Alex de Minaur had the best season of his career, and he's leading the list of Nominees for the prestigious Newcombe Medal.
The Australian Tennis Awards are coming up, and one of them will get the prestigious Newcombe Medal. It's the award reserved for the best player from that country, as recent winners include Ashleigh Barty and Dylan Alcott.
This year's list of candidates includes six names, with de Minaur being the leading one among them. It's not the first time de Minaur has been nominated, and it wouldn't be the first time he won it if he ended up as the winner.
He won the award back in 2018 when he had his breakout, finishing the year as world number 31. This year de Minaur had the best season of his life. He finished with 47 wins and 27 losses.
He played in four finals but lost three of them; however, he finished as world number 12, which is quite impressive. It's highly likely that he takes the honor because the other nominees simply didn't have as good of a season as de Minaur had.
Storm Hunter is a solid pick as well, as she was just crowned the number-one player in doubles, though the other nominees have had good seasons as well.
The other nominees include Matt Ebden, Rinky Hijikata, Alexei Popyrin, and Matt Purcell. Ebden continued to excel as a doubles player, putting together another strong season.
Hijikata established himself as a very good pro by improving his ranking greatly in singles and winning the Australian Open doubles trophy. Popyrin is another player who had a good year improving his level and ranking, though not as dramatically as de Minaur.
Purcell is probably the most fascinating case, as he completely transformed from a doubles specialist to a really solid singles player.
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