Alex de Minaur wins second Newcombe Medal for spearheading Australia into Davis Cup final, achieving career-best ranking in 2023
Alex de Minaur, who helped Australia make it to the Davis Cup final twice in row while also registering six top-ten wins that helped propel him to a career-best World No. 11 ranking, has been awarded the 2023 Newcombe medal.
Instituted in 2010, the annual award named after the legendary John Newcombe, seeks to recognise the achievements of Australian tennis players.
Alex de Minaur had earlier shared the Newcombe medal with former WTA World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty for the 2018 season.
The 24-year-old, who got the better of Tommy Paul in the final of the Mexican Open, acknowledged that the 2023 season had been great for Australian tennis.
“It’s been a great year, not only for myself, but for all of Australian tennis and I think we should very proud indeed,” de Minaur said.
The current World No. 12 also expressed his regret at not being able to be present at the ceremony.
"I’m very sad that I wasn’t able to attend the Newks (Newcombe Medal awards) this year, and I’m extremely grateful for this amazing award,” he added.
A look back at Alex de Minaur's stellar 2023 season
After a fourth-round loss to eventual champion Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open, Alex de Minaur fell to Grigor Dimitrov in the quarterfinals at Rotterdam.
At the Open 13 in Marseille, Benjamin Bonzi ended the Aussie's run in the quarterfinal. The Sydney-born player then got past Holger Rune in the semifinals of the Mexican Open en route to a memorable title win in Acapulco.
Victory over Tommy Paul in the title clash gave de Minaur his maiden ATP 500 win and enabled him to return to the top-20 in the ATP rankings.
After disappointing early exits in Indian Wells, Miami and Monte-Carlo, Alex de Minaur progressed to the quarterfinals of the Barcelona Open only to be defeated by Stefanos Tsitsipas.
de Minaur failed to come good on the red dirt but displayed his class on the grass of Queen's Club by beating Holger Rune in the semifinal stage. However, he lost to Carlos Alcaraz in the final of the tournament.
Following this, he went down to Matteo Berrettini in the semifinals of the Wimbledon Championships. de Minaur also made it to the finals of the Los Cobos Open and the Canadian Open but was defeated by Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Estadio Mextenis and lost to Jannik Sinner in Toronto.
Daniil Medvedev ended de Minaur's US Open campaign in the fourth round. The latter lost to Aslan Karatsev in the quarterfinals of the Japan Open while being defeated by Andrey Rublev in the quarterfinals of the Paris Masters.