think that’s something that we’re all trying to achieve,” he said on Sunday, with Sinner and Alcaraz combining to win the past eight grand slam titles “There’s no other way than getting better. You have to bridge that gap. “I’ve played some very close matches over the years with both of them, and you feel like you are getting closer and closer. “You have to work on your game and find new weapons. For me, it is finding different ways to hurt these players. It might be being ready to take more risks and to be a disrupter. “It’s a couple things here and there that we’ve been trying to work towards throughout this off-season in hopes to take that next step. There is no other way than just getting better, that’s all it is.” De Minaur has enjoyed the “longest” off-season of his career and is back in Sydney where he’ll lead Australia at the United Cup starting next week. The 26-year-old will again be the main hope when the Australian Open begins, with the local lad hoping to improve on his quarter-final run earlier this season. The break came at the best possible time for de Minaur who delivered an emotional press conference following a loss to Lorenzo Musetti in the group stage of the ATP Finals, where he opened up on the mental toll of losing so many big matches to top opponents. “I don’t know how many times I can deal with a loss like this one,” de Minaur said after the Musetti defeat. “I just have to talk to my team and try to sort out these issues because these are issues that can’t keep happening. “I mean, if I really want to be serious about taking the next step in my career, these matches, I can’t lose them. I just can’t. “It feels like I’ve lost a lot of them this year. More than anything, it’s getting to a point where mentally it’s killing me.” The pep talk worked at the time, with de Minaur beating American Taylor Fritz two days later to reach the final four, where he went down to Sinner. “I just wanted to show some honest answers,” he replied when asked about those raw moments after the loss. “A lot of the time, I feel like us as players that we put on a brave face most of the time. Sometimes certain matches hit differently so it was a way for me to express my feelings and to get it out there and give myself a chance to regroup. “I was very pumped with the way that I bounced back for the next match, and I learnt a lot about myself in those times. “It’s always great to be honest with yourself, but sometimes you have to speak it out and get those words and feelings out so you can acknowledge them and you can understand them. “That for me is what it was about. I learnt from my mistakes and how I felt after the match. I made sure that the next match that I wasn’t going to feel the same way. “Ultimately, it’s about that shift in mindset. That’s the biggest thing for me this year.”