Australian tennis star and ATP Player Council member John Millman expects challenging year because of COVID-19
John Millman is one of the most respected voices on the ATP Tour. So when he predicts tough times for the sport, key figures need to listen.
Tennis
Don't miss out on the headlines from Tennis. Followed categories will be added to My News.
John Millman used to sleep on airport floors to afford to chase his professional tennis dream, so people tend to listen when he speaks about challenges.
Those days are behind the Queenslander, who now boasts a 2018 US Open quarter-final – beating Roger Federer en route – a maiden ATP Tour title last year and a top-40 ranking on his resume.
Millman’s tour presence increased further in October, when his peers voted him onto the ATP Player Council.
That ascension came during one of the sport’s most difficult periods, with the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc with not just tennis but the world.
It’s also placed Millman in a difficult position, as he watches the quarantine-related Australian Open drama playing out in his home country.
“I grasped the strict quarantine measures a bit easier, because I’m Australian and I’ve seen how successful we’ve been in tackling this COVID,” Millman told the Herald Sun.
Kayo is your ticket to the best sport streaming Live & On-Demand. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >
“But when you’ve been overseas in Europe and America, where it’s really gotten out of hand – I think that’s fair to say – it’s a challenging one to understand how serious we’ve taken it here.”
Millman was one of the players who took part in the tour resumption from August to November last year, so he had first-hand experience of the various tennis ‘bubbles’ that were used.
The upcoming Montpellier ATP event in France will have a seven-day mandatory quarantine period.
Much is being made of the $100,000 prizemoney for a first-round loser at the Australian Open, but many ATP events have slashed their prize pool by about 80 per cent.
Millman’s title in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, netted him the modest amount of roughly $13,000, which isn’t substantial once you slash all the associated expenses.
This taste of COVID tour life has him bracing for what he predicts will be “one of the most challenging years for Australian tennis players that we’ve ever seen”.
The 31-year-old already expects he’ll be overseas for the rest of the season once the AO ends.
“I want to stress I’m not crying poor, but at the same time, the conditions are some of the toughest I’ve experienced, because of that lack of freedom,” Millman said.
“Mentally, it’s challenging to be confined to a hotel and tennis courts – and it could be the whole year, if the conditions don’t get any better. We don’t really know what’s happening with vaccines.
“To come home for two weeks’ quarantine; you need a couple of weeks after that to make it worthwhile, but you don’t get a month off during the year.”
On the flip side, Australia’s European and American rivals might be able to duck home for a week’s break without the same concerns, although there are health risks in those countries.
Then there’s the matter of the Australian Open’s much-debated hard quarantine, which players identified as close contacts of positive coronavirus cases endured.
Millman said in November the Australian Open shouldn’t go ahead if competitors were unable to leave their hotel room for 14 days right before the grand slam.
Only 73 players – including Australia’s Ellen Perez and Tristan Schoolkate – suffered through that, but Millman believes it will be hard going for them.
He struggled mightily in training post-hard quarantine in Sydney late last year, let alone with one of the biggest events on the calendar being right around the corner.
“My physicality is something I pride myself on, and I found it extremely difficult,” Millman said.
“I won’t beat around the bush – it’s going to be really tough for them, especially early on, but I think after a week they’ll start to feel the conditions better and they’ll be moving and hitting better.
“The key thing is we’ve got to do everything possible, from the Council’s point of view, to give these guys the best possible chance not just to do well but to prevent injury.”
WHY DECADE OLD LOSS STILL HAUNTS DE MINAUR
Asked to recall a memory from his trophy-filled junior career, it wasn’t one of Alex de Minaur’s victories but rather a defeat that instantly sprung to mind.
Australia’s top-ranked men’s player rewound the clock about 13 years to his first international junior tournament – in the under-eights – in Croatia.
The de Minaur clan relocated from Sydney to Spanish city Alicante a few years earlier, and the future tennis star graduated from whacking a ball tied to a tree, then the garage door, to being on court.
