Alex de Minaur Talks About His Goals for the 2020 Season

Australian tennis player Alex de Minaur says he hopes to be playing in the latter rounds of the Grand Slam tournaments in 2020 and challenge the top men for the titles, in an interview published by Yahoo Sports.

20-year-old de Minaur says, "That's the plan. That's the goal. That's where I want to be; playing these top guys in the second weeks of slams so there's a real big effort focused on that."

de Minaur, who is currently ranked No. 18 in the world, says the recent victory of Greek tennis star Stafanos Tistsipas, who won the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals, has inspired him. "Tsitsipas is a year older (than me) and he's been doing crazy things and now it's my turn to hopefully step up and in my own journey be able to knock off as many goals as I can. The way I've been able to finish the year, it's given me a lot of confidence and I know where I want to be and now it's all about just keeping that level and trying to contend for more and more titles and hopefully higher level titles."

de Minaur says he has been working to get bigger and stronger to help him compete with the top guys. "It's all about building and getting better and getting stronger. Keep putting those hard yards in the gym and every single ounce of muscle I can put on is greatly appreciated... it's been a lot of hard work to get stronger and I've been able to tell the difference. My serve speed's going bigger and a couple of other areas here and there it's showing, so it's very exciting. But the great thing is I know I've got so many areas to improve on."

de Minaur, who suffered a groin injury this year, says he wants to remain injury-free in 2020 and play the full season. "I just want to be able to play the whole year next year. That's probably my main goal. Then just look forward to every day. Take it day by day the way I've been doing it and keep pushing myself."

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2Fa9Om2