Alex de Minaur saved face in an excruciating all-Aussie clash at the ATP event in Washington as he defeated the teenaged son of Australian icon Lleyton Hewitt to reach the quarter-finals.

The freshly married de Minaur played for the first time in more than three weeks after losing a Wimbledon fourth-round and then getting hitched to British player Katie Boulter.

Cruz Hewitt, 17-year-old son of Lleyton, took the 6-2, 6-3 loss as de Minaur reached the last eight of the pre-US open tune-up.

But facing the son of one of your tennis mentors was not easy for the sixth-ranked winner. who admitted that his own awkward form needs some quick improvement.

“It was definitely weird, I knew I was going to play him (Cruz) on the Tour some day, but I didn’t actually expect it to be this week,” de Minaur said.

“Even all the lead up, seeing all the incredible pictures that we have together and how we’ve both grown up. I’m glad I managed to get through, but I’m sure we’re going to have many battles in the years to come.”

But those sentiments could not distract from the oddity of paying the son of a mentor and Davis Cup captain.

“I expected Lleyton to be),in the box, and helping his son. But we both didn’t know how to kind of act, right?

“It was definitely a weird situation, but now that this has happened the next time we’ll all be ready for it, that’s for sure.”

De Minaur, 27, will now line up against Brandon Nakashima, a winner over seventh seed Jakub Mensik 7-6 (5), 3-  6-4.

De Minaur is defending his 2025 title in the US capital and somehow felt lucky to escape with the win over Hewitt, Jr after a long-ish layoff.

“(This is the ) longest I’ve been without touching a racket and it’s probably the worst I felt on court after this. The body was in bits, aching all over the place.

“I felt like I aged about 20 years over 13 days but the one thing I definitely told my team was that, ‘Yeah, I can’t take this much time off’. 

“I need the body to at least keep moving because if not it’s tough to get back on the horse.”

Jannik Sinner’s achilles heel – actually, his hot-weather fitness – is becoming more and more of a reality for his coaching co-pilots, with Simone Vagnozzi now learning to live with the physical quirks of the world No. 1.

Sinner was going strong at Roland Garros after winning five straight Masters 1000 titles since March, when he suddenly folded in the first of the continuing heat waves striking Paris, going out in a second-round shock to Juan Manuel Cerundolo.

The 24-year-old Italian then skipped all Wimbledon buildups, coming to London and winning the title for a second straight edition.

But Sinner, also coached by Australian guru Darren Cahill – then sprang a fresh surprise by withdrawing from next month’s US Open tuneup in Montreal, preferring to save his body for the open starting in a month.

Vagnozzi told Milan’s Corriere della Siera that is just the way it works for the team guiding the world’s top player.

“There were extreme temperatures in Paris, and he arrived with considerable physical and mental strain,” he said.  

“The minor setbacks he experienced are the result of many small factors coming together – but one mustn’t forget that these are a total of four incidents in the last five years.”

But the problem looks likely to remain a constant for Sinner, who grew up in the temperate summer temperatures of the Alps on the Austrian border and excelled at youth ski racing before choosing tennis

.”The heat, the fatigue, and the tension can all interact. There isn’t just one factor – if there were, the problem would be easier to solve. We have to learn to live with these episodes and work on preventing them,” Vagnozzi said.

But that is not to say that Sinner cannot overcome his apparent weakness.

“Jannik is special in this respect as well. He tells himself: ‘I’m making great sacrifices, I’m giving up my youth for this sport – I simply can’t give up,’ Vagnozzi added.

“Players like that feel stronger than others and want to prove it. That’s precisely what gives them the strength to always react and not give up, even when facing a significant deficit.”

Main photo:-Jannik Sinner celebrates Wimbledon 2026 victory by Roger Parker International Sports Fotos Ltd

Seven years after his last ATP quarter-final, Australia’s definitive journeyman Bernard Tomic is back in the final eight on the Tour thanks to a breakthrough performance in Mexico.

The 33-year-old who a tennis generation ago was tipped as a fast-rising hope, hit the skids for more than half a decade hanging onto a skimpy career in the Challengers and Futures circuit.

The Australian whose father John wrote a new template for aggressive tennis parent two decades ago has managed to overcome his prolonged relegation to the lower reaches and is showing what he can do this week in Los Cabos.

Tomic, an old-school ATP villain when Nick Kyrgios was still in kindergarten, has shot back into prominence with his performance on the hardcourt, reaching the quarters over Karen Khachanov 6-2, 6-4.

He last got this far on the Tour at Atlanta, 2019, losing to up-and-coming compatriot Alex de Minaur with a second-set retirement. Taking out No 26 Khachanov was the best ranking win for Tomic since defeating 13th-ranked Fabio Fognini in 2018.

Tomic will bid for a rare semi-final on Friday, taking on Briton Cam Norrie, whose season has recently been plagued by injury; he last played in a semi at Chengdu in 2018.