‘Devastated’ Alex de Minaur forced to withdraw ahead of Wimbledon quarterfinal against Novak Djokovic with injury

A “devestated” Alex de Minaur pulled out of his anticipated quarterfinal match at Wimbledon against Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon on Wednesday due to a hip injury.

The news won’t come as a surprise to those who watched the end of the Aussie’s 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 win over Arthur Fils in Monday’s fourth round, where he appeared to hurt himself in the closing points of victory. Post-match, the Aussie appeared resolute in telling reporters he’d be physically ready to face Djokovic, but subsequent medical testing revealed a tear in the cartilage that connects to his abductor, something de Minaur dubbed “a freak injury.”

“Obviously not an announcement I wanted to make by any means,” de Minaur told reporters in a press conference at the All England Club. “I had high risk of making it worse if I was to step on court.”

“It’s been two days of worrying and waiting to see,” he added. “In the grand scheme of things it could’ve been worse, I’m trying to hold on to that. It’s a freak injury.”

De Minaur’s withdrawal puts Djokovic through to a 13th career semifinal at the All England Club, tying Roger Federer for the most of any man at the event in the Open Era. The seven-time champion will face either Taylor Fritz or Lorenzo Musetti in the semifinals.

De Minaur, meanwhile, will hope to recover in time to represent Australia at the Paris Olympics in just over two weeks’ time. He was expected to make his Olympic debut in Paris (he qualified in Tokyo but withdrew after testing positive for COVID-19) in singles, as well as in doubles with Alexei Popyrin.

“It’s no secret that at this stage in my career this was the biggest match of my career,” he said. “I wanted to do anything I could to play. I got the results yesterday. I knew what the results were yesterday.

“I still wanted to wake up today hoping that I would feel some sort of miracle and not feel it while I’m walking.

“The problem with me going out and playing is that one stretch, one slide, one anything could make this injury go from three to six weeks to four months. It was too much to risk.”