The grudge that fuels Djoker against Demon

Alex de Minaur faces world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the United Cup on Wednesday night. He has a problem. Djokovic can’t cop him.

Novak Djokovic celebrates his first victory of 2024 against Czech Republic's Jiri Lehecka Picture: AFP

Alex de Minaur has a problem. He didn’t let his tennis do the talking when Novak Djokovic was booted from Australia. He sledged the Serb, kicked him out the door. This was a bad idea, folks. Djokovic has a memory like Jumbo The Elephant’s. And he can hold a grudge.

That’s the backdrop to de Minaur versus Djokovic, fitness pending, in the quarter-finals of the United Cup in Perth on Wednesday evening. Let’s revisit the clippings. It’s January, 2022. Djokovic is held up at Tullamarine airport. Hold on a sec, pal. Are you vaccinated? Nope. Get out of here! You’ll get us all killed! The King of Melbourne Park was told to nick off. He replied, but Craig Tiley said it’d be OK! He was whisked off to detention. Returned to his homeland. Embarrassing for Australia.

Djokovic received a lot of support. Not from de Minaur. Unusually for a fella who rarely says boo, he reckoned the circus around the world No. 1’s deportation had “taken a lot of spotlight away” from the rest of the world’s best felt-flayers. Headlines for anyone else were hard to come by.

“Look, Australians have gone through a lot,” de Minaur said. “There’s no secret about that. They’ve had it very tough. They’ve done a lot of work to protect themselves and their borders. When you’re coming in, as well as every other tennis player, if you wanted to come to the country, you had to be double vaccinated. It was up to him. His choices. His judgment. Here we are.”

Alex de Minaur was pumped to beat world No.10 Taylor Fritz of Team USA at the United Cup Picture: Getty Images

Crikey. There you go. The remarks would likely come back to bite de Minaur the a--e. And so they did. Fast forward to last year’s Australian Open. De Minaur was playing tremendous tennis. He advanced to the last 16. And then Djokovic annihilated him. Destroyed him: 6-2 6-1 6-2. I remember sitting in my pew at Rod Laver Arena and thinking … there’s something odd about this. An extra edge, even for Djokovic, who seemed to be playing angry. Glaring at de Minaur like he wanted to kill him. It wasn’t even a contest but he just kept pounding de Minaur into the Plexicushion. Like he didn’t have points to play, but prove. Like a heavyweight boxing champ was hammering a pretender but instead of showing mercy … he wanted to knock his block off.

There they were. De Minaur returned to the locker room with tail between legs. He was battered and bruised and probably tempted to keep his trap shut from then on. Only after the match did Djokovic reveal the sledge was at the heart of his demolition job and their frosty relationship. Jumbo The Elephant told a packed house at Melbourne Park, “I respect him as a rival, a colleague, as I respect everyone. I have no problem contacting him, congratulating him, et cetera But I don’t have any other relationship. I don’t have any communication with him. He showed last year what he thinks about me.”

There it is. De Minaur will run and skip and zip around RAC Arena from 8pm (AEDT) while Djokovic will attempt to swat him like a pesky fly. This is the time, however, for de Minaur to face the king. The Australian is coming off an exhilarating and exemplary defeat of America’s world No. 10 Taylor Fritz. Djokovic is slowly building for the Australian Open like Bart Cummings is training him to the minute for a Melbourne Cup. A couple of weeks before a major is when you want play Djokovic.

De Minaur took another dig after Djokovic wiped Rod Laver Arena with him last year. Without coming straight out and saying it, he seemed to suggest Djokovic was faking the extent of a hamstring injury. “I don’t know,” he said. “You tell me how you thought he looked out there. Playing him, I thought he was moving pretty well, so … I don’t know. I think everyone’s kind of seeing what’s been happening over the couple of weeks. It’s the only thing everyone’s been talking about. Today I was out there on court against him. Either I’m not a good enough tennis player to expose that, or – it looked good to me. He was just too good in all aspects.”

De Minaur was ordinary in losing to Great Britain’s Cam Norrie at the United Cup. He was brilliant in beating Fritz 6-4, 6-2. “Today was a little bit of, ‘New Year, new me,” he said. I played the type of tennis I wanted to play … If we’re going based on merely rankings, I think the scoreline was a pretty good scoreline against a top-ten guy. “

Jumbo The Elephant helped Serbia into the quarter-finals with a win over Czech Republic’s Jiri Lehecka. Comprehensive in the end, and he wasn’t even holding a grudge. He complained of a wrist injury and withdrew from the mixed doubles. De Minaur might’ve rolled his eyes and told Katie Boulter that Djokovic was bunging it on. “Happy New Year, everyone,” said the Serb. Perhaps not quite talking to everyone. And there we are.