{"id":262451,"date":"2023-01-10T02:30:20","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T03:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=262451"},"modified":"2023-01-10T07:58:11","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T07:58:11","slug":"demon-overcomes-bizarre-injury-scare-to-beat-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=262451","title":{"rendered":"Demon overcomes bizarre injury scare to beat star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fresh from his breakthrough victory over Rafael Nadal\ufeff<\/a> in the United Cup, Australian ace Alex de Minaur<\/a> has taken down former US Open champion Dominic Thiem 6-4, 6-4 in his opening match at the Kooyong Classic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

De Minaur powered his way up a break at 4-3 in the first set before experiencing an unexpected injury – accidentally swiping himself with his racquet\ufeff, causing blood to flow from his left knee.<\/p>\n

A medical timeout was called to allow the trainer to patch up the cut.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Brutal Langer verdict in explosive cricket doco\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Australia's oldest Test cricketer dies<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n

Fortunately, shrugging off any concerns, de Minaur continued to hold serve to claim the opening set 6-4 in just under 50 minutes.\ufeff<\/p>\n

During the break in play, \ufeffde Minaur removed the bandage, allaying any fears of further injury.<\/p>\n

"T\ufeffhe bleeding has stopped, the paramedics have been stood down," commentator Dave Culbert said on SBS' coverage.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Similar to the first set, de Minaur \ufeffbroke the 2020 US Open champion midway through the second before closing out the match.<\/p>\n

With his second straight victory over a grand slam champion, following his upset win over Nadal last week<\/a>, de Minaur's confidence continues to build ahead of the Australian Open.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffI'm excited. It's my home slam, going to be great to play in front of such an amazing crowd, a home environment," he told SBS.<\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n

"I'm just going to try to bring all that energy, and get fired up and hopefully put on a show for the crowd." <\/p>\n

Asked if he was fine-tuning \ufeffany parts of his game before next week's slam, de Minuar said his only target was to be mentally prepared to go one step further than last year's fourth-round effort.<\/p>\n

Watch the Adelaide International 2, live and exclusive on <\/strong><\/em>9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a> and <\/strong><\/em>Stan Sport<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

"I think what I've been doing great so far is that I've got my game plan and I know how I want to play very well, so more than anything I'm working on concentration, on focus," he said.<\/p>\n

"I've still got plenty of areas to work on, like, you know, after breaking in the second set, getting broken back, you know, those are … the little tweaks here and there that I'm trying to work on. It's a learning progress. I'm happy with how things are going. It was good to adapt to the conditions.<\/p>\n

"It's no secret I want to perform at home, you know. That's, I think, what any Aussie wants to do – as I have done my whole career.<\/p>\n

"I've kept on trying to improve, kept on trying to work on myself, and take it step by step. I know it's not an overnight thing. So I think as every year passes I've felt better coming into the Australian Open, so hopefully this year I can do better than last year."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fresh from his breakthrough victory over Rafael Nadal\ufeff in the United Cup, Australian ace Alex de Minaur has taken down former US Open champion Dominic […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262451"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=262451"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262453,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262451\/revisions\/262453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=262451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=262451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=262451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}