He quickly went from losing his first handful of junior matches to becoming one of Spain’s best prospects and even drew crowds at the local tennis club.
De Minaur’s opponent that day was Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, now the world’s 54th-best male player.
“It was first to nine games and I remember losing to him in our first-ever encounter, after having two match points against him,” de Minaur, now 21, said with a laugh.
Kayo is your ticket to the best sport streaming Live & On-Demand. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >
“Yeah, look, it was tough. I’m still struggling to this day, still talking to my psych about it. But it’s amazing to see where we started and where we are now – it’s pretty special.”
The reason that moment stands out is partly because there weren’t many lowlights for de Minaur in a career that quickly saw him labelled a prodigy.
He used to play tennis in the morning and afternoon on weekends and squeeze a game of soccer in between, but by 12 – when he and his family returned to Australia – he was being homeschooled and playing full-time.
By then, de Minaur had already won national age titles in Spain, including as part of the Nike Junior Tour, joining Rafael Nadal on the honour roll.
“We decided to do tennis full-time and that meant training, homeschooling, the whole deal,” he said.
“So from then on, I told myself that this is what I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life and I’m going to do everything in my power to ‘make it’.
“That meant always leaving it out there on the court and doing everything I could, because this was my life and I’m very proud to be where I am now.”
De Minaur’s already been inside the world’s top 20, made a US Open quarter-final and attracted various endorsement deals, including with Asics, where he’s helped develop a shoe.
He wore the Asics Solution Speed FF 2 for the first time in his season-opening Antalya title triumph.
“We’ve been able to come up with a new version that feels lighter and more comfortable,” de Minaur said.
“It just feels like it’s made for my game – sliding around the court all the time – and this helps me get that quick step in.”
That brings us to de Minaur’s trademark, gritty playing style that’s packed with variety and nothing like the prototypical Spanish tennis product, despite him learning the game there.
Being born in Australia meant he formed an attachment to all-court players rather than baseline-hugging claycourt specialists, while Lleyton Hewitt’s on-court relentlessness appealed as well.
“I would watch tennis on the TV and wouldn’t last too long – five or 10 minutes – then I’d go to the garage door and try to replicate what I saw,” de Minaur said.
“I watched a lot of different people growing up. Lleyton was on TV, you still had the Rog-Rafa matches … but I feel like it’s always been the Australian part of me that I’ve wanted to play more like an Aussie than a Spaniard.
“I’ve always loved grasscourts and I’ve tried to base my game around that.”
De Minaur’s never-say-die attitude not only endears him to fans but teammates and peers alike.
Australian John Millman, respected the world over for his practice-court work ethic, calls his younger countryman one of his favourite players to watch.
“The thing I love most about Alex is the fact he goes out on court and he’ll run through a wall to try and get the win – and I respect that so much,” Millman said.
“That’s something I like to try to pride myself on and I just see it in abundance with him.”
De Minaur, for his part, credits being in Australia’s Davis Cup environment from a young age and learning from the likes of Hewitt, Millman and Nick Kyrgios for his development.
Outside of family, his other tennis constant is Spanish coach Adolfo Gutierrez, who started working with de Minaur when he was only nine years old.
“Every step of the way he’s been there, from under-12s, under-14s, juniors, Futures, Challengers, to where I am right now,” de Minaur said.
“It feels amazing, because he’s one of those people who will always be there by my side and will always keep me grounded and make me think about the bigger things in life.
“I wouldn’t want anyone else by my side to enjoy this journey, and hopefully this is just another step and we’re able to keep climbing together.”
Originally published as Australian tennis star and ATP Player Council member John Millman expects challenging year because of COVID-19
Kyrgios roasts Tomic over 39-min bloodbath
Nick Kyrgios couldn’t resist sledging Bernard Tomic after the forgotten Aussie tennis star made history in the worst way possible.
‘Shut people up’: Kyrgios announces big news
Nick Kyrgios has revealed a personal grudge is behind the news he’s dropped that has got the tennis world talking.