However, recent form has begged to differ. He has only three singles match wins in the last seven matches and has not reached a semi-final on tour since early February.

De Minaur reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, defeating Frances Tiafoe and Alexander Bublik, before Carlos Alcaraz halted his run. He claimed the Rotterdam Open for the first time in his career after beating Felix Auger-Aliassime in the final. His preparations for the Sunshine Double impacted his form at the Acapulco Open.

At the Mexican Open, he crashed out in the opening match and then went on to suffer a shocking straight loss against British No.1 Cameron Norrie at the Indian Wells Masters. Things turned worse for the 27-year-old at the Miami Open as he fell to an out-of-form Stefanos Tsitsipas in the second round.

However, at the Monte Carlo Masters, he tried to find his rhythm, winning two matches, including his revenge win against Norrie. But he didn't get past the quarter-finals of the tournament as the Rolex Shanghai Masters champion, Valentin Vacherot, defeated him in three sets at the Monte Carlo Country Club.

The Australian star is back on the court at the Barcelona Open, where he has the chance to do something great. The only players seeded above him are Carlos Alcaraz and Lorenzo Musetti, giving him the chance to win the title. He revealed during an interview with TennisTV that his focus is on picking the positives from each loss this period:

Yeah, look, it could be better, it could be worse, right? If you get a couple of wins under your belt, it's always a good thing. It always gives you a little bit of confidence. But at the same time, I still feel like there are plenty of things I would like to improve on and get better with. But it was the first week on clay, so you take the positives, you move on to the next week, and hopefully you can tweak a couple of things and play even better.

De Minaur has reached the Monte Carlo Masters quarter-finals three consecutive times, which gives him the right confidence heading into the Barcelona Open. The Australian Open quarter-finalist doesn't have a great record on clay, nor does he have a bad one. With a 55 percent winning rate on the red dirt, De Minaur has what it takes to challenge for the ATP 500 title in Barcelona.

Last year, Alex de Minaur reached the quarter-finals of the Barcelona Open after two consecutive victories. But he couldn't get past Carlos Alcaraz in the last eight, losing in straight sets. Alcaraz still leads the draw at the event this season, and he's the favorite to win the championship for the third time in his career.

However, de Minaur must focus on winning his matches before a potential semi-final clash with Alcaraz. During the aforementioned interview, the World No.7 revealed why he prefers one-week tournaments to two-week ATP Masters 1000 events like the Madrid Open and the Italian Open:

And these first couple of weeks, they're great because they're one-week events, right? And then kind of everything's a lot more straightforward. You play, you back up the next day, and it makes it kind of easier to get into routines. It's normally the Madrid-Rome stint, which is quite a long one. Ultimately, the only way to make it shorter really is to win a lot of matches, right?

De Minaur defeated Sebastian Ofner 7-6(7), 6-4 in his opening match at the Barcelona Open. He will take on Hamad Medjedovic in the round of 16. He leads the Serbian star 1-0 in their head-to-head record on tour, having won their only meeting at the Australian Open in January.

(1974 Articles Published)