Roland-Garros 2025: Alex de Minaur out of French Open in second-round loss to Alexander Bublik
“Looking back at my grand slam career; I can’t think of another match where I felt this way and ended up losing a match that I probably, by all means, shouldn’t have,” de Minaur said.
“It’s not to give credit away from Bublik – he’s extremely dangerous – but saying that, I was also two-sets-to-love
up. This is a match that I win 99.9 per cent of the time. Today was just the odd occasion that it slipped away.”
Adam Walton’s 7-6 (7-1), 6-1, 7-5 second-round loss to Andrey Rublev means Alexei Popyrin, who is preparing for a round-of-32 showdown with Ruud’s conqueror Nuno Borges on Friday, is the last Australian standing in the men’s draw.
Daria Kasatkina will try to reach the third round on the women’s side against France’s Leolia Jeanjean.
Momentum: Alexander Bublik steamrolled de Minaur after going two sets down.Credit: Getty Images
As with all Bublik matches, it was predictably wild, offbeat, frenetic, entertaining and at-times uncompetitive – but ended in spectacular fashion with a sustained period of hitting that de Minaur had no answer for.
He flayed 37 of his 51 winners in the final three sets to blow de Minaur away as the Australian’s unforced errors not coincidentally spiked under the sustained assault.
Bublik experienced such a purple patch that he ended the fourth set with a remarkable reflex ’tweener before drilling a down-the-line backhand past de Minaur at the net. He stood in the middle of the court, arms outstretched, and soaked in the crowd’s adoration.
By then, de Minaur was in major trouble, and Bublik’s momentum was like a runaway train.
The Kazakh’s mid-match surge started in similar fashion with an outrageously good point early in the third set, after which he wagged his finger, then bowed once he returned to the baseline. This was the best version of reality TV, unless you were de Minaur.
There were few signs after the first two sets of what was to come, given Bublik’s drop shot obsession and error-filled, rushed play offered such feeble resistance to de Minaur until then.
But his sudden strategic shift from the start of the third set to hit his way out of trouble from the baseline paid immediate dividends.
De Minaur kick-started his downfall with a double fault – one of his eight for the match – that gifted former world No.17 Bublik a 2-0 advantage in the third set.
The Australian No.1’s serving was underwhelming in his first-round win over Laslo Djere and even in the first two sets against Bublik, but became a major problem as the match wore on as the Kazakh went on the attack.
De Minaur in action on the red clay of Paris.Credit: Getty Images
De Minaur landed fewer than half his first serves and will be desperate to correct that for the grasscourt season.
Bublik shelved the drop shot for a period as he regained a foothold in the contest, but then began using it at much wiser junctures as a complementary weapon to his rocket-launcher groundstrokes.
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Any hope of de Minaur arresting Bublik’s momentum and swinging the match back in his favour in the final set soon evaporated. He faced a break point in his opening service game, and Bublik went full throttle on an inside-out backhand that de Minaur found too hot to handle.
That break of serve handed Bublik his first lead in the match since 2-0 in the opening set. Consecutive de Minaur errors in the fifth game effectively sealed his fate as his Kazakhstan rival snatched a second break.
Bublik has slipped to 62nd in the rankings and started this fortnight with a 7-13 record for the year, but his best tennis remains breathtaking and can threaten almost anyone on tour.
De Minaur, who remains vulnerable to the world’s biggest hitters, discovered that the hard way as his claycourt campaign ended abruptly, only weeks after announcing he was ready to challenge anyone on the red dirt.
