A. de MINAUR/R. Sakamoto
7-6, 6-4
Q. It was pretty cool seeing all of the Aussie stars in your entourage. You had Lleyton, Cruz, Jordan Thompson, Matt Reed was there, too. What's that been like having their support, and specifically working with Lleyton the last couple of weeks?
ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, it's been amazing. I mean, it's been so great. We've been hanging out together. It's great to see, you know, Cruz on tour regularly now. It's a pretty cool feeling.
Yeah, it's been a couple really good weeks in Asia, where I feel like I played some great tennis. I'm very happy with where I'm at on the court, and I think, yeah, I'm becoming that dangerous player, which it's a good feeling.
Q. Would you consider this a good idea to put a clock between first and second serve to, I don't know, make the game quicker and not have players bouncing the ball so many times?
ALEX de MINAUR: Between first and second? Yeah, that's fine. I think, ultimately, you would get away from people trying to take a little bit more time in between first serve and second.
I've said this for a long time now, I think one of the things I would say personally is I would have only one ball toss. So, once you throw the ball, you got to serve, no matter what. If you decide not to, it's a fault.
So kind of, that's another way that people sometimes get away with, you know, once they're about to serve, and they have a bad ball toss, they get to restart their routine again. So I would say that's another personal opinion that I think would be a good addition.
Q. What challenges were you expecting from him today, and did the match pan out the way you thought it would?
ALEX de MINAUR: The challenges I expected was some big hitting, you know, big serves and big hitting. Him trying to rush me and play on the front foot, for sure. I watched his match against Andrey, and he did exactly that.
He's an extremely dangerous player, right. So, I was kind of aware of that, I was ready for it, and I knew that I had to do my best to neutralize his serve as best as I could, and try and not to allow him to move me around the court.
So, a lot of focus on depth today, and my serve helped me out really well. All in all, a pretty clean match.
Q. Can you just speak about having the extra two days before your match to recover from the injury, and how are you feeling?
ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, it was great to get those extra two days. I ultimately ended up having five days in between matches. I put a lot of recovery in, a lot of hours to get myself ready.
Every day I felt a little bit better, and today I was able to go out there and compete in a very high standard. I'm sure in a couple days time it will feel even better, so I'm very excited about that.
Q. Did you notice that Jay Chou was here a few days ago, and are you guys friends, and could you share some story about you and his friendship?
ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, I didn't get to see him, but, yeah Jay is an incredible person and fan of the sport, right?
We have caught up in Melbourne a couple times. He's come to watch me a couple matches.
We met, I think it was last year here in this tournament. Yeah, after every match he messages me. He's a great guy, and, yeah, hopefully one day we can play a little bit of a doubles exhibition, that would be a lot of fun.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports