An oft-repeated statement about tennis is that the sport is “80 per cent mental”.
Australian star Alex de Minaur has embodied this accepted wisdom in 2022.
The 23-year-old has enjoyed a restorative season, winning 44 singles matches and a sixth career ATP title, while halving his ranking between January and August.
He attributes his success, primarily, to his positive headspace.
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“I’m enjoying what I'm doing,” De Minaur told ausopen.com.
“I feel like last year I dealt with some complications after I had COVID. Just confidence wasn't really there, physically I wasn't feeling my greatest.
“But ever since that, I've put in a lot of work and I'm feeling very good. Whether it's mentally; I'm happy, I'm positive. And physically, I've put in a lot of work, so I'm feeling great on court as well.
“So I think all these things are clicking, and that's why I'm able to show some of my best tennis.”
Drilling down into De Minaur’s 2022 tournament activity unearths several results worth celebrating.
He went all the way to the title in Atlanta, becoming a repeat champion at a tournament for the first time after also triumphing there in 2019.
He reached another four ATP semifinals, pushing eventual champions Carlos Alcaraz, Taylor Fritz and Holger Rune incredibly hard in three of those losses.
His run to the fourth round at Australian Open 2022 was his best ever result at Melbourne Park, and he came within a point of the Wimbledon quarterfinals.
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And, as always, he thrived when representing his country; he has so far gone 4-0 in Davis Cup singles play and posted a 2-1 singles record for Australia at the ATP Cup, including a win over world No.7 Matteo Berrettini.
Such performances and results are a world away from the post-COVID period he referenced; De Minaur lost 12 of his last 17 matches of 2021.
This year, De Minaur instead went from a low of world No.42 in January to a top-20 return by Cincinnati.
This coincided with an intentional decision to reframe his thinking.
"I think ultimately you always have to change something. You've got to decide yourself that you want to be in that positive mindset,” he said.
“You put in work behind the scenes to try and get to that, but ultimately it's you who decides if you want to be in a good mood or in a bad mood.
“I've been trying very hard to kind of be on the positive side of the spectrum, because ultimately it brings out the best results in me.
“It's not always the easiest thing, but I'm doing my best to kind of stay in that positive side.”
Accompanying that positivity is a sense of opportunity.
Because he barely won matches in the back half of 2021, he stands to gain substantial ranking points with strong performances at this stage of the season.
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It will also mean he enters the off-season on a high, buoyant ahead of what he and his many Aussie and international fans hope will be a memorable Australian Open 2023.
Since the US Open, De Minaur has won seven of 10 singles matches and this week opened his Paris Masters campaign with a gritty win over rising American star Sebastian Korda.
The night belongs to him ??@alexdeminaur defeats in-form Korda 6-4 4-6 6-4 to reach #RolexParisMasters R2 pic.twitter.com/kwmiUoV4fp
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) November 1, 2022
“I really wanted to try and have a good year from the start to the end,” he revealed, “and hopefully keep winning a lot of matches.
“If I'm doing that, then I'm getting higher in the rankings and getting closer to the point I want to be at.”
When pressed on what that point was, De Minaur explained that while he preferred not to specify exact numbers, his goal this year was to get as close to the world’s top 10 as possible.
“We're not done yet,” said De Minaur, currently ranked 25th. “So hopefully I can add to those (great) moments, and finish strong.”