Australian Open 2026: Tennis world divided after Alex de Minaur dudded by controversial rule in loss

Tennis fans are debating what might have been for Alex de Minaur on Tuesday night after an ill-timed rule breach seemed to throw him off during his loss to Carlos Alcaraz. The Aussie star suffered another deflating quarter-final loss against the World No.1, going down 5-7 2-6 1-6.

It continued a sad trend of de Minaur failing to fire against the top superstar of the game like Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. The World No.6 made a solid enough start on Tuesday night, and battled back from an early break to get things back on serve.

But the match seemed to completely turn in a controversial moment at 6-5 to Alcaraz. De Minaur was waiting to serve in the crucial game when the chair umpire hit him with a time violation warning.

The umpire ruled that de Minaur wasn't ready to serve before the shot clock expired, and announced a warning over the microphone. The Aussie star looked completely bemused, and appeared to say 'he wasn't ready'.

Alcaraz then admitted he'd caused the delay and told the chair umpire he wasn't ready when de Minaur wanted to serve. The umpire appeared to rescind the warning, but the slight break in play seemed to mess with de Minaur's focus and rhythm.

The Aussie quickly fell to 0-40, and even though he got it back to deuce he was eventually broken to lose the set 7-5. De Minaur's best chance of causing an upset would have been to win the first set, as Alcaraz can be known to go off the boil if things don't go his way.

Tennis world divided on controversial Alex de Minaur moment

But de Minaur unravelled from there and it was all one-way traffic in favour of Alcaraz. Tennis fans and commentators are divided on whether the controversial ruling cost de Minaur his best chance to win.

The shot-clock rule has always been controversial, and umpires can often be inconsistent with when they enforce the rules. On Tuesday night the umpire was upholding the rule by the letter of the law, but many thought some leniency should have been shown considering how important the situation was.

Tim Henman said on TNT Sports: "It's just a bizarre time for the umpire to get involved. It was a change of ends and Alcaraz says he was the one that wasn't ready."

One fan wrote online: "That time violation on De Minaur was a joke! Even Carlos thought it was ridiculous!" However another commented: "Watching a replay, that time violation was warranted and all on de Minaur - zero to do with Alcaraz. Alex was fumbling with towel with 14 secs to go and the ump was all over it. Often viewed as 'over' umpiring when first called in a match but a great call."

In the end, Alcaraz showed why he's the World No.1 with a dominant display. But for many it was a case of what might have been had things not gone wrong for de Minaur at such a crucial stage in the first set.

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