Alex de Minaur’s elite status as a Top 10 player, one he has held for the best part of two years, is in significant peril and could be gone by the end of the US Open next Sunday.
So, too, the Australian’s hopes of qualifying for the prestigious ATP Tour finals for the third straight season after a testing grand slam season ended in his earliest exit at the US Open since 2021, a loss that left him looking bewildered once again.
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But the most troubling aspect of a season that began with a quarterfinal appearance at the Australian Open, and a decent opening set against Carlos Alcaraz, is that the dream of becoming a major champion is drifting away from de Minaur.
In isolation his loss to Botic van de Zandschulp is not a cause for concern and while he was disappointed with the error-riddled 6-4 7-5 6-2 defeat, he was nowhere near as downcast as he had been after his defeats at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
As foxsports.com.au noted on Thursday, even though de Minaur had won their four previous matches, the Dutchman is a dangerous player who ousted Alcaraz at the same stage in New York two years ago.
Adding difficulty to the task for the No.6 seed was the fact that due to the rain delays that played havoc with the draw, he had to back up from his opening round match within 24 hours, though others managed to handle the task.
“My level today wasn’t good enough. It’s pretty straightforward,” he said, as reported by Australian Associated Press.
“I gave myself every chance of being competitive, having a good mindset, a good attitude, but it was just one of those days where … the feeling of the ball on the strings wasn’t there.
“I was making a lot of errors, which is not really my normal game style. When those sort of things happen and the odd chance that you have, he comes out with some good tennis – it is just a recipe for a tough day at the office.”
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The concern is the trend. The Demon is now stagnant and, it could be argued, stalling rather than surging as he had been in the years preceding a 2026 that started so brightly. And the question is what he does about it this year and in the future.
For while losing to van de Zandschulp is far from a disgrace, the worry is that de Minaur has fallen to players ranked outside the top 20 far more regularly this season than he did while rising up the rankings, even though most are well-credentialed.
His losses in majors this year have come against Alcaraz, Jakob Mensik, Flavio Cobolli and now van de Zandschulp.
Mensik won the Miami Masters last year and Cobolli reached the Roland Garros final, so those losses are scarcely damning. The Dutchman, meanwhile, has made the last eight in New York before.
Since his title in Rotterdam in February, the Aussie has twice fallen to former Wimbledon semi-finalist Cameron Norrie and recent Canada Open finalist Brandon Nakashima, to Cincinnati champion Arthur Fils, American star Tommy Paul, rising star Rafael Jodar, French Open semi-finalist Matteo Arnaldi, Shanghai Masters victor Valentin Vacherot and Stefanos Tsitsipas.
In the scope of a season, these are not bad losses either, with the only significant blemishes coming against Patrick Kypson in his first match after the title run in the Netherlands and to Hamad Medjedovic, but that was in a quarterfinal in Barcelona.
But he was winning those outings more often than not in 2024 and 2025 and his winning percentage has dipped from nearly 70 per cent through those two seasons to 65.4 per cent this year, which is only marginally above his career average.
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A quarterfinalist at the US Open for the past two years after an initial run to the last eight at Flushing Meadows in 2020, de Minaur is the third highest ranked player to exit early after the losses of Novak Djokovic and Felix Auger-Aliassime.
He now sits at No.8 on a live estimate but a swag of players still alive in the major have the opportunity to bump him out from a Top 10 ranking he has held for all bar a month since 2024.
A semi-finalist in the ATP Tour Finals last year when beaten by Jannik Sinner, who is absent from the US Open due to injury, he sits in 12th position in the race this year and will certainly dip a few spots by the end of the tournament.
The question for the 27-year-old, who has worked so hard to bolster his serve, to add more spin to his forehand, to bridge the gap on the Alcarazs, Sinners and Djokovics, is what he does now with a view to regaining his ruthlessness.
Preceding the New York exit, his former Davis Cup teammate and fellow US Open quarterfinalist John Millman urged de Minaur to make further tactical adjustments – the familiar issues listed above – but also to stop beating himself up.
“(It is) fair to say with the Demon, who has always been really good in (North America) because he is a great hard court player, his results have been a little bit substandard,” he told the Nine Network.
“The Demon is getting really hard on himself and if I was the Demon’s coach I’d be giving him a big hug, just to remind him he is number five in the world.
“I think he has got to make a decision now (as to) whether he wants to stay at five in the world or if he wants to (bridge) the gap between Alcaraz and Sinner, because if he wants to do that, then he needs to make a few technical changes and reduce his schedule, because he is playing a little bit too much tennis right now.”
Jelena Dokic, who was providing expert analysis on the de Minaur clash with van de Zandschulp, acknowledged there have been calls for the seven-time major quarterfinalist to make a change to his coaching team.
But there is a challenge there, for his long-time coach Adolfo Gutierrez has acted as a father-figure to the Aussie star since they started working together in Alicante when de Minaur was a nine-year-old.
The major breakthrough has not eventuated, but it is difficult to argue they have not enjoyed an extremely successful partnership, with de Minaur recently peaking at No.5 in the world while also becoming Australia’s highest-earning player.
“We know his mindset, we know what a perfectionist he is,” Dokic said on Stan Sports.
“He wants to get to the top and maybe not doing that in the past two years has affected him. For him, wins have become almost a relief and not so much (a) satisfaction and joy, and that is hard.
“Losses have almost become end-of-the-world type things. He’s been really, really hard on himself. I think he has to give himself a bit more of a pat on the back and a bit more credit.”
At 27, de Minaur should be entering his peak. But the clock is ticking and it is also late in a career to make technical changes. The congestion of the calendar and the mandatory commitments make it difficult to find windows for major adjustments.
“A lot of players will change coaches quickly, especially if they feel like the results are not there,” Dokic said.
“That’s up to him to make those decisions (about) what he wants to do. Let’s not forget Adolfo has gotten him to such a high point in his career, to the top five in the world.
“Whatever he decides to do with coaching, the way that he goes about things and the mindset around it is going to have to change. It is very hard to keep this up, to constantly expect from yourself to win. That’s been an issue for him.
“When you have got the constant pressure of feeling like you want to win and get to the top, and maybe that is not quite happening the way you want it to, you can start to lose motivation (and) you can get really flat. I think that is what has happened – he has lost a little bit of that mojo to be out there.”
De Minaur’s next scheduled appearances will be for Australia in a Davis Cup relegation tie in Brisbane later this month prior to an appearance for Team World in the Laver Cup in London leading into the Asian swing.