“The Devil” defeated the Wimbledon Devil and entered the quarterfinals of a grass-court Grand Slam for the first time.
Two years later, Alex de Minaur gave up a two-set lead and two match points as he reached the quarter-finals, but kept his composure when a horror repeat came to Arthur Fels .
When De Minaur lost the third set, his Court One fans and late-night TV viewers were left feeling the pain, but the Aussies showed grit on the second match point to take the fourth.
He won 6-2 6-4 4-6 6-3 in less than three hours to book a last-eight match against either Novak Djokovic or Holger Ruhn, who will The game takes place late Monday local time.
There are now concerns about whether he will be fully up to the challenge, as he appeared to limp as he hit an angled volley to win the game, but he said on the pitch: “I’ll be fine. I’ll find a way.
“I’m very proud to have reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals,” added the ninth-seeded Australian. “You can trust me to do my best and give it my all.”
When asked what he was most pleased with about his performance, the 25-year-old said: “It was a great job mentally to cross the finish line.”
This quarter-final will be De Minaur’s third career Grand Slam and his second consecutive Grand Slam appearance after standing on the same stage at Roland Garros last month. .
The Australian number one continued her charge at Wimbledon, taking a two-set lead in less than an hour and breaking serve early in the third game.
But after taking a 4-2 lead, the Sydneysiders’ offense became increasingly tight, losing four games in a row and losing this set.
The nightmare of 2022 inevitably returns. At the time, De Minaur was leading two sets against another unseeded player, Cristian Garin of Chile, when he took two match points in the fifth game.
This time is different.
De Minaur broke serve immediately in the fourth set, but then fell behind 0-40 on serve, 2-1. He was calm and composed, winning five points in a row to maintain a valuable advantage, and then broke serve again to lead 4-1.
It was the first of five consecutive breaks, including one when De Minaur was leading 5-2, but his French opponent was also unable to hold serve.
“I definitely made the match a lot more difficult than it should have been, I couldn’t hold my serve (at the end), but I backed up my return,” De Minaur said.
Fiers defeated De Minaur on the clay courts of Barcelona earlier this year, winning 7-5 6-2 in 95 minutes, but it was a different story on the green grass of Wimbledon.
De Minaur struck aggressively, creating three break points in the first set with short comebacks. Under pressure, his 20-year-old opponent showed some nerve with a double fault.
A clever deuce challenge led to another in the third game and within a quarter of an hour De Minaur led 4-0, having scored 18 of the opening 22 points. .
Fiers finally got on the scoreboard when he held serve on his third try. This was met with loud cheers from the crowd at Arena 1 who wanted to watch the action.
But De Minaur held his ground and took the first set in 29 minutes.
Fiers showed his mettle with a 131mph second-serve ace at 2-5 and backed that up by leading the second set 3-0 when De Minaur’s game slipped. But the Australian bounced back, establishing control of the match before serving for five consecutive games.
In the third game, De Minaur broke serve early and occupied the box position, but at 4-3 on serve, the pressure seemed to be back on him and Fiers took advantage. Finally, everyone had a contest. To De Minaur’s relief, he won the race.
