Alex de Minaur’s Australian Open preparation has hit an early snag with a decisive 6-Three 6-Three loss to Britain’s Cameron Norrie on day one of many United Cup in Sydney.
Nick Kyrgios’ late withdrawal from the brand new mixed-gender crew match meant de Minaur had lower than 36 hours’ discover he could be taking part in the British world No.14 at Ken Rosewall Enviornment on Thursday night time.
The Sydney crowd made its emotions recognized; one spectator wore a Kyrgios T-shirt with a clown wig and make-up, whereas others held indicators referencing Kyrgios’ scratching.
Regardless of the last-minute change, world No.24 de Minaur would have appreciated his probabilities of inflicting an upset, having defeated Norrie within the pair’s solely earlier assembly this April.
Each males got here into Thursday night time’s match on the again of career-best years and de Minaur had the additional motivation of eager to bounce again at residence after Australia’s loss within the Davis Cup closing final month.
However Norrie shut the native crowd out to assert early momentum.
De Minaur did not convert three consecutive break factors early within the first set and was made to pay by Norrie, who clawed again to win that recreation after which break his rival.
“Alex had that early probability and wasn’t in a position to take it,” mentioned Australian captain Lleyton Hewitt.
“However then Cam did little or no flawed from begin to end. It simply wasn’t our night time tonight.”
From there, Norrie saved troubling the Australian together with his highly effective forehand to take the primary set inside 40 minutes.
De Minaur’s serve packed a punch – his first of the night time slammed into the web and introduced the chair umpire right down to conduct some emergency repairs.
However Norrie’s precision from the baseline was unmatched and when the Brit received a rally to interrupt de Minaur a second time and went up 3-2 within the second set, the Australian had all of the work to do.
He got here near his personal first break level of the night time within the subsequent recreation however couldn’t convert on deuce as Norrie opened up a 1-Zero lead for Nice Britain in 91 minutes.
“It is by no means simple developing right here in Australia and taking part in Alex de Minaur,” Norrie mentioned.
“He is such an incredible competitor. It was the proper match for me to start out off 2023. The ambiance was nice.”
De Minaur mentioned: “I made a few errors in sure areas and simply did not play my greatest total tennis.”
“It in all probability wasn’t my greatest efficiency however we have tons to stay up for.”
Issues will not get any simpler for de Minaur, who faces reigning Australian Open champion Rafael Nadal in his second singles match of the match on Monday.
The second match on Thursday night time pits Australian world No. 772 Zoe Hives towards Britain’s Katie Swan, who’s ranked No.145.
