Alex de Minaur has decided to make a swift return to action after another early exit from the French Open, and attempt to reclaim the Dutch grass-court title he won in 2024 in a bid to revive his season.
The disappointed Australian No. 1 said he doesn’t know whether to take a break from the game or “get back on the bike” immediately after a four-set loss to Jakub Mencic in the third round at Roland Garros.
But he is ready to get in some major pre-Wimbledon match time at the traditional Dutch tournament ‘s-Hertogenbosch, where he won two years ago and later reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon.
It was here that De Minaur won the 11th title of his career by winning the Rotterdam Open in February, but since then his season has gone largely downhill.
World No. 7 De Minaur will be one of three top-10 players in the ATP 250 field along with No. 6 Felix Auger-Aliassime and No. 8 Daniil Medvedev for the event starting with qualifiers on Saturday.
De Minaur is a typical Australian player, she usually can’t wait to get away from the not-so-rewarding slag of clay-court tennis so she can head to the grass – and Tayla Preston knows how that feels.
Preston, the No. 6 ranked women’s player in the country, played two tour-level matches on clay this spring and lost both of them, including her first-round qualifier at the French Open at Roland Garros.
But the promising 20-year-old West Australian looked refreshed by the allure of grass-court tennis as she made the cross-Channel trip and threw herself into the Birmingham Open WTA 125 event at Edgbaston Priory.
After defeating Britain’s Alicia Dudeney in the first round, she defeated another home player, Katie Swan, in the round of 16 on Thursday (Friday AEST).
But playing her first quarterfinal at this level since reaching the semi-finals of the much bigger WTA 250 event in Hobart earlier in the year, she could not go further and lost 2–6, 6–3, 6–4 to American Ashlyn Krueger.
Preston, one of the Australians hoping to qualify for a prized spot at the grass-court Slam through Wimbledon, is set to reach a new career high of No. 126 after the Birmingham race.
In the equivalent men’s Challenger event, Rinki Hijikata also made the quarter-finals, but lost to British ‘Aussie Slayer’ Arthur Ferry, who had beaten Murray Bridge veteran Alex Bolt 6-4 6-7 (5-7) 6-3 in the previous round before going on to defeat the Sydney fifth seed 7-6 (9-7) 6-3.
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