Fifth seed Andrey Rublev tamed a battling Alex de Minaur in five gruelling sets to shatter home hopes and make his second successive Australian Open quarter-final on Sunday. The Russian wore down the 10th-seeded Australian 6-4, 6-7 (5/7), 6-7 (4/7), 6-3, 6-0 over a draining four hours and 14 minutes on Rod Laver Arena. It brought up his 300th Tour-level win and thrust him into a difficult clash with in-form Italian fourth seed Jannik Sinner for a place in the semi-finals.
“An amazing match from Alex,” said Rublev, who has made nine previous Slam quarter-finals but never gone further.
“When I was down two sets to one, I said, ‘you might die today but you will do everything’. And then I started to play better and better and found more energy and I was able to win.”
Rublev was the sharper of the two in the opening set, achieving the crucial break in game four.
A 73-minute second set proved much tighter and they went toe-to-toe into a tense tie-break, where the roaring crowd got De Minaur over the line.
The players exchanged breaks in set three before that too went to a tie-break, when De Minaur was again lifted by his fans.
They exchanged early breaks in the fourth set but this time Rublev won the mental battle.