Alex de Minaur refused to call Novak Djokovic’s injury “a fake” but noted that either he “wasn’t good enough to expose it or it looked good.”
Djokovic, who sustained a hamstring injury in Adelaide, was visibly in pain and discomfort during his first three Australian Open wins.
But against de Minaur, Djokovic delivered his best performance and handed the Australian a 6-2 6-1 6-2 loss.
After the match, some of the reporters seemingly tried to bait de Minaur into calling Djokovic’s injury fake but the Australian was careful not to go that way.
“I don’t know. You tell me how you thought he looked out there. Playing him, I thought he was moving pretty well, so, I don’t know. Look, I don’t know. I think everyone’s kind of seeing what’s been happening over the couple weeks. It’s the only thing everyone’s been talking about. Today I was out there on court against him. Either I’m not a good enough tennis player to expose that, or it looked good to me. He was just too good in all aspects,” de Minaur said after losing to Djokovic, per Sportskeeda.
De Minaur beaten by Djokovic in their first meeting
After the first four games, de Minaur and Djokovic were tied to two games apiece.
Then, Djokovic claimed four breaks in a row and won the next nine games to take a 6-2 5-0 lead.
De Minaur served out the sixth game to end Djokovic’s run of nine games and cut the deficit to 5-1 in the second set.
However, it didn’t change much as Djokovic won the next five games to win the second set and also open a 4-0 lead in the third set.
In the seventh game, de Minaur saved a match point on his serve to cut the deficit to 5-2.
After missing out on his first match point, Djokovic converted his second match on his serve in the eighth game.
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