Alicante expat Alex de Minaur given wildcard into Australian Open

A BUDDING expat tennis player aged just 17 has been given a wildcard into the Australian Open.

Alex De Minaur, who was born in Australia but grew up in Alicante, was granted entry into the grand slam after stunning world No. 46 Benoit Paire in Sydney in January.

Just weeks before at the Brisbane International, the up-and-coming star dazzled fans through qualifying and managed to defeat the 2015 Sydney runner-up Mikhail Kukushkin.

It comes after a stellar 2016 on the junior tour which saw him become runner up at the junior Wimbledon before being named male junior athlete of the year at the prestigious Newcombe Medal Awards.

He is already impressing the Aussie tennis greats, and was invited to train with the Davis Cup squad in September.

De Minaur moved to Alicante when he was five, and took his first steps as a tennis player at the Club Atletico Montemar.

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Laurence Dollimore

Laurence Dollimore is a Spanish-speaking, NCTJ-trained journalist with almost a decade’s worth of experience.
The London native has a BA in International Relations from the University of Leeds and and an MA in the same subject from Queen Mary University London.
He earned his gold star diploma in multimedia journalism at the prestigious News Associates in London in 2016, before immediately joining the Olive Press at their offices on the Costa del Sol.
After a five-year stint, Laurence returned to the UK to work as a senior reporter at the Mail Online, where he remained for two years before coming back to the Olive Press as Digital Editor in 2023.
He continues to work for the biggest newspapers in the UK, who hire him to investigate and report on stories in Spain.
These include the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Mail Online, Mail on Sunday and The Sun and Sun Online.
He has broken world exclusives on everything from the Madeleine McCann case to the anti-tourism movement in Tenerife.

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1 Comment

Pablo Cedron says:

19 Jan, 2017 @ 20:02 at 20:02

it is De MIÑAUR, NOT De Minaur.
And his father is Uruguayo and his mother Spanish.
He is more Spanish tha Aussie.

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