Alex de Minaur’s mad dash for girlfriend after thumping second round demolition

Alex de Minaur is into the third round of Wimbledon but the Aussie star had much more pressing matters to attend to.

Alex de Minaur has romped into the third round of Wimbledon in a comprehensive 6-2 6-2 7-5 win over Spaniard Jaume Munar.

In blazing sunshine, the world No. 9 was on fire in the opening two sets, breaking the Spaniard twice in each set as he flew towards victory.

Munar put up more of a fight in the third, breaking de Minaur three times, including when the Aussie was serving for the match at 5-4 in the third.

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However, the highest ranked Aussie moved into the next round, making no mistake with his next service game.

“It’s never easy playing in these conditions and closing a match out,” de Minaur said. “I played some great tennis, very happy to be in the third round and very happy the sun is out here in London.”

It sets up the possibility of a mouth-watering clash between de Minaur and fellow Aussie Thanasi Kokkinakis, if Kokkinakis can get past world No. 212 Frenchman Lucas Pouille later on Friday morning (Australian time).

The news got even better for de Minaur’s side of the draw as well with No. 7 seed Hubert Hurkacz retiring from his match against Frenchman Arthur Fils with a leg injury.

It means if de Minaur keeps winning, he won’t come up against another seeded player until the quarterfinals, where he could play No. 2 seed Novak Djokovic.

De Minaur is on fire. Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP

For de Minaur, it continues a breakout season during which he has already tallied the most number of wins in a calendar year of his career with plenty of time remaining in the season.

And it was the second time in successive grand slams that de Minaur has defeated Munar, after a straight sets victory on clay at the French Open as well.

But while de Minaur was happy with his play, he had another place to be as his girlfriend and top British player Katie Boulter was also appearing on day four, as interviewer Jenny Drummond let him know.

“I know you’ve got some other priorities over on Court 1 — it’s 1.12pm by the way. You’re 12 minutes late. Katie Boulter, your girlfriend is playing right now, so I’m sure you get some brownie points for finishing in straight sets, no?”

He replied: “Yeah, well it would’ve been better if I didn’t get broken in the 3rd set. I’m going to do my best, going to shower, cool down, and do my best to make it over to Court 1 to support Katie.”

And he was a man of his word, getting to the court 45 minutes after his match finished.

Alex de Minaur knew the question was coming. Photo: Twitter

De Minaur was in the crowd 45 minutes later. Photo: Twitter

GB News reporter Stuart Ballard tweeted that de Minaur cheered, “Come on Katie!”, after taking his seat.

PA tennis correspondent Eleanor Crooks also noted de Minaur had arrived, writing: “Boulter takes the first set 6-4. Not pretty but a lot of tension for both. Alex de Minaur has made it to Boulter’s box after completing his press commitments following his r2 win.”

Unfortunately it was downhill from that point for the other half of the tennis power couple.

Boulter’s opponent Harriet Dart breezed through the second set set 6-1 before winning the deciding set in a tiebreaker 10-8.

If he can, de Minaur regularly attends Boulters matches, and vice versa.

In March, he won the Mexico Open in Acapulco, before making a mad dash to San Diego, where Boulter won her first WTA 500 tournament.

However, last month, de Minaur won the s’Hertogenbosch title on the same day Boulter retained her Nottingham Open crown.

After securing her third WTA tour title, Boulter jokingly chided de Minaur for not making the relatively short journey from the Netherlands to the English city of Nottingham to cheer her on.

“My boyfriend didn’t make the trip even though I thought he might after his win in ‘s-Hertogenbosch but yeah we’ll have to be talking about that tonight and see if we’re going to be still together,” said Boulter, who is ranked 31st in the world.

“I don’t know, but I hope he’s going to be listening to this because we’ve got some talking to do!”

Originally published as Alex de Minaur’s mad dash for girlfriend after thumping second round demolition