Alex de Minaur has admitted that the rest of his season is uncertain after an old hip injury reared its head. The Australian tennis star travelled to Hong Kong to compete in the UTS event but was forced to pull out, and he’s now set to undergo scans before deciding his next move.
De Minaur injured his hip at Wimbledon last summer and spent the rest of 2024 playing through pain. And the world No. 7 says there are “warning signs” that he could be facing the same problem again this year.
The 26-year-old thrives on the UTS tour, a series of tournaments created by Patrick Mouratoglou, where players compete to earn as many points as possible in four eight-minute quarters.
De Minaur was the defending champion of UTS Hong Kong, but he ultimately skipped the tournament because he was feeling “too much pain” to take to the court. Now, he’s admitted that he could be forced to end his season early altogether.
“It’s a hip injury, the one I sustained last year after Wimbledon which sidelined me for a long time so it is an area of concern. So this is something that I can’t take any chances with,” the world No. 7 told Tennis Majors.
“Last year it sidelined me for almost three or four months, and I played the rest of the year with pain. Now, it’s warning signs, I need to make sure everything is good. I don’t want to have the same problem as last year. I need to be smart and look after the body.”
The hip issue resurfaced following the recent China Open in Beijing, where De Minaur reached the semi-finals before losing to Jannik Sinner in three sets.
He took painkillers to play the Shanghai Masters, but the injury didn’t go away, and the 10-time title winner will now get a scan to determine the extent of the problem.
He explained: “I need to go get a scan. I need to see what the issue is, why I’m still getting pain and then once we kind of sit down with the team, the doctor, the medical team, we can assess what the game plan will be for the rest of the year, right?
“So there’s a lot of question marks, a lot of uncertainty, so I’ve got to kind of wait and see, play the waiting game.”
De Minaur is entered into the upcoming ATP 500 event in Vienna and the Paris Masters. He’s also in a strong position to qualify for the season-ending ATP Finals in Turin.
But it remains to be seen whether the world No. 7 can finish his season, or if he’ll have to skip some tournaments to recover in time for the Australian summer of tennis in January.
