In the first of our five-part series analysing Australian tennis on clay, we look at the steady ascent of the nation’s leading light, Alex de Minaur, on the red dirt.
Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 30 April 2025 | Matt Trollope
In the words of Alex de Minaur: “One of the biggest things I learned is the importance of playing on clay and developing and learning how to win matches on clay.”
This is the message the Australian No.1 was intent on relaying to the junior players who have joined him in Europe as scholarship recipients through the Alex de Minaur Foundation.
De Minaur, entrenched in the world’s top 10 at age 26, has been working at his Monaco training base with elite 12/u and 14/u Australian players, who earned their scholarships by excelling on the De Minaur Junior Tour.
Thanks to the knowledge he has acquired throughout his own journey, De Minaur can see the benefits of embracing clay.
He’s increasingly potent on the surface himself, and an excellent example for Australia’s next generation of talent to look towards.
“I think clay is such a great surface for development because the points and the rallies are a lot longer. It’s a lot harder to win points. So you’ve got to come out with solutions and different ways of trying to hurt your opponent,” De Minaur continued.
“In the development stages, I think it’s so important for us Australian kids to come over to Europe and really learn from some of the European players that have played their whole life on the clay and learn how to construct and win points.”
De Minaur’s emergence followed the trend of the “archetypal” Australian player. Speedy, athletic and displaying the intent to attack and create, his game translated well to faster surfaces.
There was plenty of success on grass; a Wimbledon junior singles final in 2016, consecutive Challenger finals on the surface in 2018 and the ATP Eastbourne title in 2021. He also thrived on hard courts, most notably on home soil when he reached back-to-back Sydney finals in 2018 and 2019, winning the second. His first major quarterfinal came on the hard courts of the US Open in 2020.
De Minaur spent a significant chunk of his developmental years in Spain, where clay is omnipresent, but his clay-court results did not initially match what he was achieving on the other surfaces.
But once they began to keep pace, it’s little surprise he has gone on to achieve a career-high ranking.
De Minaur’s tour-level win-loss record on clay per season
Year
Clay-court win-loss
Win %
2017
0-1
0%
2018
1-4
20.00%
2019
1-4
20.00%
2020
0-2
0%
2021
4-5
44.44%
2022
9-6
60.00%
2023
4-5
44.44%
2024
10-5
66.66%
2025
7-2*
77.77%*
*Currently into 4R in Madrid
In his first four seasons on tour from 2017 to 2020, De Minaur won just two tour-level matches on clay. In his next four seasons, he won 27.
His winning rate on the surface continues to climb, from 44 per cent in 2023 to almost 67 per cent last year. Should he beat Lorenzo Musetti to reach the Madrid Masters quarterfinals, it would rise to 80 per cent in 2025.
De Minaur peaked at world No.6 in July 2024, just one month after completing the best clay-court campaign of his career to date. It began with a quarterfinal at the 2024 Monte Carlo Masters, continued with a fourth-round run in Rome, and culminated with his first quarterfinal at Roland Garros, where he memorably turned to his team and screamed “I love the clay!” after upsetting Daniil Medvedev in the fourth round.
Recalling history
De Minaur became the first Australian man since Lleyton Hewitt 20 years earlier to advance to the last eight in Paris, and he has continued to excel on the surface in 2025.
When he and Alexei Popyrin reached the Monte Carlo quarterfinals earlier in April, it marked the first time two Aussies had reached the quarters at the same clay-court Masters event since the tournament category was introduced in 1990.
De Minaur went on to reach the semifinals, becoming the first Australian since John Alexander in 1979 to advance that far in Monte Carlo.
After thumping Grigor Dimitrov 6-0 6-0 in the Monte Carlo quarters, De Minaur signed the court-side camera lens with: “Clay dog.”
“As the years have gone by, I have grown to understand the things I can do well to become a tough opponent on this surface,” De Minaur explained after that victory.
“It’s not about hitting hard, powerful shots. It’s about opening up the court, using angles, height, and different speeds. Understanding the balance between being too aggressive and too passive.”
By also reaching the Barcelona quarterfinals and the fourth round in Madrid, De Minaur has already notched seven clay-court match wins in 2025 and seems on track to surpass his 2024 clay-court record.
In the ATP live rankings he is now only 495 points behind fifth-ranked Novak Djokovic.
Should he close that gap, he could become only the seventh Australian in ATP rankings history – behind Hewitt, Pat Rafter, John Newcome, Ken Rosewall, Rod Laver and Pat Cash – to crack the top five in singles.
Almost all of those players enjoyed notable achievements on clay throughout their careers.
De Minaur acknowledged his game has evolved on clay as his professional tennis journey has progressed.
“The first couple of years of my career I struggled on the surface,” De Minaur told atptour.com. “I didn’t quite understand my game on it and how I can be effective and be dangerous to my opponents.
“But something really clicked the last, let’s just say two years, where I’ve really grown a lot of confidence on this surface and I do feel like I can be dangerous against anyone.”
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